daze on the road

Reruns at Campo

2010-08-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

It was both odd and nice to leave Yuma and not have to look at a map, for I know the way to the RR museum. Roaming around as I do, this is rare.

I got lots of warm welcoming emails when I said I was coming back, and lots of hugs from those who are up here so far. It seems I am a member of the family, and that getting things done and having some laughs are looked forward to. Very gratifying to be appreciated.

I had wondered if coming here was going to make me really miss Don, and I have had a few moments where I expected him to come around the corner in his striped RR man overalls, and some moments when there was something I really wanted to tell him. But pretty much it’s OK about that.

However, I have returned just about at the time when we left last year, in the middle of the preparations for the dreaded Bunny Train. This is an attempt to build riders on the train, by giving some added value. This consists of an Easter Egg Hunt for plastic eggs (which must be re-hidden twice a day) and then some crafty time (all of which has to be set up twice a day), and all of this cleaned up at the end of the day. This only happens on Saturdays, and Sundays but it is a LOT of work, and then there are the rather half hearted attempts to decorate the big train display building.

Until this year, the riders paid no extra, and quite a bit of money was spent on candy and etc, which we hardly have enough of in any case, and this year especially.

It has been a really hard year for PSRM.

They set some small fires, and put them out, but CalFire decided that the entire way had to be cleared of all vegetation for 25 feet on both sides. This included 40 year old trees and was way more than needed (we suspect someone made a political faux pas to get them so mad at us). The entire broiling summer was spent doing this clearing, exhausting and discouraging the volunteers, and as we could not run any trains, no income came in. The trains began to run again in Sept.

Our monthly trip down into Mexico, which has always been a good money maker, is stopped due to a fire in one of the tunnels. The Mexican gummet says they intend to fix it, but no one knows when.

Right now, we have very few riders, and so on alternate weekends run a small railbus, taking riders to a truck museum and to another history museum. This requires less personnel to run and less fuel. And on top of that, we have fewer and fewer folks who are qualified and willing to run the trains, and a general sense that those who do know how don’t want to train new ones.

My personal problem is with the woman who is president. She has a noisy and unpleasant personality, and generally bad mouths everyone, often to their face. She has run off three very useful workampers with her tactless behavior, and I suspect she is making it less and less fun to be at the museum for all the volunteers. She comes with her 4 children who shriek and smack each other just as she shrieks and smacks them. I can hardly keep my mouth shut. Last year I didn’t after she was complaining about something I did ( some asshole….) and told her off but good. I’m now, after an afternoon with them of decorating for the Bunny Train, feeling much the same way: tired of working too hard, and tired of listening to her, and all for nothing.

Today, Sunday, I had no assigned duties, so I stayed away. And watched as our guests had to walk from the depot to the display building, instead of getting even a railbus ride. The railbus is too balky to use, our small engine is up on blocks until the wheels are unsharpened and replaced, and the big diesel is needing its maintenance. These are all very elderly vintage beasts, so it’s a little to be expected. But it all adds to a general feeling that my beloved museum is at a very low point.

During the week, I will continue to do projects on the rehab of the little depot. So far, I’m priming and painting 40 + sheets of t-111 siding. It is picky, thirsty stuff, so it goes very slow, but it feels useful and mostly I get to do it in peace and quiet.

I drove up to Julian to meet my friends from Tucson, where we shopped and ate lunch, and then wandered and shopped to make room for the famous Julian Apple Pie. (Although I actually had strawberry rhubarb). It is a nifty drive there with mountain views around every curve, and I came back another way that follows the edge of the Anza Borrego desert far below. I have to get there soon, the wildflowers will be amazing after all this rain.

Mostly it is very peaceful here, and the weather is good. I can look out over the big grassy field with the cows and their calves, watch the local feral cats and coyotes hunt in the sage brush. It will be good to stay put for a while, where I know where the bank and the stores are, and where to get a hair cut, and generally what to expect day by day. Although I have referred to this place as our museum, I feel less and less attached to it, and less inclined to worry about its problems. I can’t really do much about them, just paint and fix and clean a little while I’m here. Kind of like a part of my family that has to make its own way.

Lizard

2010-04-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

It was so cold and rainy in Campo, that I really could not bear to stay another minute. I had some painting I should have finished, but after 4 days of what would be NE March weather, I’m heading for the desert.

Down out of the wild jumble of boulders , the Laguna Mountains, and out onto the flat, warm desert. I aimed for Yuma to say hi to an old friend of Don’s and meet her new man, but they are off for a summer of RVing the next day, so I spend an hour with them and hit the road the next morning.

It’s in the 70’s, and clear and sunny and windy, just perfect. I pass through the endless flats of rocks and sand with only a few tough creosote bushes, the cocoa colored mountains in the distance. Where the great canals of Colorado River water cut through, there are huge hayfields and huge dairy operations, then it’s back to nothing. It occurred to me that although methane from cow poop worries some folks, they only mention the beef lots, or the pig lots, never these vast dairy herds. There must be thousands of cows at each milk factory, all merrily making cowploppers and methane, but milk is so sacred to our idea of food, that no one says a word. (That I hear, anyway).

Yuma has a lot of growing and packing facilities, once you get back from the highway and the endless snowbird campgrounds and subdivisions. Acres of hay, orange groves with airplane propellers on towers in case of frost. I wonder what it sounds like when they start them all up.

The last week in Campo was sort of a lesson for me. The other workampers left a week ahead of me, and so I was alone on the place during the week. I worked away at my jobs, cooked and ate my dinner, and watched TV. After a few days, I realized that I much prefer to have people around in the day time. I wasn’t scared or really lonely exactly, just missed talking and laughing and working with people. Bishop Berkeley* muttered darkly, “If I can’t see you, you can’t be you”. My mother used to say this. It is sort of a piece with the question:” If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” I mostly know who I am, and mostly like that, but after a few days of solitude I felt sort of indistinct, as though not being seen or heard made me fuzzy around the edges. I think it takes a mighty thinker, or perhaps a lunatic to be all alone for any length of time.

And yet, I’m very happy right here. Here is a place called Painted Rocks Petroglyph Site. It is just west of Gila Bend. Out in the middle of nowhere. A double jumble of basalt rocks had just the right amount of dark desert varnish to tempt the local pre historics into covering the south east side of the boulder pile with lizards and mazes and suns and more lizards and goats and what looks like a roadrunner. There is no minder here, and there are maybe 15 or 20 primitive sites to camp in for $4 with the old age pass.

I climbed around on the rocks taking pictures, and found that the other group looking there was REALLY annoying. There was one woman who was the guide, and spouted all sorts of stuff about the designs and the people who did them. We truly know very little about the people and have NO idea why they laboriously chipped all these creatures and designs into the rocks, but she knew it all, and told about asking a Navaho man about them that had the man in the maze T shirt on which she went on about inventively.

We are not supposed to have our dogs, but she brought hers, we aren’t supposed to climb all over the rocks, but she did and then the last straw, she called her dog and its name is Blessing Way. What a crock. Longing for the Noble Savage.

Anyway, they’re all gone now, and I’m here just soaking up the sun and warmth, and enjoying the quiet. Maybe that’s the difference. I came here for solitude, maybe for solace. I held the idea of being solo in the desert like this close while the bad days of September and November went by. And dreamed of it while I froze in TX, and ran my heater in NM. Last night in Yuma was the first time in what seems like a year that I slept with the windows all open, like a sleeping porch. Just what this camping machine was designed for. I took a nap sprawled on my bed, and have only a minimal amount of clothes on. Perfect. My lizard blood is finally hot enough to flow !

In the morning I squeezed out the last minutes of laptop battery and found there was a Geocache here, so the dog and I trooped off. Away from the “site”, were two more hillocks of basalt boulders, and the cache location showed me more petroglyphs on these “unofficial” hills. Not the crazy, dense concentration of the main site, but there they are. I suddenly started to look at any small hill of basalt rocks with a new eye: are there more petroglyphs there ? Is that where the Rosetta Stone of these mysteries might lie?

Happily back in Tucson now, at the best RV B&B in town, I’ve been in their pool twice, the windows are all wide open. Good!!!

Peeps

2010-04-05T18:51:00.000-07:00

Marshmallow chicks, iconic, nearly tasteless, and fun to pull to bits.

I have mixed feelings about the confectionary industry in general and most especially when they high jack a religious holiday. Halloween, St. Valentine’s Day, Christmas and today, Easter.

From my window here at the RR Museum in Campo, I do see signs of rebirth, green green grass, with white calves running and bucking around their mothers. Tiny purple and yellow flowers, and rapturous birds, and best of all a frog chorus in the nights.

I was invited to go to church nearby, at a congregation of local Christians of all flavors. I am feeling perhaps shy to go, as I would only know one person, he has a girl friend and I sense thin ice if I were to turn up unattached. I think my sense of church is scattered and dispersed, I loved the great music filled high mass at St. Paul’s church in Cambridge, and was worn down by the local small church (with a drunken priest)where I raised my children. At St. Paul’s, the congregation is huge, and anonymous and mostly affiliated with Harvard. The congregation all sing with skill and gusto, and the world class mens and boys choirs are backed up by a superb pipe organ in a neo Romanesque church with good acoustics. It is really more concert than service. The sermons are erudite and topical. Partly due to decades of attendance, and partly due to some musical and intellectual snobbery, it is “church” to me, and most others are something else.

Church going is (or more properly was) an enormous piece of stable community life, where you are known, and prayed over and when bad things happen, a source of real and emotional support. Probably it is for some, but as a drifter, and a rather disenchanted Catholic, it is mostly a duty. Done to please someone else, done to conform, done a little in hopes of community and connection, but not a joy or much use to the muscles of my soul.

So, I am here, sitting in the sunshine, and eating Peeps. Instead of Sanctifying Grace, marshmallow. The official website, http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com/, will serve as an introduction to those who haven’t met a Peep, nor eaten one. Be prepared to be horrified. Then, if you dare, google Peeps, and you will find that the madness goes on and on. Folks delight in stop frame animation starring Peeps in costumes. Peeps can be seen in off color video clips, in various forms of massacres, and feeding frenzies. They are so vulnerable and so dumb looking, and so inert, that they incite people to all sorts of silliness. (Peeps jousting: arm two Peeps with tooth picks and set them in the microwave for about 25 seconds to see which one deflates the other. Note that they are not nummy after this and you may get burnt sugar. Google it for more.) For our Bunny Train, one child has a Peeps costume, and there is also a 3’ high inflatable Peep, and as you see, I was given an Easter Basket ( actually a Trader Joe’s reusable shopping bag) containing 4 different color Peeps, a Peeps lip balm (marshmallow scented cotton candy sic.) and Peeps bubbles. And a large stuffed Peep in blue which sort of resembles a large blue dollop of Cool Whip, or perhaps a blue cow plopper. I have finished the purple ones and am now happily working on the blue ones.

I note that an Australian paper has this headline: “Pope skirts paedophile scandal as Christians mark Easter.”

Yet another reason to sedate myself with marshmallow, enjoy the sunshine, and pray in my own quirky way that all those who read this, or who have met me or even seen me or just emailed me, will have a day of renewed hope, of renewed strength, and of peace.

Wet Desert

2010-03-13T18:30:00.000-08:00

Wet Desert
This has been a banner year for rain in the Tucson area, and the desert is misty green with tiny plants that have waited years for just this moment. The iconic saguaro cactus, which has to be 65 years old to grow its first arm (!), is fat with stored water, and the first of what promises to be a whopping year for desert blooms are already showing.

I parked in the driveway of friends from the North Rim, in a 1960’s subdivision on the northern side of Tucson. Every yard here looks as though it was carefully landscaped with cacti and agave and palo verde in proper xeriscape manner, but a walk down the right of way for the power lines shows that this is what was here before the houses. Anywhere there is a tiny bit of water, the Sonoran Desert produces this wonderful thick thorny, 7 foot high tangle of prickly pear, palo verde, saguaro, creosote bush and who know who the others are. You can walk along the dry washes, but you can’t see much.

One evening the dog and I were walking at dusk and the local coyotes began their evening sing. I love this wild sound, it reminds me that the wild is right there, hiding under a bush, watching us and hoping we will leave something yummy to eat. Since one favorite snack is small dog, Pepe and I made a retreat.

A day or so later, the pack of 10 or so came galloping down the middle of the road, chasing something. They are tawny and sleek and very fast. Some came back up the road, ran back down again, and it dawned on me that some lovely young thing must have come into heat. Thrilling to see them.

The great sight of Tucson, besides the excellent mountains (you can ski up there!) is the Desert Museum. This is actually a zoo of sorts, with great attention to building natural habitats for the desert creatures that let us see them up close, but with minimal bars. A cougar lies blinking in the warm sun, two bobcats sit side by side peering down from their cliff, a band of javelinas ( NOT pigs says everyone, but well if it looks like…) sleeping in a heap, and a coyote posing in a rock and ignoring the attempts of everyone to get him to turn around for a photo. As humming birds are everywhere in this desert, and Tucson is on their flyway, they are given their own net house where you can walk among them, see a nest sitting mom, and get dive bombed by them as they chirp. The paths and exhibits are along a hillside over looking the Avra Valley, with distant mountains beyond.

This is a do not miss. If you love the desert, you will love it, and if you don’t have time to just go meditate out in the desert, this will give you a taste.

Another local sight, Sabino Canyon, was a great treat with all the water. A CCC built road takes you up the canyon on a tram and back down, with the usual guide remarks. Very scenic anyway, but the road has been designed to become a spillway when there is lots of water, so the tram drives right through the water, and the creek is rushing and leaping while the saguaro look down from the rocky walls. I took the tram up and walked down, taking off my shoes and wading through the water rushing over the bridges, I think there are 7 of them. I took my time, stopping to visit with flowers, and just looking up at the stony headlands above me, like a little kid soaking up sunshine in no hurry.

I found a museum of doll houses and spend a happy time looking at every one. I once had a doll house set up in a lawyers’ bookcase, I made a lot of the pieces, and love tiny foods and flower arrangements. I even sold some in a store back in MA. I sort of miss them, wonder if they are still in the attic of my old house. But what would I do with them now?

Tucson is a vast sprawl of subdivisions, mile after mile of them and every two miles or so another Mall and shopping cluster to serve that area. So the folks who live there don’t have to go far, but when I went to visit friends across town, it took forever, and looked like reruns over and over. The mountains are terrific, and the weather in winter is terrific, but it’s still a city. I will come back, to see my friends and do some other things

The friend in Yuma has company, so I will see her next time, I just spent the night and next day drove to Campo, to the Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum, where Don and I spend two wonderful winters. It seemed odd to set out without planning my route, but this is sort of home.

Petroglyphs

2010-03-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

North of Las Cruces is the Three Rivers Petroglyph site. It has been on my radar for a while, and finally I got my truck back after a lot of needed but expensive repairs. I was thinking of leaving that Saturday, but a fellow HFH volunteer has been there before and suggested a trip, and I needed to test drive the truck , so off we went.

Up over the spectacular Organ mountains, still snowy on top, and then into the vast basin of White Sands. Oh look ! We’re at the beach ! And then north.

Three Rivers Petroglyph site is a small ridge of basalt boulders at the juncture of three dry arroyos. The Jornada Mongollon were the folks who made them, between 700 and 1000 A.D. They were a semi-nomadic tribe, hence “jornada”, but beyond that, we know little. They lived in pit houses, hardly more than animal burrows, and did some crop raising. And, for reasons we will never know, they painstakingly pecked designs and figures on the boulders, chipping off the dark layer of “desert varnish” (an oxidized skin) to expose the lighter rock beneath.

We take the low road, a faint path along the base of the hill; we are hoping to find a certain petroglyph, a large face, that is not on the marked path, so we walk the lower slopes.

We see a carving, then another, and then denser and denser clusters of them, until we are almost giddy with the wonder of these ancient pictures.

There are animals, mountain sheep, roadrunners, quail, ducks, turtles, snakes, cranes, fish, mountain lions, and eagles. Although the bodies are sometimes filled with geometric shapes, these wonderful creatures are recognizable, lively, a realistic bestiary.

The human figures are generally smaller, less deft, and sometimes only part of the body is there. Masks glower at us, often set vertically wrapped over the sharp edge of a rock, sometimes they are realistic, some times more of a cartoon. Hands, life size, and feet, and the foot prints of bears and possibly big cats, wander among the other figures on the rocks.

The sun, or at least a circle surrounded by dots or rays, and what look like comets streak by, but there is no decoding the geometric designs. They are, to our eyes at least, pure abstracts, complex patterns that suggest the pottery, rug or basket designs of the tribes that will come later. Linked circles, boxed symbols, and occasionally a figure that might be a hallucination.

It would take hours to make these, and surely we are wandering among the efforts of years and years of work. It must have been very important to them to devote that time and effort, hunter gatherers don’t have any spare time for hobbies. But we have no idea what they mean, or why they did them. Well, we have lots of ideas. Some see the double circle google eyed figures as like Tlaloc, the Mexican rain god and suppose there was a connection of some sort. What were they saying, and to who? These were humans, like us, and maybe what we are seeing is just art, the need to decorate, to mark a place as our own, or to commemorate some event.

One particular design, on an upright rock, with the Sierra Blanca Mountains in the background, looks to me as though it has something to do with rain and thunderstorms over the mountain. Was there once an epic storm and floods, or was the effort to make this complex image a prayer of sorts that rain would come? Is it recorded history or a hoped for future?

I wondered if anyone has mapped them all, to see if there was a pattern in the location of certain signs. Maybe different family groups had their own particular signs, or had their own rocky area to work on. Maybe many tribes and families gathered here for a while to visit and feast and make these astonishing pictures.

They are to me endlessly fascinating. First is the fun of looking for them among the unmarked boulders, then that first sight of them. This initial look is often as powerful as coming around the corner of a museum and being struck by a “civilized” work of art. As I look longer, trying to decode, to understand, it is at once frustrating, humbling, and mystical. So much of the imagery is easy to recognize, and appreciate on a design level, but the pictures are clearly communications and we have no way of knowing what the message is for sure. Even more mysterious, the rock art world wide is disturbingly similar, providing fodder for all sorts of theories: hard-wired images in our DNA?, evidence of common ancestry? (in the Garden of Eden..) and of course rock carving visitors from outer space.

I want more of these cryptic messages and I want to know more about them, although they appear to defy any theories beyond hopeful speculation.

Read more here: http://www.desertusa.com/ind1/ind_new/ind7.html

On Sunday, I sadly pull away from the Habitat for Humanity site in Las Cruces. It was worthwhile on many levels, and now I will fit more builds into my roving plans.

On I-10, whatever angels are on duty paid attention. Apparently, an18 wheeler had rolled on its side and was blocking both westbound lanes, plus spilling fuel. The truckers on the CB were complaining and grousing, and spread the news that we were likely to be here for several hours. The angels saw to it that I stopped right beside the only exit for 20 miles, and so guided by the Border Patrol’s advice I and the rest of the traffic behind me drove around the mess. Unless they backed up, there were at least 2 miles of stopped traffic ahead of me that were stuck.

I navigated my way to friends’ house in Tucson, and will be parked in their driveway for a week or so.

Habitat

2010-02-17T18:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.habitat.org/how/default.aspx

In many cites around the US and in many countries, the vision of the Fullers’ provides houses for those who can’t afford them. We the volunteers build, and the homeowners build right along side us. The homeowners pay back into HFH on a no interest loan, which buys the materials for the next house as well as funding the administrative expenses. Many of the volunteers are local people, but someone realized there was a mobile population of retirees that might like something useful to do, and started the RV Care-a-Vanner group. We are given a free (sometimes) full hook up camp spot for 35 hours of work a week and also doughnuts!

I’ve always had a hankering to do this since helping out during some rally at a build site, and when my job prospects all flew away, it occurred to me to give it a try. (or I listened to He who organizes my life…)

The camp spot is a parking lot in the middle of Las Cruces, and all the slots are filled with RV’s. Most of the people here have done many builds, and some in many places. The skill level varies along with the stamina, but everyone is cheerful, and helpful. If you read the website, you know that the Fullers were rich and unhappy in Atlanta and gave it all up for a Christian commune. There they developed the idea, and when Jimmy Carter helped with a build, HFH grew quickly.

Me, I am stiff and sore and my knees are tired of ladders, but I’m having a wonderful time and hope I can stay longer than next Sat. If not, I will be looking to do this again. There is a whiff of protestant earnestness; we begin the day with some sort of prayer. That’s fine, although the first week a woman read a lot from the Bible, and a daily lesson book and then her husband gave a long and hesitant prayer. It seemed too long and made assumptions about the rest of us that I found mildly irritating. So yesterday I jumped in and talked about Jesus, who as God could just make a chair in an instant, having to learn the fundamentals of carpentry from his father. Perhaps a few splinters and bad saw cuts were a way to be more human. This was met with much approval, so I guess others were as tired of too much institutionalized holiness as I was.

The second week is slow, we were way too efficient at putting up the sheet rock, and now have to wait until the professional mudder/taping crew is done, and the wall texture people, and we may get to paint on Friday. I’m sort of hoping someone will cancel so I can stay on.

Las Cruces has a magnificent mountain range to the east, the Organ Mountains. Good toothy profiles and a nice icing of snow. On Sunday I went geocaching on the western side of town where there is a slight rise and I drove up to see the whole city spread out with the mountains beyond. My geocaching was hampered by the recent rains which flooded two caches away, and by Darth Vader’s increasing starting difficulties. He is now at the truck Dr. getting a new alternator and starter motor. Ouch said my wallet, but he is due for these things, and deserves them. Once again, I managed to find a diesel truck lover to fix him

The Rio Grand runs right through here, and has been tamed to water 100’s of acres of pecan trees. (Actually, a lot of the water was taken out up stream already, the Rio Grand in Big Bend only has Mexican water in it.) The trees are planted in strict geometry, so driving through them is a little dizzying, and the ground beneath is swept absolutely clean. Why such tidiness? Harvesting pecans is an amusing process because picking the nuts is done by a giant machine with a giant hand that grabs the trunk of the tree and shakes it! Then giant sweepers drive up and down these tidy lanes picking them up off the ground. After that they go though some sort of sorting and cleaning. All this is done in the late fall, but this year’s rains have made the ground too muddy for the machines. I saw a video of the tree shaking and sweeping, but would love to see it all first hand. I’m a big fan of seeing how machines take over tedious agricultural work, especially when it duplicates human actions in an amusing way.

I have rarely been in a place where everyone is as nice as can be. We are here to do good, not to show off, (although the guys do a little bush peeing over who knows more about construction). Somehow, being warm and polite to each other is in the air, actively in the air. It remains to be seen if this flavor comes from the folks in charge here, this particular set of workers, or if all HFH centers are like this. “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day”. It’s good for me, as my tendency towards sailor-like language is in check even with the most stubborn sheet rock screw.

It turns out that I can stay another two weeks. There is a sort of extra spot right by the office that I have squeezed into. I like to think I have been useful, but they may also feel a little sorry for poor Daisy all by herself.

Carlsbad Caverns

2010-02-12T19:22:00.000-08:00

This part of west Texas is called the Permian or Delaware Basin, it was surrounded by a coral reef when everything was a warm sea. The sea went away, the reef rose up and left a ring of limestone mountains. The Guadeloupe Mountains, the Franklin Mountains, Glass Mountain, all the remains of this reef, and tucked under the Guadeloupe Mountains are the enormous caverns called Carlsbad.

There are tours, some strenuous, but I took the standard walkway tour, through the Hall of the Giants, Fairyland, the Big House. The interior space is like a Gothic cathedral, sound carries in that cathedral way, and it is dimly lit as though by candles, and everywhere the limestone comes down in drips and sheets. Tiny apses filled with stalactites and straws, and huge columns like cauliflower or the Hindu temple columns that are covered with figures and animals.

Since it is off season now, there were very few people down there, 800 feet below the surface, and it was wonderfully quiet. The recent rains had percolated down through the rock and there were drips everywhere. Starting new columns, filling up the pools with limestone lily pads around the edges, and trying to start cave growths on the tarred walkway. It was most excellent.

After that I drove a loop over this ridge and down into the canyon. The rocks are crumbly, eroded and cracked and lots and lots of cactus and yucca and succulents cover the walls. Desert, dry, prickly, the greens soft and pale, the rocks weathered in browns and umbers.

I would like to come back here and explore more, when it’s not so cold.

Back down to Pecos, I’m still fascinated by the nodding pumps:

“Pump Jack also known as 'nodding donkey, oil derrick, pumping unit, horsehead pump, beam pump, sucker rod pump (SRP), grasshopper pump, thirsty bird and jack pump) is the overground drive for a reciprocating piston pump installed in an oil well. “(Wikipedia)

They are a version of a beam engine, often used for pumping, often run by steam in the old days, and the counterweight, flopping at its feet, extends the power, usually from electricity. I think I remember that they are set to sense when the oil below has seeped back into their shaft, so they can start sucking it up through the complicated system of tubes and valves.

Truthfully, I secretly think they are alive in some somnolent, ancient way. The metal of their bones, cables and tubes distilled from spirits lodged in the ore, and they sip away at the oil that was grasses and seaweeds and ferns long ago. They are the only moving thing in this vast flat place inside the ancient coral reef.

Back at the campground in Pecos, I am getting antsy. I want to be building stuff, to have something to do. I’m heading for NM, one more night and then I pull into the Habitat for Humanity lot and get to work.

Pecos, TX

2010-02-02T18:37:00.000-08:00

Pecos Bill. The wildest cowboy of them all. He rode a horse called Widowmaker, and sometimes a cougar, and finally a tornado. Now there was a rider, yesiree, and he used a rattlesnake for a lariat, and generally was tougher than anyone or anything. He had a lady friend named Slu Foot Sue (did she have a club foot ??), who on her wedding day decided to ride the great horse Widowmaker. He bucked her off so high she banged her head on the moon, what a ride! and she bounced on her bustle like a bungee jumper until Bill lassoed her.

Alas, not a tale invented by the cowboys around the fire on the long drive north from Texas, but fakelore, written by one Edward O'Reilly in 1916 for The Century Magazine, pretending to be stories he had collected. Still it’s nice to imagine those incredibly tough men yarning away an evening under the stars while the longhorns rested.

I drove northwest from Fort Stockton across a great flat expanse of dirt and rocks and the short wiry shrubs that some how survive out here. The only things to see were the dinosaur oil pumps, some bobbing away, and their attending tank farms and pipelines. I saw one corral, but not a creature of any kind until I passed one big dairy farm out in the middle of all this, with the big irrigating sweeps, and piles of hay and the cows lying down to get out of the wind. Nothing for 60 miles. Not a cloud in the blue, blue sky, and off to the west, the Franklin Mountains. They aren’t all that big and they are very far away, but still my heart gave a leap of joy to see them. Mountains!

As I drove into the wind, I wondered how they could have moved their cattle across this, nothing to eat, nothing to drink. Hot, dusty and pestered by flies and the ceaseless wind. I guess the great cattle drives only lasted a few decades, but they brought up from Mexico the culture of horsemanship, rope tricks and the secrets of moving wild cattle. And a mystique, a uniquely American culture that still permeates the west in dress, logos, designs on all sorts of things. A love affair with the horse and the wide open spaces. And my favorite part of the romance, no body cares about your lineage, your money or your education or your class. Probably that really isn’t true, but it is in my fantasy.

The wind is still pretty strong, and although it will be in the 50-60 range during the day it sure feels cold. Tonight it’s going down to 27, so I’m all wrapped up again.

I’m at another Escapees Park, a jolly club of folks who enjoy this lifestyle and do what they can to make it easier and more fun for folks who want to do it too. The park itself is only marginally nicer than the parking lot in Fort Stockton, but there is a laundry which I will need.

I went over to the Ice Cream Social, just to see who’s here and find some company. We sat and ate our ice cream and traded stories of how we came to hit the road. One couple lost their house to Katrina and never looked back, another lady is soloing in a huge motor home, widowed after 53 years. It was decided that as cold as it is, that global warming is unlikely, and one lady said she heard that Jesse Ventura ( ex pro wrestler, ex governor of Minnesota) has studies to prove it isn’t real and that the whole thing is a hoax for Al Gore to make money from. She added that there is a satellite in Alaska that will control our minds. (owned by Sarah Palin?). I had to look away and bite my tongue. I soon excused myself, but I did get some nice ice cream.

I had thought to go up north of Carlsbad NM, visit the caverns, and look around, but it will snow or ice up there tomorrow, so I’m staying here and will just drive up to the caverns.

Pedernales

2010-01-24T17:55:00.000-08:00

The Pedernales River runs through the Hill Country of Texas .The word pedernales refers to the flinty rocks found in it. This is mostly a pretty thirsty land, rolling hills of limestone with a skim of salt and pepper topsoil. Except for the shrubby cedars or live oaks with their intricate twisted branches there is little. In many places it resembles the savannahs of Africa, grassy but not lush, a land for grazing animals that can cover the miles to water or better grazing. Where there is obvious over grazing, the rocks and cactus show, and there is a lot of that. I wish I could find out what land looked like before our herds came here, when it was where only the deer and the antelope played. Along most of the rivers around here, a line of cypress trees stands right at the edge of the water, with their toes in the clear greenish river.

The river flows tranquilly by the Texas White House of LBJ, now a shrine of sorts, but still a ranch. The house is large but not at all fancy beyond LBJ’s love of gizmos, intercoms, multiple TVs, and telephones everywhere. The dining room is set with Mexican pottery and has a wallpaper mural that looks like rural VA. Our guide said Lady Bird hated his spotted cowhide office chair that he sat in while at table and hated even more that he would answer a phone hidden near it during meals. The ranch house area and the length of the banks of the river have huge old live oaks with mowed grass beneath, looking more like an English estate than Texas.

Down river from the ranch, a series of limestone outcroppings form a waterfall that must have been a grand place to play before the currents drowned too many people. The water mostly slides over sheets of smooth rocks, carves caves in the cliff on the other side and sometimes chortles and splashes its way through a narrow point. There are vast sandy areas where the bits have settled, and jumbles of cliffs on the sides.

There are large signs everywhere warning of flash floods, and a terrifying before and after photo in the office. The tranquil falls will become a raging brown thundering wall of angry water in minutes if there has been a storm up in the drainage area, and we are told to run if the water begins to rise or turns muddy. There is a nice steep stone staircase to take us up out of harms way, but it is only one person wide. I shudder to think of the scene if it was a hot summer’s day with lots of visitors. The Falls were in private hands until 1970, and it only took 7 years to close them to swimming.

Goats. There are thousands of goats out here, a good fit for the landscape as they are the closest thing to an antelope or deer that we keep, and can live on the most marginal forage. I like goats, they are thrifty, and from what I hear, hardly tamed and capable of great mischief. Their eyes have slitted pupils like a cat which is unnerving. But what are all these goats for? Since keeping them for milk requires them to come into the barn twice a day, I don’t see how a herd of 100’s of goats is going to be rounded up in a pasture that easily is 100 acres if not more. Maybe they do come in of their own, but there are many babies sucking up the milk, so I’m guessing they are for meat not milk. I have never seen goat meat in a store or a menu, so who is eating it ? Here’s some numbers about what was killed for meat during a week in Jan.

Federally Inspected Slaughter by Species and Day, U.S.
Week Ending Saturday, January 9, 2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Cattle Calves Hogs Sheep Goats Equine 1/Bison
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Head
Monday 126,028 4,594 423,684 9,033 3,549 0 134
Tuesday 127,332 4,854 426,357 9,052 2,310 0 243
Wednesday 125,860 3,970 425,418 9,296 1,695 0 236
Thursday 115,353 3,745 325,903 9,149 1,585 0 286
Friday 109,549 4,572 344,904 7,251 1,762 0 268
Saturday 42,665 3 150,908 21 28 0 100
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 646,787 21,738 2,097,174 43,802 10,929 0 1,267
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
%Steers 48.3 %Barrows & Gilts 96.8 %Lambs & Yearlings 94.2
%Heifers 30.0 %Sows 2.8 %Mature Sheep 5.8
%Cows 20.1 %Boars 0.4
%Bulls 1.6
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1/ Bison are not covered under the Meat Inspection Act, and therefore do not
require inspection. Numbers refer to the amount killed in Federally
Inspected plants, and are not necessarily inspected.

Apparently, there are not so many goats being eaten as anything else. But still someone is eating goat if 10,929 of them were slaughtered that week.
Another study tells me that it is immigrants in the US that buy goat: pretty much everyone except Anglo Saxons. Muslims, Hispanics, and Italians all have at least a wish for goat on certain holidays, and many are willing to pay the extra to keep their ethnic food “correct”. The study says only a tiny fraction of goat is consumed by “Yuppies” (yes they said that!) or health food enthusiasts. I wondered if any goat meat was exported to other countries, but apparently not much. Google goat meat consumption if you want to know more…..

The last three nights have been in state parks, where the sites are far apart, there are no pools or golf courses and lots of hiking trails ( dogs allowed here in TX) after the all night rumbling and thumping of trucks on I-35 in Hillsboro, and the dense population of the Airstream community there, this solitude is wonderful. I sat at the picnic table yesterday and brushed the fuzz out of the dog’s coat while 5 young deer came very close and supervised. A number of small birds twittered in the cedars and I could see no other campers. At night there are millions of stars and it is utterly still except for some rustlings and once a ?raccoon sat outside my window and chattered in the dark. He was probably reporting that I had left not a crumb of edible debris.

Tonight, I am in what amounts to a dirt parking lot in Fort Stockton, and the wind has been howling for most of my drive out of the Hill country and down into the true desert. Nothing to stop the wind for miles. If it doesn’t stop at nightfall I’ll have to put down my stabilizers to keep from rolling out of bed. It is gloriously hot, although a front is coming through and it will apparently rain and get very chilly here in the desert.

Mouse Plans

2010-01-18T17:48:00.001-08:00

Plans gang aft aglee. To tell the truth, I don’t think I really had a plan, I think I was just coasting on the plans made last spring. Since working at the North Rim was good, we decided to put in to work at Big Bend. So I sent in my application on Nov 14, way after their season began, figuring that the turnover would leave me an opening.

My stay in Hillsboro TX dragged on and on. It was a good place to be for the holidays, but it has been very very cold, too cold to go do stuff. I insulated and wrapped up my outside connections and hunkered down. I went through a 40 lb tank of propane every week and will have to write a fat check for electricity to my host. And still no word from Big Bend, so I called.

Two possibilities had turned up, one a full time store manager job (August =110 degrees, not in a trailer) and a Front Desk job. I phone interviewed for that, felt qualified and confident, and then got a message that I didn’t get it. Crushed, I called the HR lady, and found that I would have been hired, but they had no RV space open.

After a week of trolling around, I was turned down for 4 more campground situations. I began to think I was worthless, washed up, etc etc, and have deep sympathy for folks looking for work. In truth, the campground and resort world work on a seasonal clock, and trying to find a place in January is hard, actually impossible!

Is there meaning in all this? I’m inclined to want to believe that something is running this show from behind the scenes. My Roman Catholic upbringing would say it is a trial sent to test me and make me strong, maybe a test of my faith that a Being (or a number of heavenly beings) has ordered up to improve the muscles of my immortal soul. Or maybe there is a plan that has been set out, the maze of my life, that is preset and my job is just to wander it. I generally feel very blessed (lucky?) about my past, sometimes I even feel a little guilty, or even afraid that the other side of the good stuff of my life will soon be evened up by bad stuff.

What about earning the good stuff? Do we get rewarded for being good, by racking up points which will somehow cancel out the bad stuff? The RC church in the past (?still?) allowed something called indulgences, whereby prayers and good works including donations, would get you time off from purgatory. Purgatory is where we serve out our jail time for minor sins before being clean enough to go to heaven. Reincarnation holds out the promise that if we are good, we will come back in an improved body, and if bad I would come back as a lesser being. (Can I be a horse, please….) It would be nicer if our good works would be a hedge against bad stuff here on earth.

Right now it feels like I’m some sort of model train layout that is being run by an unseen hand. Watching the switches come up, thinking that this one will be it, the job, the place to spend the rest of the winter, but the train rolls right on by.

So I dropped down another level on my list and emailed to Habitat for Humanity about builds in the area. I did one day of this during an Airstream International Rally, and liked it, plus the idea of actually building a house for someone who needs it is just the kind of work I want to do. On the good works scale, it is clearly a 10, whereas serving the needs of vacationers is probably about a 3 or 4 at best. And lo, I am to turn up Jan. 31 in Las Cruces, NM and work for 2 weeks. So now I have something to DO. And an even stronger suspicion that my fate is being managed somehow. (This morning, one of the “filled” camper jobs called up and wanted me…..)

So in the next few days I’ll leave here and mosey in that direction, doing a little tourist stuff like Carlsbad Caverns on the way. It will be good to be moving again, and the weather is decent and will get better as I go south.

2009-12-30T15:43:00.000-08:00

Here's what an excellent friend back in MA did with my rather grim picture of the Airstream and Darth Vader in the snowy hills of VA. I have been saying all along that whenever I felt a little desperate or unsure of what to do, that some angel would turn up and rescue me. Here I was, feeling sorry for myself about Christmas, and look at all those angels singing like mad, and generally making a joyful noise unto both God and me ! Darth Vader likes his lights too, and the peace symbol is just right. I wonder about the sheep, perhaps they are hoping I will invite them in for cookies. So thank you, Mo (angel that you are), now I have a wonderful way to send good tidings of great joy to everyone, where ever you are.

On Christmas eve, I went to church, an Anglican one which is indistinguishable from RC, and happily sang carols for half an hour before the service, more carols during the service and then went next door for eats. The wind was cold and strong and we had snow ! We bundled up, and the small historic brick church has old fashioned stained glass that glowed like a Christmas card in the dark night. It was good to be in church, to say the familiar prayers and kneel and close my eyes, revisiting an inside place of comfort. It was wonderful to sing, I really miss that especially at Christmas.

I have been making cookies and more cookies, and when I sort of hint that we can settle down and go back to eating more normally, faces fall. We here are finding much solace and joy in butter and sugar, which is really all cookies are with other stuff in for variety, and today we drove to a little town called Hico which has the best pies in Texas. They have 16 different kinds, bosomy lemon meringue and key lime, frothy cream pies, Black Forest pies, banana blueberry, and pecan and lemon chess and apple pie like a great brown pastry mountain shiny with juice. We ate our restrained soup or salads and then had pie. And bought one to take home. I used to call this season the festival of greed, too much stuff to buy and give and get, frosted with anxiety, followed by the thud afterwards as we all glumly looked at our loot and worried about our credit cards. Cookies appear to be the answer to this, no anxiety, people can eat what they want, and the only thuds afterwards are my foot falls.

The three kings worried about bringing the most expensive and impressive presents to the new born King, and chose gold ( always good) and two perfumes (for a baby?) when all they had to do was get their harems going on cookies. This superior present would have been difficult to transport on camels, but try to imagine the scene in the barn, with everyone munching on cookies, sheep, shepherds, ox, donkey and all, with the angels caroling and trumpeting away up above. That is Christmas!

So, I wish you a warm barn, jolly people around you, a cookie in each hand, and music in the skies in this dark cold time. Make sure the angels have some cookies to take home.

Winter in Texas

2009-12-30T15:26:00.000-08:00

Winter has reached even into Texas, well north Texas at least. I guess I expected that driving nearly 2,000 miles SW would get me away from winter. It hasn’t snowed down here just south of Dallas/Fort Worth yet, but it’s been in the high 20’s a couple of nights. I look at the temps down in Big Bend NP longingly. The picture above was back in Natural Bridge VA, the day after I left Providence Forge.

I have been welcomed here at the North Texas Airstream Community by an old friend and a new friend. The old friend is letting me stay on his guest lot, and feeding me. We went geocaching once, shopping, and out to dinner, and I’ve been to a few of the park’s meetings. I am waiting for word of work at Big Bend, getting a new fuel lift pump on the truck and some other work, and trying to get into a holiday spirit.

We put up some lights, made a wreath, and I have my little tree up in my trailer. My cookie offerings are on their way to my children, and my cards too. Since I might (hope) to be called for work, I feel very transitory and adrift, do I plan my Christmas to be here, buy some small things for my hosts, have dinner with the rest of the older Airstream folks here at the park? Or do I just ignore Christmas? Can I find a redeeming good deed to do here where I am a stranger?

Both of my friends have lost partners and spouses, so I don’t have to pretend, and they are a comfort that way. My principal difficulty is with food, as I love to cook and feed people, but they are both vegetarian, and worried about unnatural foods and ingredients. My offers to cook are met with a close examination. There is no Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s for miles and miles so usually I’m not acceptable.

Cookies. It turns out that the cookies that were traditional were only ones that Don liked, that my children didn’t like most of them, so I tried to make what they like. But I don’t get to see them eat, and there is little point in making extra just for me to eat. One cookie, called snowballs or pecan sandies was a particular favorite of Don’s, I’m not even making them, nor the ones with cherries that my excellent mother-in-law taught me to make. I’m finding that having no one to cook for is very hard. And since that was a major part of Christmas, I am tempted to just forget it all, and hunker down until the days get longer, maybe hibernate in bed with books and chocolates.

NTAC is an odd place. Most lots have “villas”, which are rather industrial looking metal sheds that have room for the Airstream to be under cover and hooked up, and then various configurations of rooms, like a bathroom, laundry, kitchen and maybe a bedroom or two. Mostly intended for storage, a lot of them seem to be lived in, the trailer sitting dark and idle. On one side are fancier brick houses, with a covered carport for the trailer or motor home. There is a barbwire topped chain link all around and an electric gate. We are on the outskirts of Hillsboro, doesn’t seem like the security is warranted. There is a metal building with a hall, kitchen, library meeting room and an office, and another with a work shop, and that’s it. No pool, no tennis courts. I don’t see where anyone could be sitting outside on a nice day. I’m told most residents are elderly, some very elderly. The Ladies committee meeting I went to spent time organizing cards for those in the hospital or nursing homes. I don’t know how many of these people get out and travel and how many are just waiting here for death, but I don’t belong here, and don’t want to. I’m underdressed and bored. Some of them are wearing stockings…..

A Christmas to be gotten through. I imagined that the migratory world of National Park workers would invent some instant community holiday festival down at Big Bend as everyone there is away from “home”. There I would find at least a younger group and an activities director to keep things bubbling along, right now I dunno if I’ll get there by then.

I haven’t much cheer to send you, getting through the holidays has always meant burying myself in cooking and decorating and wrapping, now I’m not doing that. Only hanging here like a lone ornament, reflecting the light of others as best I can.

Away

2009-12-30T15:25:00.000-08:00

The day came, and I found myself weeping as I did the chores of getting ready to leave the piney woods. Don has been gone two months, but I guess leaving the last place he lived was something to be mourned. Did my heart think he might come back here on a breeze looking for me and the trailer? Perhaps in some corner of my brain ungoverned by good sense I’m still hoping he will just drive in with his truck. Once again, the nest of angels that are working here at the forestry center hugged me and wished me well, inviting me to return if I needed to, even just for a few days. And I had a nice last dinner with the good daughter and husband on their sailboat.

My first stop was at my cousin David and wife Sally’s wonderful house high in the steep hills near Natural Bridge. They have moved into their house, but are still happily working on it. The woodwork is so smooth I can’t help stroking it, and many of their ideas are innovative useful and beautiful. Good food and lots of catching up, and sorting out of family tangles. The next day we awake to 2 inches of snow, changing everything around the house, and that night it went down to 24 degrees, weather that doesn’t belong in Virginia at this time of year. A warning to me to get south, I guess.

Next day, I headed down I-81, which threads its way through the mountains, now covered with snow. The roads are all clear and dry, the ground is not frozen yet so it isn’t real winter driving yet. I’m still driving in silent mode, except for the CB to listen to the truckers. I have several ways to have music as I drive, or even books on tape to listen to, but I like being alone with my thoughts, watching the traffic patterns, wondering who is going where, what the trucks are hauling, rerunning old times in my head or imagining the future.

There are many signs warning us off I-40 which runs to the south into North Carolina. The whole mountainside came loose about a month ago and buried all of the interstate in huge rocks. They say it will take nearly 3 years to repair. The interstates seem like such superbeings, zooming over the ups and downs, rivers, canyons and lesser roads. I was surprised to hear that one was just taken out, laid dead by a fall of rocks. I guess I thought they would have stabilized the overhanging cliff. Mountains don’t often rear up and just smash things, baring earthquakes, but they are still alive in some ponderous way. I am irritated by the people who build right on the ocean, expect new sand to be trucked in, rip rap to protect them. Then, inevitably a storm comes and washes the house away, and the beach sand and the rip rap. They then start all over again, often with gumment help. The intervals between ocean rampages are short enough so you would think people would start to see the pattern. Not with mountains, that steep rocky place in North Carolina probably won’t move again for 500 years, plenty of time for us to forget.

Today on the road I blew my horn at a dangerously stupid move someone made, and the horn stuck. I whapped it and it stopped, but just now this evening it started to blow again, for no reason. I went out and whapped it again. Hope it doesn’t need to do that in the middle of the night. There is an electrical box up under the hood with relays in it, so I may have to take out the relay for the horn if this is going to be a habit. I know it’s just a mechanical problem. Probably corrosion or dirt somewhere, but it is so loud and peremptory that it makes me think the truck is angry at me for something, or has a whole knot of seething emotions that just burst out suddenly. Darth is 12 years old, so I guess a little truck dementia is inevitable.

Monday morning, another night in the 20’s. I’m beginning to think I should just get on the interstate and go south instead of wandering down the Natchez Trace. It’s going to be cold and rainy the whole way, not the fantasy of exploring lovely country and boon docking that I was carrying in my head at all.

I will rethink after a family visit at Fort Campbell KY, where Don’s Army Medic grandson is stationed. Right now I’m above Knoxville waiting for it to get above freezing.

I had a great visit with the grandson, stuffed him and his girlfriend with pancakes, while it poured buckets. After they left, I shed some more tears, leaky again, it was at this campground that Don had the first of his strokes, and I won’t see the grandson again for a year.

I’m just interstating my way to Texas, it is just too cold, I would rather drive the Natchez Trace when it’s warm and I can explore.

Gray Trees and November Rain

2009-12-30T15:18:00.000-08:00

The leaves are down, leaving only the smoky gray of the trunks and branches. As I chased the last of the few bright leaves south from Boston back to Virginia, I was determined to just escape the mess of Don’s estate and let the banks fight over the remains. I wanted to be on the road, heading for warmth and the wide open spaces, far away from these piney woods filled with sad memories, and finished with lawyers and banks and forms and requirements.

But I am still here. Some of the problems just disappeared in their own, others I am not going to fight about anymore, and it seems I will get a little from the sale of his stuff after all.

On Friday, I hitched up Don’s trailer and drove it to an RV dealer down in Portsmouth, VA where it is on consignment, today there is already a buyer for the truck. The dealer doesn’t think that keeping the truck and trailer together is important. It was hard all along to have his trailer sitting here, and his beloved truck, and after I left it I cried a little, one more bit of him gone. Each thing of his that goes feels painful at first, but afterwards I feel lighter and freer. He was way more than the sum of his stuff, but it’s all I can see and hold.

It is deer season here, but not the warfare that happens in the woods of Massachusetts. Since this is a Forestry Center, it is not open to all, but only a select few, last weekend was the disabled hunt. They have blinds for people in wheel chairs. It is not pleasant to see the bodies, but I know from my walks that there are way too many deer here for the forage available, and so the big predators with the guns must try to get a better balance. I have been only walking around the buildings while this goes on. The hunters are finding few deer ! I suspect they are all in a casino somewhere waiting for the season to end.

The remains of hurricane Ida blew through here and made a date with another front producing heavy surf, and torrents of rain and wind. We lost power here, not a problem for me in my survival capsule, although I didn’t fill the water tank up. We got power back the next evening, and escaped the mess closer to the shore. The Chickahominy River which runs on the southern edge of the forestry center, moved out of its banks, flowing through the trees, and every low place in the woods is now full of water. The water is black and patent leather shiny, it catches my eye often, and when I scare some deer they explode through this water, ripping and splashing like an alligator attack.

Except for cleaning the offices, there isn’t much for me to do here, the grass has stopped growing, the flower beds are all cut back, and the conference center and its motel rooms are now being done by a cleaning service. The folks here don’t seem to mind that I’m slacking, as there isn’t much to do. So I spend my days going through everything in the Airstream, every drawer, cubby hole and closet, shedding more of my skin.

Stuff. Stuff of Don’s that I’m having a hard time letting go of, although that is getting easier. So I have that wave of extra stuff, and then, while I was living in his trailer, I cleaned out most of the stuff stored in my daughter’s basement and just parked it in here too. A lot of that is clothes that I know I will never wear again, but I loved them when I bought them, some were expensive, and they served me well. I guess I sort of miss being the person who dressed up, either to go out, or just fun clothes to wear at dinner time. I think I am having a hard time giving up a tiny dream of needing fancy clothes. Maybe it is difficult to realize I will never do the season at Cannes, or the opening of a Broadway show. Not that I am pining for that, it’s just seeing that the possibilities of my future are not the endless vistas of my youth.

For both Don and I, having tools is our proof of being handy and competent. We both delighted in having just the right tool, and knowing how to use it to swoop in and solve a problem. So we had a huge collection between us, really more than RVers have any business toting around. His big power tools are gone, and everything that was a duplicate of mine, no need for 6 hammers, for example. I had a hard time with his sockets and wrenches, but the truth is I don’t know enough about mechanical stuff, and they are so heavy. If I need those tools then I also need someone who knows what they’re doing, so off they went. I spent a hard day going through all of my own tools, weeding out the ones that were sentimental, not used. Actually, the tools were harder than the clothes.

Food. We left the North Rim with half of our summer’s food uneaten. I’ve given a lot away, just no room in the Airstream, and the rest I’m determined to eat before I hit the road, especially the canned stuff. I’ve always horded food, which is ridiculous as I have never gone hungry. There are stores everywhere, and I don’t think anyone sensible thinks we need to fear a lack of food. Maybe if I was in a hurricane, or a big earthquake, but even then. And some of the food is ingredients for food Don loved, and I won’t cook just for me, so out they go. No need for three cans of enchilada sauce.

So now, I just tinker with things in the Airstream, installing a new water pump, chasing leaks, doing a little redecorating in a western theme, and wait until the papers that are wandering around in the mails get through their appointed rounds. Then, I can move on.

For Thanksgiving, Don’s daughter (the good one!) and her husband are coming to the Airstream for the turkey and fixin’s. I had a thought that I would just be by myself, and eat what I wanted (lobster, oysters, cake) and be thankful not to be cooking for a mob. But this will be better and cosy!

Wherever you are, whatever you eat, whoever is at the table with you, blessings on the folks and the food. Let us all look for ways to make the lives of others better, and that will be sustenance beyond buying, beyond cooking, yeah, even beyond pie ! Happy Thanksgiving !

The Wake

2009-10-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

I went to Shartlesville PA for an Airstream Rally. It was the first time I’ve left the pine grove, and it felt really good to get some wind under my tail, and see new things. It was even better to see my old friends from the Washington DC unit, who are a group of originals, devoted to their Airstreams, mostly vintage, and also devoted to “just camping”.

It was the installation rally, where new officers are sworn in. This is supposed to be a fairly solemn ceremony, but with this group, it involved pink feather boas and a good dosage of hilarity. The principle entertainment is Happy Hour. Most RV get-togethers have an hour of snacks and socializing over adult beverages. For the WDCU, it goes on all night, with folks leaving to find dinner sometimes, or just living on the extensive spread of finger food. We talk and talk, about our trailers and life in general, catching up with each others lives. These folks are definitely family, so it looks more like a reunion, and a reunion where you like nearly all of the people!

We went to Cabelas for something to do, and wandered around looking at mystifying products. It is hunting season soon, so the place was a camouflaged world of everything you need to hit the woods. One person chairs with a tent of camo, and two person ones, clothing of every description in patterns to match the kind of setting you need to be invisible in. There were some products to mask your scent, which is what most of our prey really use to see us coming. I wonder if they work or if the creatures laugh behind their paws at what they smell like. I don’t get the camo stuff. In the woods, if you sit absolutely still for say 20 minutes, pretty soon the creatures ignore you.

Cabelas also has a slightly weird collection of stuffed animals. These are arranged in life-like tableaux, frozen in moments, three lions chasing impala at full gallop, or two bears arguing over a fallen moose (old age probably), two lynx after a rabbit on the side of a cliff. The strangest is the deer room. I expected a lot of heads with antlers, some is good more is better, but here they have trophy heads of “non-typical” deer. These are all very strange mutations of the usual antlers, with many extra points, some pointing down, some thickened almost like moose or elk antlers. Not enough just to shoot down a big rack, but big and weird is trophy too. I was a little dismayed by the sheer number of the non typical mutants, with their little plaques and stories. It had a sort of side show element that was a little tawdry. I am happy to eat venison, might even shoot a deer if I got hungry enough, but the trophy part, I don’t get, except as a possible decorating element in an enormous castle.

On Saturday, after the installation ceremony, and a huge spread for dinner (pot luck heaven), we came back to the campfire to continue to visit and tell stories. I brought and gave away all the wine and beer from the 5th wheel, but saved Don’s big bottle of Johnny Walker Black for this moment. I quietly poured a sip for everyone, told them it was to remember him and wish him good travels. We didn’t break up the party with a toast, everyone just quietly sipped away while the campfire visiting went on its happy, aimless way. Don loved get-togethers like this, the social heart of RVing. He would not want a fuss of stopping the fun. He has never actually met any of these folks, except for John and Harley who came for a visit one day, but we are all campers, part of a grand community of folks all over this country. So it was a fitting wake for him, and a fitting end to his scotch. Well, not quite the end, I have saved about an inch for certain people I have to go see.

The complications of his estate continue to be discouraging. Not greedy family squabbles, but financial and legal oddities. The Power of Attorney his daughter had, a standard one from the law office where she works, does not cover changing beneficiaries according to the folks who hold a life insurance annuity. Don wanted it to come to me, to pay off the loan on the 5th wheel, so I could sell it. As it stands now, it goes to one daughter, not three ways as he intended before he met me. We are lawyering up on this. In addition, the bulk of his funds were in an IRA, which goes directly to his daughters, and is not considered part of his estate. This means the truck, trailer and contents, my piece of the pie, are the entire “estate” and out of this must come any outstanding bills. So I must sell it all quickly, in the Fall, in a down economy, and hope that the medical bills are covered by Medicare and his supplemental. I won’t be out of pocket, but my little fantasy of having some extra to make just traveling more possible may not come true. And the bank demands either full payment or refinancing by November 28 or they will repossess the trailer. Fortunately, the will is registered in SD, and since the estate is worth less than $50,000, no probate is necessary. Advice: you might want to be sure your estate is headed where you intend it to go. Now, today.

Going through his belongings and disposing of them is hard, discouraging work. Most of it was good and useful and treasured by him, but little of it is of monetary value. My Airstream is stuffed to the gills with things I can’t leave go of, especially all the food we bought to survive at the remote North Rim. I have never gone hungry in my life, so I have no idea why hoarding food is so hard to stop. Obviously, my primitive brain knows winter is coming.

I have no idea when I will leave here, or where I will go. Much depends on some luck with the estate, and also I have to switch from what “we” are going to do, to what “I” am going to do, what I want to do, and where.

Funny little things get to me: seeing his phone number on the dog’s ID tag. Clearing out his emergency box in the truck, relics of his 4wheeling days. Going through all his tools, which he loved to have just in case he could save the day. And suddenly, driving down the road, I realize no matter how far I go, I won’t find him.

O Death

2009-10-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

Death, oh where is thy sting ?

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord

Hospice has a booklet called “Gone from my sight”, that I was handed as some point, but I put it aside, assuming it was about grieving and how to deal with it. I was grieving, so I didn’t think I needed to be told how, not right them anyway.

After it was over, I picked it up, and it is about what happens to people as they approach their death. Some of the information I knew from watching animals die, and my grandfather’s death, but there was much that I saw happening with Don that it appears was normal for folks facing death.

When someone is about to give birth, everyone knows what to look for: the baby is dropping, twinges of false labor, contractions and how far apart, the water breaks. Perfect strangers will come up to you and tell you you’re having a boy or girl because (insert folk “wisdom” here), they will ask you when you are due (only a guess), and even later the infant is the object of much interest. At any rate, a public event in the “village”.

Death, on the other hand we hide from, hoping it can happen out of sight, hoping it’s quick, or perhaps seeking extraordinary means to keep it from happening at all. We got a lot of suggestions about Don’s approaching death, from seeking out the big guns of medical establishment to dietary suggestions but no one really knows how it happens.

Do we need to know this? Do we want to know this? I asked the nurse later how she decided when to give out the booklet, she said it is a pretty delicate matter of timing, because of our cultural avoidance of the subject, and also individual reactions to approaching death. I wished I had read it long before, for I learned that many things that worried me about him in those last weeks were normal, expected signs of approaching death.

Don slept a lot, napping in bed most of the day or in his big chair, and seemed lost in his mind, not interested in even a Dodger’s game, or listening to me read to him. It looked to me like depression, but this withdrawing from the real world is part of the preparation. What was he doing in there? Getting ready to die, to say good bye to this world, his body, and me. Setting aside these earthly coils, getting ready for the moment reported by those who have “died” when they float above their bodies looking down. Letting go of the busy things we do to fill our days. I confess I felt a little distanced, we mostly held each other, touch instead of words. We had a litany of things we said over and over to each other for comfort. But I missed our amiable squabbling and sorting of the day’s events, and most of all planning for the future.

The worst sign of approaching death for me was he gradually stopped eating much of anything. I love to cook, he loved to eat, I found myself weeping when he took a bite or two and wasn’t hungry, as though it was a personal failure on my part. His body knew he would soon need no food or drink and turned away from it, but also from me again. The cupboards are still full of food I bought to tempt him. I did remember my grandfather eating only half a blueberry muffin now and then.

Other odd things, like picking at the bedclothes while he slept, and tiny tremors are to be expected, although I assumed much of this was from the strokes. He would suddenly be sweaty hot, and then chilly, often needing a blanket or a towel to mop the sweat. All the systems in his body began to slacken, and work fitfully. His ability to navigate fell apart, not really disoriented but a little confused.( My Grandfather was found down stairs in his 3 piece suit, calling a cab in the middle of the night to take him to North Station in Boston. He knew he could take his usual train home and be OK, but otherwise was lost.)

As his time got really close, his fingers and toes began to cool, his legs mottled as if cold, and his breathing rate and heart rate would race or slow way down, he would suddenly be sweaty hot, and then chilly. The nurses assured me that he could still hear me, so I sang and prayed and told stories. It took along time for the heat to leave his body, I held my hand under him to feel it, the last of him, although he was actually dead, as long as the warmth of him was there, I couldn’t leave him. His color was like old ivory, like a netusuke carving of an old wise man.

I hope this doesn’t upset you, gentle reader, it makes me weep to read it, it seems important to record his death, for me, and also if it can guide someone through a sad time, it would be good to understand these transitions, expect them.

I’m listening to Brahms’ German Requiem, which is making me cry, but also it feels like a release.

Bon Secours

2009-10-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

Just Quickly.[Sept 4]

We are at the hospital. Don had a massive stroke early Friday morning, more than the Hospice team could handle out in the pine trees, so we are in the hospital in Richmond. He and I have been made comfortable and given all the support we could ask for and more. His wish would not have been to make work and trouble for these wonderful folks. He is at peace, sleeping now

His vital signs, are much weaker this morning, so it will likely be soon that he gets to go on his last walk.

His Dad, who died at 99, said to his nurse one night that he was going for a walk in the woods, and died that night. He was a forestry professor at UWA.

In 1824, the streets of Paris were littered with the misery, illness and death that followed the French Revolution, and subsequent upheavals. A group of 12 nuns began to serve the needs of the sick and dying not within their safe cloister, nor in the dreadful death traps that passed for hospitals, but out in the street and hovels. They treated everyone, regardless of religious or political leanings, and survived several anti Catholic pogroms.

In 1881, three sisters came to Baltimore MD, opened the first day care ever, continued their mission of home care, and in 1916 opened Bon Secours hospital. I was born at this hospital. (In the steamy heat of June, my laboring mother was admonished to cover herself with the bedclothes. When she, typically, would not, the sister said, “But Mrs. Pickman, what if the Doctor should see you?”)

Good Help was exactly what we received from Bon Secours, not just at the hospital, but with the Hospice Program. Mostly lay people now, working for peanuts, visiting and comforting people dying in their homes. Not a peep of Catholic doctrine, no Hail Marys, only a small crucifix high on the wall of each room in the hospital. I found myself staring at this, saying the prayers of my Catholic youth, and weeping while I watched at Don’s bedside. At the end, though, I said to him the whole Lord’s Prayer, power and glory forever, which I learned from my Quaker mother. A Scots Presbyterian would want that.

The folks who came to the RV in those last days were wonderful, and when at the end we were not able to manage the seizures and panic that last mortal stroke caused, we got the same gentle care from the nurses at the hospital. They made time to sit with me and talk, and let me cry on what was happening, and were always monitoring his comfort. And when he breathed his last, we all sat for a long while as the color of his skin faded to an old ivory, like an old Japanese carving, and the heat of his body slowly left. A nice young man came in to just be with us, to listen and affirm, and let us know we could stay as long as we needed.

As a child, going to catechism class, I remember discovering that the answer to nearly every question in the “quiz” was Sanctifying Grace. This seemed to me a commodity that one earned, a little like indulgences, the bartering of lengthy prayers or good deeds for less time in purgatory, but principally by going to Mass , Confession, receiving Communion and obeying the rules. This tally sheet of my sins ( teasing my brother, disobeying my parents, chattering in class) could be fixed, it seemed, just by doing what I was going to do anyway, enforced by my family. It seemed a little too easy, and I went right on teasing my poor brother and chattering in class, since it could all be fixed.

I think I found Sanctifying Grace, in the mission of Bon Secours. We were listened to with full attention, our fears were met with reassurance, our needs attended to, never once did our “immoral” unwed relationship meet with anything but acceptance. And it never occurred to me to think that all this care and love was done to balance out their sins, or to get me back to Mass.

There is another extraordinary power that sustains me, and that is you, gentle reader, and all those others who have worried and prayed and sent me courage and condolences. In the village times of human history, we would all be physically together, doing much the same thing. We move around today, in search of work or dreams or better weather, leaving our physical village, but it seems to me that the internet has filled the need for contact with those we know well, that are family, blood or chosen, old friends, or even those we know only through the air. Those of us who live on the road are even more in need of community, and behold there you all are. Better than a thousand nosey neighbors with casseroles feeding off my sadness, better than sitting at visiting hours, miserable with my loss, having to be a part of the huge party that is a funeral and wake. At moments when my sadness overtakes me, I look up at the sky and your thoughts come to comfort me like a soft shawl. Thank you. If I have the power to do so, bless you.

[On Sunday, Sept. 6, at 12:30, Don breathed his last, in my arms, in no pain, with two of his three daughters nearby. His harsh breathing stopped, started again and then stopped, and his brave heart rested at last.]

I have moved back into the Airstream, after the first two nights, I found there were too many stories in that bed in the 5th wheel. It has taken me 10 days to get my things out, the 5th wheel is a sad place, too many of Don’s molecules are there, I keep turning around expecting to see him, or reliving some of the really bad parts of the very end. His clothes are gone to Good Will, but his toys, the Ham radio set up, his TV, and all his tools are still there looking reproachful still that he was uninterested in them as he slowly turned inward to prepare for death. The inside of the Airstream is a disaster. I accumulated way too much stuff while living in the enormous space of the 5th wheel, and a lot of it reminds me powerfully of him so it’s hard to part with it. But distill I must, and only save the best bits, and remember the best times.

New Country

2009-10-20T18:07:00.000-07:00

The natural world here looks pretty much like what I grew up with in Massachusetts, not the same plants, but the same general lush high summer look. The area we are in, known as the East End, of the Richmond area, is very rural, even over by the Richmond airport, there are still fields and woods. There are some big homes hidden away, but it is mostly just empty, kind of the way the Boston 128 corridor was back in the 1950’s, still farmland and forest.

Don, after his stroke, or more probably one big one and several tiny ones, is the new country. A lot of the original data and equipment is still there, and he can still tell you three different ways to drive around Chicago, and telephone numbers from his youth. He still has his dry Scots sense of humor, and sees the absurdities and ironies of the world.

His left hand, well really the fingers, is not much use, and some part of the sorting process for visual input is not working very well. There are also some short term memory glitches. He can’t type, or read, or use his beloved laptop or Blackberry, and worst of all, he isn’t able to do the grounds work here to help work off our campsite. There are no signs of cancer symptoms, which will probably involve the liver first, only a sort of half life, waiting. He has gained more control over his hand and fingers, but the processing of what he is seeing is variable and sometimes faulty, depth perception is a problem

I confess to having moments of wishing a big blood clot would carry him off, instead of him lingering in this sad, missing the fun parts state. But we are, as he says, chugging along.

At this stage, my delicate job is to help when needed but not too much.

Pulp paper production, it turns out, is the reason there are vast forests here, in fact VA is 65% forests, and I think forest products may be the state’s biggest industry. (Working for the gumment doesn’t count).

We drove up to West Point VA to find an old fashioned barber shop for Don, and right there, on a peninsula between two rivers, is a huge paper mill. Back in 1918, Elis Olsson came from Canada and built a paper mill in West Point, making Kraft paper ( brown paper bag stock). The mill has pretty well run uninterrupted since then, through ownership changes and different types of paper products, and the vast tracts of loblolly pine are still being harvested and reforested along this stretch of VA, as well as in other areas. Our “home”, the New Kent Forestry Center, runs a breeding program to improve the loblolly pine, a fast growing giant that tolerates occasional wet feet.

The Chesapeake Paper company owned vast tracts of timberland in VA, including this area, and in 1999 sold it to the John Hancock Insurance CO for very little, and John Hancock has been selling it off for upscale development. This gives new meaning to the term paper pushers. So that’s why it has stayed so empty of urban sprawl. We are 18 miles from downtown Richmond and there are way more deer per acre here than people.

The dog and I continue our evening walks, last night there must have been 30 deer in one field of young pines, and one evening they crossed in front of the truck and there was a white fawn.

Smoke in the Woods

2009-10-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

Last night,Monday, when I drove home from the hospital in the dark, I smelled smoke and one stand of the pine trees has been given a therapeutic burn. I was amazed to see flames and coals glowing and no one around watching. In this humid green country, I guess it wasn’t going anywhere.

Out in the west, folks have their eyes peeled for smoke, and sniff the wind for that dangerous smell. A summers’ grazing could go up, or a stack of hay for the winter. And out in California, the dry hills roar with fires again, destroying houses and ruining dreams. I still think of fire that way, even though I know the forests need controlled burns.

On last Sunday, on our way home from a scouting trip to the big clinic in Richmond, Don suddenly had chest pains, so he ended up, via ambulance in the hospital again. Although a heart attack was suspected, it turns out that pain was a pulmonary embolism which kills a lot of people, but not Don. Monday, lots of waiting, some tests, more waiting, some Doctors came and said things, medications were administered, more tests, more waiting.

The sticky blood that cancer causes is the problem, so they want to get that under control, but the Coumadin didn’t work. They were concerned with some swelling at the site of the stroke, so more medications, and insulin because one of the drugs made his diabetes go nuts.

This morning, I came in to find Don confused and worried, the oncologist had told him (wrongly) that he had a few small cancer cells in the brain and wanted to do radiation. I comforted him and realized that his short term memory wasn’t what it was yesterday. A nurse came in to ask him questions for the MRI, and some of them he answered incorrectly, she was unaware that he wasn’t up to this. Then aides appeared to take him to radiation. He apparently said OK to that. Red Flag.

Shortly after that the radiologist came to say she didn’t do the radiation, that she didn’t think by his records that it was a good idea, and said the neurologist had advised against it. We talked about what the point of radiation was for the head, when the liver tumors are what are going to get him, and it suddenly became clear that it was time to go home, get in the hospice people and let him die in his RV as he wishes. An hour later she said that the MRI showed no cancer, only some small clots. Not good, but not needing radiation.

I said some strong things to the oncologist and the supervisor Dr about the radiation. When I asked the oncologist if he had read the neurologists report, he said he couldn’t read it! I gather that some butt will be kicked here over this. I also pointed out that Don hadn’t been given his breakfast and had a headache that wasn’t attended to.

So, they will bring the Hospice folks around tomorrow, get that organized and I will take him home to the pine forest.

I don’t think this is a bad hospital, we were generally well taken care of, but if I wasn’t a dragon, much could have gone badly, and they are bound to treat him here with anything they can think of.

I’m sleeping here in the hospital tonight, like a good dragon. I went home earlier to comfort the dog, get some stuff, tell the neighbor, and there were the remains of the fire still glowing and smoking, with no one watching it. That still doesn’t seem right, like cancer, fires need to be under vigilant care.

Next day, Wednesday:
All is resolved, we know how hospice works, tomorrow we go to one last doctor, the necessary attending physician for the hospice program, and then he will have peace. A nurse will come once a week or so, the eyes and ears of the doctor, and other help can be summoned if I need it.

Tonight, there is a light rain on the roof, and the pine trees are dripping, but that is the only sound. He is sleeping in his own bed, and no one will come to take his vitals in the night, nor exhaust him with questions.

The Green Tunnel

2009-10-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ever since we left New Mexico, the trees have crowded the sides of the highway, getting taller and bushier, until what is on the other side is nearly all hidden. The grass grows like mad, people are always mowing, and when I do get a glimpse of what lies beyond, I mostly see more woods, or fields going back to woods.

When we drive on the secondary roads, there are the remains of small farms, a corral, a tumbling barn, a rusting tractor, and often an abandoned house. When we are near a city of any size, the old fields are filled with developments, but out here in the countryside, the green summer growth seems to be slowly reclaiming everything. It won’t be until we drop into the wide flat Mississippi flood plain that anyone is growing things at this southern latitude.

In East Texas, the lumber industry is big, we pass huge saw mills, and are passed by log trucks taking the pine logs, mostly for particle board I suspect. There are tree farms in Arkansas too, at least at first, but by the time we pass Little Rock, the green wall seems to be just growing.

We spend a layover day at a State Park in Forrest City. Aptly named, the woods here are thick and dark, even in the day time. The dog and I like to walk in the evening, when the worst of the heat is over. I like to explore the informal trails that most state parks get from kids taking short cuts, but here, either the kids are staying out of the woods, or the brush grows so fast the trails disappear. At dusk, this thick, dark understory is a little scary. The dog is a little blind, and shies at the occasional stick or branch, which spooks me a little too. It’s an odd contrast with the grassy areas and there are acres and acres of these, huge open fields that are just mowed for our viewing pleasure by gangs of mowers. Perhaps the thick forest, dark and entangling, is the enemy of civilization, and the endless mowing the only way to save ourselves or at least to feel we have some control.

I am no fan of lawns, they are a drain of money, time, and water, a design conceit to prove we have money to waste on a perfect pasture that nothing feeds on. Lawns in the desert are particularly sinful, and indeed a bad idea anywhere they have to be watered. Here, the lawn needs no water, just the dew keeps it shoe wetting in the middle of the day. Another campground with concrete roads and pads had thick manicured grass, trimmed and edged like a perfect carpet laid into the areas between the pads. This grass is so lush that one sort of needs to keep an eye on it, as though in the night it might grow out over the concrete and envelope the trailer.

And then of course there is kudzu, the vine that ate the south. Imported as a possible cattle food, this aggressive vine that looks vaguely like grape vines, covers everything in its path, murdering any other plant in its way. Trees are covered, and bushes, like some alien topiary garden, and also the ground, and then it moves on to cover more and more. It has no local pests, and would take over the whole world given a chance. This is a good reason to mow, or it might take your house!

Oddly, there are few wildflowers by the side of the road. The only ones I see are tiny yellow chamomiles and a big white blowzy mallow with a purple eye. In the high desert, the flowers are still going nuts, along the sides of the road. Perhaps the endless mowing has discouraged them here, the woods themselves are too dark. And the flowers here have most of the year to do their business, there is no arid summer or frozen winter, so they can flower when they please, no need to squeeze it all into a couple of months.

We are now in Caruthersville, Missouri on the banks of the Mississippi River, staying in a Casino Campground. The actual casino is on a boat on the river, actually two, a barge with a building on it, and an old ferry or excursion boat tied up outside of the barge. They have fake smokestacks with the iconic metal crown and a cut out of paddle wheels amidships, but mostly they are a stage set. The insides are the usual glitzy, tawdry décor with slot machines and vaguely hopeful folks pouring their quarters into them, and too much cigarette smoke in the air.

We can go out on the rail of the outside boat, and sit watching the Big Muddy go by, roiling and seething at a pretty good clip. A barge with its tow boat pushing it heads very slowly up river. This is a dangerous river, fast and full of logs, and inclined to build up sandbars in the night, or roll old snags up. At the casino there is a 10 foot cement flood wall with slots for panels where the road goes through it. Right now, the river is way below us, but the floodwalls make me think of the horrors of New Orleans, and other floods I’ve seen on TV.

The main entertainment this morning is that they have torn up and re-cemented two of the three roads in this small campground. Many RVers are unable to back their rigs at all, especially those who have chosen the pull through sites that we are in. Getting out may turn out to be interesting. They also started this noisy work at 6:45 AM, understandable in the heat, but not nice for those who were up all night partying in the Casino. It’s going to be like one of those puzzles with sliding plastic numbers and only one empty space to move to while you get them in order.

Fireflies

2009-10-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

Last night, at a campground in Crossville TN, the dog and I went for a walk as it was getting dark. It was raining very lightly, and all around in the edge of the woods, fireflies flew up through the branches, or lingered in the tall grass, flashing their love songs in the twilight. I never grow tired of this buggy miracle, it seems like a special present on a summer evening.

I needed a long walk, as the last few days have been pretty bad.

On Friday night, Don had a stroke while he slept, and when he woke up, his left hand would not obey his brain. He could not get his shirt on nor do up his pants and belt, and tying his shoes was impossible. This dear man, who loves to fix things and be generally handy with all sorts of things, is crushed by the frustration and embarrassment of dropping anything he picks up with his left hand.

It was apparent to me that his left hand was not the only damage, subtle cognitive and visual things are wrong too. And this meant that there was no way he could drive.

This was always something waiting in the wings, no one ever knows how this ending dance will go exactly. The thickening of the blood that cancer brings caused a clot in his brain, and the nearby cells died. The people in the hospital in Clarksville TN emergency and then a neurologist in Nashville, did all the tests. There was no other reason for the clot, and they found he had serious clots in his legs, and he is now on Coumadin to thin his blood out.

He was taken by ambulance to Nashville, I had to let him go alone, because of the dog waiting at the trailer. What a horrible moment that was, leaving him to go by himself, and then coming home to an empty bed.

The Airstream and Darth Vader are now parked by the house of Ken’s platoon seargent., He’s the combat medic grandson stationed at Fort Campbell that we came to visit. Ken is my hero, he helped out in so many ways. I will have to fly back and pick it up once we are settled in VA.

Oklahoma and Texas

2009-10-20T17:55:00.000-07:00

At this time of year, we would normally avoid these hot places, but here there is family to say good-by to.

Down out of the last of the mountains, we cross the upper corner of NM, stopping at Tucumcari for the night. The name comes either from a romantic and suspiciously Longfellowish story of a love triangle and suicide murder, or (more likely)the name of a mountain which in Comanche means ambush place.

From here, on through Amarillo TX and into OK, it seems way too green and lush to be the old west. Not a cactus or a cow skull in sight, only lush pasture, green fields and increasing amounts of trees. I remember this as drier, maybe it rained a lot, maybe my recollection has been bleached out by too much time in the desert.

The closer we get to OK, the hotter it gets, and the humidity goes up and up. We were sad enough to leave the North Rim, and we really miss that cool dry place now.

In Oklahoma City, we visit the Cowboy Museum. Don’s legs and feet have developed a tendency to swell, making the walking hard, but we go on through, stopping at the Russells and Remingtons and ambling through the exhibits about the world of the working cowboy. A good half of the museum is art, western, realistic, and romantic art. No abstracts allowed here, “we don’t know much about art but we know what we like”. Wisely, the museum makes much of the art part, so as to attract the wealthy donors and patrons that they have to have.

I am a fool for cowboys and all things to do with them. I love the horses, the places and the smells and the people. Here, though, it seems to be a closely held identity, in spite of the fact that few of these people ever actually got close enough to a cow to smell it. It was a romantic idea, and the outfits are good. And it sells almost anything, including religion.

Beside the road we see a black metal silhouette of a cross with a cowboy kneeling beside it while his horse waits. Some of the stories of what the cow towns were like when a cattle drive up from TX came into town remind me that these cowboys were pretty wild and wooley, like the miners, and not perhaps the John Wayne, Roy Rogers version.

First stop, in Pauls Valley OK to visit one grandson, wife, great granddaughter and to their enormous credit, the sister and brother of his wife who have no useful parents. We are staying at one of my favorite types of campground, the city park which is on a lake, lots of visiting and fishing going on, just camping and not pretending we are at a resort. I was dreading tearful good byes, as they will not see Don again, but since he doesn’t look like he is sick, much less dying, perhaps that kept it heartfelt, but not weepy.

Don’s swelling foot and calf worried us enough to go the local emergency room. There, various blood tests and an ultrasound suggested he might have a small clot in his lower leg or foot. Apparently, the cancer makes his blood more likely to clot, and this is exacerbated by sitting in the truck and driving all day. We were advised to get out and walk more often and his aspirin intake is upped. Scary, but the Dr, said to carry on, watching for pain higher up which would indicate a clot that could go to lungs, heart or even brain.

In Pittsburg, TX we stayed again at Lake Bob Sandlin State park. Here the jungle that is hot southern summer growth crowds in, and it rains and drips, and the cicadas rattle and rasp in the trees. There are vines, and in the trees it is dark even when the sun shines. The heat is breathtaking, the humidity is thick, a blue haze where you can see any distance.

This visit, with Don’s daughter was jolly and good too, although she and I puddled up a couple of times, and she made me promise to keep her in my life and close in the months ahead. She has a new husband and a nice new house, and her life is looking up except for facing the loss of her Daddy. She has a difficult relationship with her mother, so the loss is doubly hard. We ate out for dinner, they came here for breakfast, and then she followed us and ambushed us to wave madly in her truck as we drove off.

Next we head further south to Huntsville TX for the other grandson and wife. Hotter and wetter, I don’t see how people can chose to live here, unless their jobs demand it. Another dinner out and another breakfast here, and another fond, but not weepy, farewell, I suppose these people have only seen Don sporadically, and since he appears healthy it may be hard to believe the worst.

Now we are working our way to Clarksville, TN where the combat medic grandson in the Army is stationed. Today, at a beautiful state park in Forrest City AR, we are camped beside a lake, acres of mowed lawns, lots of space between sites, and commercial worthy views out of all windows. We are taking a break from the road today. Driving on Interstates makes me nearly crazy with boredom, especially these southern roads that are made of slabs of concrete. Maybe they are OK when new, but with time the slabs move and they are just the right distance apart to set my truck and trailer into a thump thump thump that is exhausting. I think my boobs have dropped another inch.

We have settled into our on the road pattern, which we both love, on the move, always adjusting our route, and pondering the different things we see. I wish we could do a little more sightseeing, but although Don’s swelling is much better, we still need to keep moving in case it gets worse. We also are looking forward to the less steamy weather in VA, at least we hope it will be less steamy. Right now, I think we are in the Amazon.

Live Steam

2009-10-20T17:38:00.000-07:00

We hustled down to Antonito and scored two tickets on the train, riding in splendor in the fancy parlor car, brand new and spiffy, we were plied with drinks and pastries the whole time. But the whole point of this is the steam engine!

When we got there, one of the engines, a 1925 Baldwin Mikado type, was just getting steamed up, and sitting on the ashpit. We were like girls seeing Elvis. We watched it go around and move some cars, and then it was time to get on the bus for Chama. There are a number of different ways to ride the Cumbres and Toltec, with busses to take you back to where you started. The route is a remainder of the narrow gauge rail route that went from Antonito to Durango, this is the only part left . It runs up over the Toltec gorge, at times over a 4% grade! 2 ½ % is all a regular line can do.

The cars to ride in include our nice parlor car with plush seats and a tin ceiling, circa 1870.the other cars are 1880-1930 vintage, and there is an old box car redone as a café/curio car, and a gondola car where you can stand and see everything, narrated by a docent with microphone. The docent was informative but didn’t feel he had to talk all the time.

Black, hissing and the compressor clunking, the engine sits. Grey steam and smoke come out of the stack, and steam leaks lazily from other places. The lordly beings that control this great black creature strut a little, they are dirty and it is very hard work, especially shoveling the huge chunks of coal, but they know that in our eyes they are near gods. The engineer sports a black bowler instead of the usual peaked striped rr cap, a very dirty face and flashing eyes. He has little time for us, tired of railfans I think, but he loves this engine.

We board and the engine gives a great blast on the earsplitting whistle, no other sound in the world quite like it, almost an animal scream. The stack blows dark, black smoke as the engine begins to move, and the shuddering ch ch ch goes faster and faster, the joints on the rails hit the wheels clickety clack, and the coaches sway. Out the windows on a curve we can see the engine pulling, smoking steaming. There are counterweights on the drive wheels which put the drive arms further out and they are very visible, working like the endons on a pulling horse. Some of the passengers are just admiring the view, others have a grin on their faces, a grin that gets bigger every time the engine whistles for a grade crossing. The engineer clearly loves the whistle too, and plays it like some giant musical instrument. The steam leaps into the air, escaping through the whistle to freedom. On a good grade, they blow the bottom dump, a way to get rid of any crud on the bottom of the boiler, and release a cloud of steam, hissing and obscuring everything for a moment.

When I was learning about the steam engine that is a static display in the museum in Campo, I thought the great hulk was pretty nifty, and knowing how it all worked was great. I remember effusing about it to the head of the steam department, and he sighed, and said it was just a dead thing when it wasn’t running. I think I understand how he feels a little better. It is “only” a machine, but starting it up and running it while controlling what is basically a giant explosion on the edge of happening, makes it seem very alive. It breathes and snorts and thumps while still like an impatient race horse, and then when sent forward, clouds of steam and smoke and whistling are more like an unleashed dragon. Most machinery that pulls things have all the action hidden inside, pistons and gears are secrets, but on a steam engine the driving rods are right there, all bones and tendons and stringy muscles working like mad, and covered with black soot and gleaming with oil.

This mountaineering rail line was built in 9 months, mostly by hand, there are two tunnels and plenty of track laid on a rock shelf. Not quite as spectacular as Carrizo Gorge, but pretty grand all the same, we pass through aspen groves where the sound of the engine seems to rattle through the leaves, and then peer over the edge to the bright green valley below, where cattle graze.

At every grade crossing there are rail fans with their cameras, some follow the train the whole way, nearly jumping up and down with excitement. At a huge rock, called Kodak Rock by the train people, there are 3-4 intrepid climbers on top waiting for the perfect shot. I would rather ride it than shoot it, but you can see that we have plenty of company in our fascination with trains!

(This is a picture by a fellow train nut, Marty Bernard who visited here too )

Back at Antonito, we detrain, do a little shopping but keep turning to watch the engine switch cars around ready for tomorrow’s ride. Even the next day, driving on by, we slowed and looked wistfully at the engine getting ready, smoking quietly.

If you have never ridden behind a steam engine, better go do it, it’s a vanishing breed.

Adios San Juan

2009-10-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

The San Juan Mountains are beautiful for all the visual reasons, high, jagged, bits of snow, visible for miles around. Don spent 4 summers here, workamping where we are now, driving the tour Jeeps all over the terrifying mining roads, and acting as Alpine Host up in a basin called Yankee Boy. So the first thing we wanted to do was rent a Jeep and go up into Yankee Boy. The road up goes by the campsites I ran, and then gets gnarly. We have driven Darth up there, but chose not to, he really is just too long for this mountain goat driving.

The road has been much improved, they even did some blasting on the narrow shelf road that scares me the most, and then we were up in the glorious basin, stuffed with wildflowers of all colors and sizes. There are still pockets of snow, melting and sending moisture down the steep slopes, and the peaks all around protect the basin from the worst of the winds.

This is the third time I have seen this glorious display and it never fails to amaze and delight. Tall cow parsnips waving like giant Queen Anne’s lace, blue larkspur, peach and pink Indian Paint Brushes, blue bells, wall flowers, purple asters, fleabane, showy alpine daisies, sunflowers, tiny sedums and bistort which is a white tuft of flowers on the end of a long stem.

If you sit down, you are in a forest of flowers, and you can see the tinier ones that are a little out-shouted by the showier ones. Cameras run amok, people stand stupefied by the sheer number of flowers, or perhaps the altitude, we are up above 10,000 feet.

I keep puddling up, especially on the way down, for it is here that Don wants part of his ashes spread, a little on the flowers, a little on the stream that rushes through. It is all too beautiful, and I realize with a pang that I will never see it again with him, at least in his real self. To comfort both of us, I say his spirit will be just at my shoulder, and we can see it all again or new and wonderful places.

The campground he worked at is under new management and repairs, we are allowed in as old friends of the lady that runs the office, a lot of his old buddies are down the road in a newer RV place, so we go for happy hour, and have a jolly visit.

Next day, we rent another Jeep, this time a Rubicon which has lockers and been lifted 2 ½” and sway bar release, and 33” Kevlar tires. We almost need a mounting block to get in, and it is RED. Up the precipitous and rather scary Million Dollar highway above Ouray we go and into the mountains. This time we go up Corkscrew Gulch.

This is between the two Red Mountains that have sweeps of iron laden gravel running down their sides, an impossible collection of wild colors, bright orange, rust, maroon, kakhi, ochres, very pale yellow and blinding white when the sun shines on it. The road begins with a stretch of rolling bumpy dirt in the pines, and then we arrive at the foot of the corkscrew, a series of steep, tight switchbacks carved out of a massive, white and peach colored rock slide. As we climb and inch our way around the corners, the view of the Red Mountains gets bigger and wilder, until it is a vivid panorama. Off to both sides, the more sedate gray rocks of the San Juans rear up higher and more rugged, but the sweep of those colors down the slope is magnificent.

Up at the top of Hurricane Pass, we stop for photos, overlooking the tropical blue of Lake Como, then climb up to California Pass where we can see for miles in every direction, mountains and green lush valleys and lakes down below.

On the sides of most slopes, sometimes way high up, are the mines, holes dug mostly by hand, gray tailings spilling down the slope. How did they get up there ? How did they get ore down? A lot of times, if there was ore to make it worth the trouble, by cable cars. On some places we see ruined structures, sluices, loading docks, but mostly just holes. A few folks got rich, but most just got tired.

We stop for lunch by a small lake, there has been good rain and old snow cover, so the lakes are all full, and eat our sandwiches while the dog forages for rodents under the pines.

Then we grind our way back down the corkscrew, meeting folks on the way up in various stages of glee or terror.

Don was put on oxygen after the biopsy probe collapsed his lung, but even up there at 12,000 feet, he didn’t really need it that much. Once back down to 6,000 feet, he has decided to monitor his heart rate and etc, and not be bothered with it. Besides being a serious nuisance, it keeps him from moving around and makes him feel old and useless. Medically, maybe a good safety thing, but psychologically, a weight he doesn’t need. We’ll keep the equipment until VA.

Next day we head south, meaning to be on our way, but while eating ice cream in a park, I pointed out that we were close to the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway, a big star in the rail fan world because they run steam !! We jumped on this, went to Antonito CO found a campground and next morning, with a rainbow in the sky, went to see if we could get tickets.

Exeunt Omnes

2009-10-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

Leaving the North Rim was very hard. Packing up, especially after spreading out in expectation of a 6 month stay is hard work. Training our replacements and worrying about them and feeling like we let the place down was hard work. Saying goodbye to people was hard work. Actually, that was the hardest of all.

Cancer might be lying in wait for any one of us, at any moment, but like the even more likely fatal wreck on the highway, we put that fear aside and carry on. Then when it comes close, the fear grabs us, and a tiny voice says that could be me. So it’s not surprising that our leaving made a lot of people sad. Many shared stories about their own cancer survival, or of others close to them, and urged positive thinking, prayer, and sometimes alternative cures. It was as though we had nicked a vein of need and fear. Cancer feels like the wrath of God, and we mortals can only cower together and hope it passes us, like an aimless tornado in the body.

An isolated, ephemeral community like the North Rim produces a quick intimacy, so that we become a sort of instant group of clans, divided by our daily work area, but still together in isolation and with the difficulties of dealing with the general public. So, on many levels, it was hard for us to go and hard for others to see us go. And besides, it is ravishingly beautiful there.

We had dinner in the Lodge the last night, and were treated like royalty, the best table right by the window, watching the last sun on the canyon pick out rocks and pinnacles and then the sky faded peach to gold to green. The new cook has upped the quality of the food, and it was superb. I wore my heavy silver dollar necklace, and felt like a queen for that hour.

So down off the mountain for the last time, the tall ponderosas left behind for junipers and then just sage brush, the grand staircase of red, tan and white cliffs ahead of us. The night we drove into St. George, the sunset was magnificent, and as we drove west, the light lingered on the red rocks, and glowed in the sky. Today, though, it is hot, the Vermillion Cliffs shimmer, and then a series of thunderstorms roll through, lighting zagging in the distance, and then a downpour, so we stopped for lunch at a small place tucked under the cliffs where friends work, and bought lunch for a pair of young men with car trouble.

We drove by Tsege, where sandstone is swirled and piled up like whipped pumpkin pie filling, and turned at Kenyata, red bluffs all around, and into Monument Valley for the night.

We love this wild architecture of erosion, the great buttes and fingers of red sandstone loom in the sky, full of portent, ageless and even their iconic role in so many cowboy movies doesn’t change their power. They are as aloof from the tourists bumping around on the dirt roads as they are from the Navaho homes scattered at their feet.

In the morningI drive Darth Vader out into Monument Valley so Don can get his fill, and on the way out, the sun breaks through and highlights certain towers, we are soaking up this wild western magic for the bad times ahead in the dense, humid, over grown and crowded east.

Then we are headed out of the red rocks for the high country of CO. The red cliffs are swirled with grey, like someone’s fimo clay project, and Mexican Hat where the red cliffs have ruffles. We climb and climb and the ground becomes tan and grey, the air smells like Montana, a kind of dusty floury smell. We stop in Cortez for the night, at the casino campground, but not for the gambling. Neither of us has any suspension of disbelief about the odds, and besides the tobacco smoke is horrible. I find it hard to watch people smoke these days, although Don quit 25 years ago and we don’t know the cause anyway, but it looks a lot like playing stickball on the freeway.

In the distance, we can see the San Juan Mountains, that’s where we are headed, to Yankee Boy Basin where we met. We stop at the Anasazi Heritage Museum in Dolores, and find an extraordinary collection of the artifacts of the Old Ones. I wondered at Mesa Verde where the stuff they found was hiding, and I think it’s all here. Archeology and archeologists is the theme, with lots of hands on stuff to do, and probably a good film although we didn’t stay for it.

I climbed up to the ruins of the Escalante Pueblo at the top of the hill, over looking the McPhee Lake. There is a kiva and the knee knocker doorways I first saw at Chaco Canyon. The impetus for this museum was the archeological survey done before they put the dam in and drowned the valley, but it has grown to include other areas of the region too. A great place if you love the ruins as we do, but not for those who are on a bus tour, counting coups of the places they visit as quickly at possible.

As we move along, Don calls more and more people to let them know, hard for him to say it, and hard for them to hear it. I lean against him for support, and worry about what lies ahead.

Today we are at the campground in Montrose CO where Don spent many summers as workamper, and drove the tour jeeps up on the terrifying old mine roads, and where he stopped to give a ride up to the high up campground to the lady who was supposed to clean it. We are going to rent a Jeep and go up there and play.

Heavy Heart

2009-10-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

I've been too sad and too busy to post these stories, until now.

About two weeks ago, Don decided that his cough and some shortness of breath needed to be taken to a doctor. At the hospital in Kanab UT, and X-ray showed a mass in his lung, and a CAT scan showed it more clearly.

So he went off to St. George to see a lung Dr, and had a biopsy done.

During the procedure, his lung collapsed. Not really a huge deal, happens fairly often when you poke at lungs, since they are a spongy collapsible sac that is pretty much held in place by air pressure, and sort of mildly stuck to the chest wall. A tube was put in to get the air rearranged, and the lung is back to position. After some monitoring, Don was sent home with oxygen to await the test results, for a week.

The oxygen system consists of a gray sort of R2D2 machine that purrs along, extracting pure oxygen from the air. He wears the standard double pronged nose tube ( canula) and has enough tubing to go anywhere in the RV. There is another concentrator in the Lodge office for work time, and cylinders on a trolley for in between.

Getting this all lined up was a little nerve wracking as someone dropped the ball and the second load wasn’t delivered on time, but the young man who delivered it reassured me that if we need anything just call and he will be on his way. It turns out he is related to the guy who brings the mail down from Fredonia Az every day, so although the physical distances out here are huge, it felt strangely like Wales. The small (2,000) town in MA where I raised my kids, where everyone knows everyone and most are related.

Don is, as you might imagine, both scared of what the future holds, and angry that his body has failed him, especially the very visible badge of infirmity, the oxygen. There are a lot of things we want to do and see, sort of imaginary pictures on the wall, and they have dimmed. It is always possible that this will be repaired and we can carry on, but the odds have shortened.

We got a phone call saying that the mass is indeed malignant. At first it made me want to run and hide, just sort of go in some closet until it is all over. But the fact is, that there are many types of cancers of the lung, and this is not the worst, because inoperable, small cell cancer. ( Yes, I did go on line and scare myself a bit)

So today is Sat, July 11, and we have to wait until next Friday to learn more. We will go into St. George that Thurs night, hit the Super 8, and be ready for the doctors and their machines in the morning.

Plan A would be to get whatever done and return to the North Rim, where I can still work while he recuperates. But since he will likely need ongoing procedures, and bad lungs at 8,800 feet is a bad idea, more likely there will be a move.

Plan B, thin at best, is Don taking the 5th wheel to civilization for treatment, leaving me to work.

Plan C, we both leave for somewhere near medical attention, preferably where I can work off our site fees at least.

So many people here have been so wonderful to us. The Front Desk team, having lost several desk clerks is still pulling together and doing a great job, as if to show Don that he trained them well, and that although they would like him back, he is not to fret. Don has pretty well chosen his crown prince and the assistants to be, so they should be OK if we have to leave.

A wonderful man who has been driving the employee shuttle van idly asked me a few weeks ago if he could train as my substitute just in case. It didn’t seem that urgent then, and it would require changing the way we handle funds, so I let it slide. He has now had three mornings of training, and since he is both better at numbers than I am, and worked at a Post Office in a former life, he is pretty well up to speed. This particular Post Office has a lot of idiosyncrasies, some due to lack of standard PO machines (like no postage meter or cash register) and some due to its role as banking office for the operation. It was a daunting learning curve for me, as you may recall, and still has very hectic days where it’s all I can do to get through it all. He “soloed” today in the Post Office, so he’s ready to fly it now.

An amazing number of people here have shared their cancer survival stories, and Don reminds himself that his aunt, who as a young woman lost a lung to TB and was given 6 months to live, lived a long life to age 80.

Me, I am of two minds. I like challenges and emergencies. But I also fear being a long term caretaker again, and am not happy about the idea of being planted in one place.

Today, Friday July 17, we learned that Don has stage IV lung cancer which has now spread to his liver. We stood at the oncologist’s office and looked at the PET scan files. Since cancer cells live at a high rate of metabolism, the isotope that was injected gets collected faster there, and the tumors light up like miniature supernovas. We could see the one in the lung, but also more and bigger blobs of light in the liver. Since the cancer is now on the road in there, operating is useless, and so is radiation. Chemo may well lengthen his life, and we haven’t ruled that out.

It seems best to head for VA where two of his daughters live. So, on Monday we will very sadly leave the North Rim, and head out on the last great road trip while he can still drive. We will revisit some favorite places, stop and see family and friends along the way, and end up somewhere in the Richmond area. There we will see another oncologist, and ponder treatments. We will continue to make short trips as long as it is still fun. The doctors remind us that there is no way to predict how this will go, nor how long it will take for sure. 6 months seems to be the average for what he has.

So gentle reader, the tone of this story has taken a sad turn, but an interesting one. Many questions, some never will be answered. Tears, regrets that he will never see these magnificent rock formations again, that we won’t go to Alaska together, that he won’t get to ride a mule down into the canyon. I will lose a darling companion.

Planet North Rim II

2009-08-06T06:29:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure why, but the workers are still restless.

One of the problems seems to be that we had no HR manager for the winter hiring season. The general manager’s husband, normally head barkeep, filled in. This couple has been running the North Rim for a while. She started as a server here 11 years ago, and worked her way up to manager. They are both 30 ish, and certainly have the experience. But.

They hired one guy to be both head of Accounting and head of all the Tech stuff, including the complex computer network that interfaces with the food service, the stores and the master reservation system down in Flagstaff AZ. It was two jobs, they hired one guy to do both, already a problem. The guy they hired either has no hustle or is exhausted by the altitude, plus he really doesn’t know the accounting side very well. He has been running on empty, and then he got demoted to hourly tech stuff, and that moved him out of his private cabin into the dorms. After returning from a trip to town to see the Dr., he went to the new room and found only a mattress there. He spent the night lying under his jacket and left this AM. Sure doesn’t seem like a good way to treat a grown-up.

As I ponder and question people about this, I’m learning that many decisions about running this place are made by an all powerful and rather cranky entity known as Corporate. As in” Corporate” decided to combine the IT and Accounting job to save money. Or the budget for people to work the Front Desk was cut by Corporate, and so on. I’m guessing that although the North Rim is still full of paying customers, the resort industry as a whole is taking a pretty big hit, and belts are getting new holes in them.

Talking to folks who have been here for several season, I learn that the high turnover is actually pretty normal among the younger workers, and that few are surprised that people leave or are moved around. It is only for the summer, so few of us have much to lose or gain by sticking it out when it gets too tough.

I have finally recovered from a nasty sinus infection, my excuse for not writing. We stayed put on the weekends and didn’t do much worth noting.

We did have visitors, our friends who live in Fairplay CO came for 4 days, staying in the Airstream and geocaching and jeeping around in the woods while we worked, then we went touring around with them and ate in the Lodge. They then went off to Vegas, he plays in poker tournaments.

The weather was very chilly until just last week (last in June) which discouraged us from going out and doing stuff too, but now it’s great.

Last Sunday, my birthday, we drove out to Point Sublime, a 20 mile trip on dirt roads that challenged Darth’s 4x4 skills. There are endless points and ridges that stick out into the canyon. The South Rim has developed these, but up here it is usually a long dirt road drive. Point Sublime is breathtaking,

you can see a bit of the river in one place, and at another viewpoint, the top limestone layer is dramatically eroded.

Excellent wildflowers, blue lupines so thick in the woods it looked like blue smoke,

magenta cactus blooming right on the edge of the canyon, and an enormous agave on the verge of blooming.

We had our lunch, and drove home by yet another dirt road, and then I got taken to the fancy Lodge dining room for dinner as the sun set over the canyon ! He will, apparently, still feed me.

This Sunday, we did a geocaching tour, exploring more of the back roads in the Kaibab National Forest, and then drove back towards Page, along our route in. There were so many places I wished I had photos of, the Vermillion Cliffs, a tall red Rampart with a wide green valley at its feet,

the distant folds of the canyon, and the dark pine covered Kaibab plateau that is our home at the North Rim.

We went for one short hike through the multicolored badlands at the base of the cliffs, dramatic colors, heavily eroded, and each height crowned with petrified wood, in chunks, but lying as the ancient tree fell.

It was pretty hot work, but a great taste of what this low valley is like on the ground, not wistfully from the window of the truck.

Several weeks ago, we went into St. George, the closest (150 miles) town with a lot of stores. We needed a new regulator for the propane system, and so took the excuse to go shopping. Walmart is Walmart.

On the way, we went to Pipe Spring National Monument. This is a restored ranch house/fort that was owned by the Mormons and run as a tithing ranch, where work was done for the church in lieu of cash. Cattle, and milk cows and sheep ran here, as on all the Arizona Strip, the wide valley north of the Grand Canyon. When the Mormons came here, the grass was lush and belly high to a cow, a rancher’s paradise, but overgrazing and drought have ruined the topsoil, and little can grow here, but weeds, and sagebrush. The Pipe Spring, a gusher of water is surrounded by the thick stone walls, and channeled through the building as a spring house, and then out to an improbable pair of ponds. Water in this part of the world is gold.

Planet North Rim

2009-08-06T06:22:00.001-07:00

The North Rim is still lovely and isolated, the Canyon majestic and moody, and the news always a little “other”. Some who are drawn to this place, either to visit or work, are slightly off center.

The week we got here, three young male hikers decided to ignore the signs warning of the danger of swimming in the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon, and were swept away to their deaths. First of all, the water comes out of the bottom of the dam at Lake Powell at a frigid 45-52 degrees, allowing only minutes before you are incapacitated by the cold. Secondly, the water rushes by hard and fast ( 4 mph- 3.5 knots) in a great hurry to deepen the canyon some more, and will knock the legs out from under you. It’s hot down there, and I guess the temptation after a day of hiking is just too much.

We have had three hikers come up out of the canyon and go off in the ambulance, exhaustion and heat prostration, and a father and son got into a fist fight over pizza at the deli and had to be escorted back to the campground by the NP Rangers. Our rustic paving and unlit stairs have caused two older folks to go off in the ambulance from falls.

The deli manager quit because he was wrongly promised he could cook, the head chef quit because the ordering dept didn’t buy enough food, and about a dozen of the folks hired to wash dishes and make the beds are gone, some because it is very hard work, and some because this just wasn’t their windmill to tilt at. One young man used the office computers illegally for surfing and now two are dead of a virus, and another was so drunk he nearly fell into the canyon in front of guests. And, most incomprehensible to me, another young man got drunk and defecated all over two of the sitting areas in the employee housing.

The public is here in droves, no slackening due to the weak economy here. Our cabins, and the campground are full every night and we continue to turn away people who have driven 150-300 miles without checking for availability. I have gone through 500 US postcard stamps, and 350 overseas stamps, and had to ink up my North Rim hand cancel stamp twice. I would guess that we have slightly more guests from Germany, some of them so glad to see a post office that they buy 45 or 50 stamps at a pop at 98 cents each. We have many guests on one end or the other of hiking from Rim to Rim, and many others who dress as though they are, but can hardly get up the hill to the parking lot at 8,800 feet.

Don’s post as the Front Desk Manager is proving very hard work for long hours. He has two assistants who are young and not very reliable, and a crew of 12 hardworking ladies who do a great job. This last week he has put in several 12 hour days trying to cope with loosing two computer stations and the ire of guests whose cabins are not cleaned by the promised 4:00PM. Nothing he can do about either, but staying and calming is important, especially for his “guest agents” who are mostly new to this.

The housekeeping staff problem is such a microcosm of the work world in the US. The job is an 8 hour day at $7.50 an hour. Room and board at $12 are deducted, and transportation to work and to town for shopping is provided. It is hard work, the cabins are supposed to be cleaned, beds changed, and supplies refilled in 12 minutes, which requires a lot of hustle. At the beginning of the season, folks from other departments were dragged in, and they were exhausted after a day of it. I know that Human Resources ( do humans come from a mine ?) is out trolling for more workers, but a voice in my head keeps suggesting that a good busload of illegal and grateful immigrants would be a solution.

My day is full of filling out forms, computing postage on packages and helping to tape them, and selling tons of stamps. It doesn’t sound like hard work, and a lot of people wish they had my job, but the truth is I am standing up and busy busy busy for most of the day, and often doing serious number work which does not come easily to me. I have no cash register and making change is sometimes a struggle when people try to help by putting in some change to “make it easier”. It is embarrassing. Most people have at one time in their lives had to deal with money, but not me. I do like the people meeting part, retired post office workers marvel at my tiny closet of a Post Office, people take my picture through the grating over the window, and I get to watch the endless parade outside as folks arrive, explore and leave. I get to practice my foreign languages, and joke and answer questions and generally be jolly and helpful which I enjoy.

Assualt on Walmart

2009-05-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

We head up to Page, AZ to stock up on food and necessities. I didn’t know what to expect, more high desert, maybe some pine highlands, but this drive up the east end of the Grand Canyon goes through some astonishing country.

This is the great Navajo reservation, a dry red dirt land that in its better areas will support sheep and cattle, but up this edge of the earthly pile up of two tectonic plates, there is one huge wall of toothy red rock after another, and in the valleys, drifts and piles of dangerously colored sands.

I described these colors in TX in terms of cooking, and these look like the piles of dry ingredients, flours, sugars, and spices that you put together in a bowl before mixing in the liquids. Or maybe the different powders in earth tones that are the raw ingredients of pottery glazes. It is other worldly, so barren of life that it makes me wonder if it is all mine tailings, but I know it is just the results of time and weather on the piles of rock and ash left by the volcanoes that vented here where the edges ran over the top of each other.

There are rickety open shelters in every turn out by the road where the Navajo sell to the passersby. Some of them lean as if into the wind, and most of them are empty this early in the year. The times I have stopped, most of the wares are strung beads, some rough pottery, and only very little of the silver work that I adore. The really outstanding new work and older pieces that I like don’t appeal to passersby, I guess. I sort of wish I could support them, life out here is pretty grim to my eyes, although the scenery is amazing.

We are driving up a valley that must have been cut by a stream that went elsewhere long ago, it isn’t the deep cut that practically every creek makes. We follow the impressive canyon of the Little Colorado for a ways, which doesn’t have the depth or colors of the big hole, but here the land is flat flat flat and then suddenly the canyon is there as if a knife was cutting a wobbly line into a sheet cake.

Further north, the ramparts of red get bigger and begin to have the same colored layers as the Grand Canyon, this section was just pushed up higher, and we come out into the Marble Canyon area, where the Colorado River first carved a great wide valley and then plunged the rest of the way down. As we climb up a wall of red rocks this great wide valley opens up, we can see the infant Grand Canyon and beyond, the Vermillion Cliffs that tower over to the north, another step in the kicked up sandstones of the Colorado Plateau.

Page is up on the top of this plateau, but has its own brand of wind whipped red rocks, here they are old , compacted sand dunes that still hold the ripples of ancient winds, and voluptuous rounded shapes. Our campground has a cliff behind it that swells up almost smooth to a crusty top, and around the corner the rocks look like giant red petrified cow flops. In the distance, the wild rocks of Lake Powell poke out of the water, a riot of colors and shapes that were a canyon and now are a boater’s paradise.

We pass boat dealers that have rows of enormous house boats for sale, some of them are 50-60 feet long and three decks tall! I had no idea that Lake Powell was so huge. I guess it has miles of rocky, spectacular inlets and coves to explore and stay in, fishing, swimming, driving small fast boats, big fast boats, and these stately house boats. I’ve seen pictures of this desert water fun. Maybe someday we can go see for ourselves.

Our job here is to buy enough food to last us all summer. Two hours in a Super Walmart. And $500 dollars later we have stuffed both fridges, and the small freezer with food, and the floor of the Airstream resembles a warehouse of canned goods, toilet paper, and paper towels. It is true that they run a van into St. George for shopping from the North Rim, but it is a 3 hour drive and another 3 hours back, so that’s 6 hours in a bumpy van with people that I don’t really want to spend that much time with. Seems like a terrible thing to do to a day off when you only get two every week. Besides, it’s kind of a stunt to see if you can survive that long without shopping. We do have meal privileges in the Employee Dining Room, but the food is pretty poor, and there are all sorts of temptations like cookies, brownies and worst of all, ice cream.

So now the last leg: we have to drive back over the sharp red ridge and down to the one bridge, Navajo Bridge. There isn’t another bridge for 250 miles south at Hoover Dam, and none for 100 miles north up in Utah at Cataract Canyon. The canyon is pretty much an infant here, we sort of hop over it on the bridge and then skirt the edge of the Vermillion Cliffs. These are less chewed on and eroded, more like a solid steep wall with the red and pale bands. They stretch for 100 miles as we work up a wide grassy valley, with the cliffs on our right. Over to the left rises the high forested plateau of the North Rim. The bridge was at 3752’, and we climbed slowly as the valley narrowed, then we headed for the Kaibab Plateau . Suddenly the rocks are covered, and there are ponderosa pines and grass , and we climb very steeply, diesels thundering, up to 7935’ at Jacob’s Lake. For everyone else, the road south into the park is still closed, and we meet one of our bosses there at the gate. The park itself is not open either, and we go through the locked gate and on through the wide parks still holding snow and big vernal ponds of snow melt, and finally to the North Rim, at 8325’. (Don’s GPS is on all the time telling us the altitude)

Feels good to be back here, a number of others have returned, but there is much to be done until the curtain goes up on May 15. [so much to be done, gently reader that this is kind of late…]

Grand Canyon-South Rim

2009-05-24T20:11:00.000-07:00

The canyon is the canyon, a vast sculptured reverse mountain of colors and crags, the South Rim is a different view of it, and the best part of this side is that it is madly developed, the great old lodge, El Tovar, all dark shingles,

the rustic Bright Angel Lodge and cabins,

and several other more modern accommodations. Many more people working here, maybe even 10 times as many, more snack bars, and more parking and way more people even on this early spring day. This is a theme park, well done but still a theme park.

The things I really came to see are the oldest buildings, especially those by Mary Colter. The Santa Fe RR and Mr. Fred Harvey were the big movers in developing the South Rim, and you can still take the train from Williams, today a vintage stainless Budd car train with a big silver diesel. We pass on what appears to be a featureless train ride from a scenery point of view, the only thing fun would be to see the interiors of the cars, big bucks for even a cheap ticket.

El Tovar predates the national park rustic, it is shingle style, but Bright Angel Lodges and the train station are all of logs. Mary Coulter’s four buildings are all of stone, meticulous copies of the Sinagua walls of local stone, unfinished rough and often with small elements that mimic ruins or even petroglyphs. She took seriously the directive that the buildings look as though they predated the white man.

Hopi house is a pueblo from the outside, complete with upper layers and ladders, and a few small windows. Inside it is full of gifts, but of a really high caliber including a lot of pawn silver that I long for.

Next, going west is the stone Fred Harvey gift shop, hanging over the edge of the rim, with two porches that let me feel safe enough to look over, except for a rock chimney; it could be an ancient dwelling.

All the way out west where you have to take a bus, is Hermit’s Rest. A small rustic stone guest house set into the hillside.

The center room has a fireplace that is a great 7’ arch, like Soleri’s naves, and two side rooms that were bedrooms. This quiet intimate little building is a treat, nice to imagine coming out here by van and being left in solitude for a few days.

The best of Mary’s buildings and really the best of the whole South Rim is her Desert Watchtower, all the way on the eastern end of the park part of the rim.

This stone tower and smaller rooms clustered at its base are on a height that gives you a view down the river and the canyon as well as toward the east where the Painted Desert and the canyon of the Little Colorado spread out.

The view from the base is wonderful, and the tower is a series of rooms, with small windows, and the inside walls are smooth cement that have been painted with all sorts of Hopi images, by Hopi artists.

It doesn’t duplicate any one ancient structure but is a sort of visual poem about Hopi art, with the canyon as art set in the walls too. I really liked it here, I love her tower, and I much prefer to see the canyon from inside a building. The invisible tentacles of the depths that reach up to pull me over the edge can’t get me in the tower.

Another aspect of the South Rim that is good is the length of roadway and the many stops along it. At the North Rim, there are only three or four views of the canyon that you can drive to, and they are not sequential. At the South Rim you can get a wonderful, ever shifting panorama of the differences in the canyon at the different view points.

We had a rather grand lunch at El Tovar, and snooped around the gift shops, but I didn’t feel that another day would have gained us anything. I certainly would neither walk nor ride a mule down the side of the precipice. I guess with money we would like a helicopter ride, I think I might have been OK with that, or maybe a raft ride.

We were given a list of books to read about the Grand Canyon so we can be helpful to the guests, one of them is called Death in the Grand Canyon. This is a compendium of every death from any cause in the canyon, the point being to analyze the whys and perhaps improve safety. It seems that most deaths are people being colossally stupid: hiking with no water, showing off by dancing on the very edge of the rim, taking short cuts, not wearing a life vest on the river. Being youngish and male is very dangerous. The book also has some interesting history, and I enjoyed that part, but really, reading about people dying in the depths didn’t help my feelings about the big hole one bit.

Arcosanti

2009-05-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

Due north of Phoenix, where the desert is still dry, but has begun to roll and tip and actually have creeks with water in them, a visionary Italian architect called Paolo Soleri bought a huge tract of land in 1970, and preceded to begin building a city.

There is a picture of my brother at my parent’s house, lean and bearded, leaning on a shovel in only cut off shorts and work boots. Behind him is an arch, and the whole picture is sort of bleached out, suggesting blinding sun and heat. My brother went to Arcosanti for a workshop with Paolo Soleri which was part seminars on his theories of city planning, and part working on the city.

In the visitor center there is a model of this city, some 5-6 buildings now complete are in grey, small on the edge of an arroyo, and behind them in white are huge curved shell like apartment complexes and open spaces and green houses and fields and, well a whole city, yet unbuilt.

The dream is a sort of compacted city that needs no cars, everything you need, work, play home, shop, is within walking distance. The vast waste of suburban yards and parking lots and roads and streets and highways is rendered obselete. It was an intriguing idea in the 70’s, and seems fresher today, at least in theory. Soleri makes no attempt to dictate behavior, only wants to provide the structure for a more ecologically thrifty way of living. He calls it Arcology, Architecture + ecology. He is still a successful practicing architect, modern, quirky, organic concrete shapes, and also supervises the making of ceramic and cast metal wind bells. The income from the bells, his work, and seminar fees was to pay the way for construction. Architecture students (including my brother), and seekers and hiders still come, 6,000 of them since 1970.

The tour takes us from the 4 story visitor center, hung over the edge of the arroyo, up stairs and down, past the naves, band shell like, that house the ceramics and casting operations,

the big double vault of the concert hall,

and the amphitheatre.

These all face the south, and behind them are living quarters, all fairly small.

There are lots of nice planting and Italian cypress, mature and a nice vertical accent to the naves.

We are instructed in the rudiments of Arcology, and the offerings of the workshops.

Paolo Soleri was born in 1919. He studied at Taliesin with Frank Lloyd Wright. Great ideas, a great style, and years of admirable work here, and at Cosanti the smaller Phoenix center.

And now ? The road in is rough dirt, the concrete of the buildings is showing it’s age. There is a sort of dreamy hopefulness about the place, but not a great fire of zeal and ambition. Unfinished projects are everywhere, steps half done. The bells are arty and sound good in the AZ wind, but how many bells will the market bear? Arcosanti was to be a laboratory for Arcology, testing, tweaking and demonstrating. I’m by no means in the mainstream or even a backwater of architecture or city planning, but Soleri’s ideas seem to be lost in the desert, a side bar in alternative living ideas. Maybe there aren’t enough hippies left. Well, we are all still here, but we are too old to take our sleeping bags off into the desert and work with cement, or cast bells. I did have a moment of wondering if I could do that, more out of curiosity about what it would be like, not a burning desire to change the face of urban society. The spaces that are here are well thought out, at least the part that we get to see, lots of different levels and nooks relieved by the big open public spaces. I really wish I could have seen a living space.

The ones designed for the resident architects and other important folks look very open and full of desert light, I suspect the others may be a little cramped. The site has a good view over fields and the rolling desert.

I wonder how such changes could ever be made, to get us to give up our cars and our yards and our possessions and the setting to display them. For one thing, our financial world depends on the selling of all this to us, and to the example of public display of wealth. We have a serious mess on our hands right now because of this insidious system. The homes in the suburbs that have choked our roads with cars are now emptying, the cars and their makers are in trouble. The tangles of roads are getting old and weak, the fumes are killing our protection from the blasting sun.

So much of what Soleri identified as dangerous is coming true, but can we live in a rabbit warren of small apartments ? Can we be content with just a few stores ? How will we know if we have succeeded in life ? And can we do this out in the Arizona desert ?
Alas, it seems faded, naïve. But I am really glad I finally got to see what my brother was up to out in the Arizona desert.

Sedona and Sinaguas

2009-05-24T17:41:00.000-07:00

We stopped into another ruin, Tuzigoot. This is high on top of a hill in the valley, a whole series of rooms spread over the high ground, with the highest giving a great view. Back in the 1930’s, when the bottom dropped out of copper, the WPA decided to excavate and stabilize this ruin to give the miner’s something to do, and it is pretty nifty to be inside one that has been much more restored than is considered proper today. There is a roof top and stairs up to it, and lots of cement work on the stones.

This is the upper end of the Verde Valley, where most of the Sinagua ruins lie, and although the Spanish name, without water, seems to indicate dry farming, they seemed to be near a pretty lush valley compared to the rest of AZ. They also raised and wove cotton in beautiful and intricate patterns.

The Grand Canyon where we are headed, and Zion and Bryce canyons are all holes cut into the vivid rocks that rose up as the Colorado plateau. As we drive north, there are hints of the colors to come in the road cuts, but at Sedona the wild west of rocks jumps up with a war whoop.

The towers and canyons are like another movement in the tone poems of Bryce and Zion, the same sequence of white tops, then bands of pink and orange and rust and wine. In Sedona, we can drive and built vastly expensive homes in the midst of this grandeur, one exotic tower and bluff follows another. Downtown is full of expensive shops and bistros, all built since the 80’s. I’m guessing the foreclosure rate here is pretty high.

The road heads north up spectacular Oak Creek Canyon and climbs 2000 feet through the layers until we are back on the top dusting of black volcanic rock at 6200 feet in Flagstaff’s back yard. The walls are dark, and the canyon narrow, with lots of places to tent camp or play in the creek. Although the views in Sedona seem to be a little better from the south, I think the canyon might be more spectacular going down in stead of up. That way you would be able to see the descent into the red rocks better. Steep windy roads seem to be the motif for this section of our trip, these would all be great sports car roads, but that doesn’t stop Don and the truck from pretending and roaring up the hills and blasting around the curves. He has a straight sort of widened tail pipe on his truck that makes a mighty roar that I would know anywhere.

The next day we learn that Don’s fridge needs only a new fan in behind. Because it is contained in a slide and can’t vent out the top, the heat exchange process needs extra help. We probably have been under achieving for a while, but didn’t notice until we were in 90+ heat. A new part will be sent to us, and we will have to deal with it later. In the meantime, it is cool enough that we are OK.

Now we are off to Williams AZ, to investigate how the folks on the South Rim handle the touristas.

Desert to Red Rocks

2009-05-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

Leaving Salome (pronounced without accent on the final e by the locals) we went off through the desert, flat with the slightly purple mountains scattered around. In Aguila, one of the huge canals turns this flatness into fields smelling wet and green. It’s a smell that non desert folk think of as normal rural smell, but after a winter in the high desert, it is nice déjà vu, if you can have that in a smell. Aguila is the world center of Cantaloupes.
Soon, our view is back to the sort of hopeless, raggedy rubbish filled house lots that are common out in the desert where there is no town to work at. Dead campgrounds, motels, shops, and gas stations, with one or two brave palm trees, all sort of shriveled by the summer’s heat.

Wickenburg is a much more prosperous place, a big town, and close enough to Phoenix to be civilized by folks with jobs and money. Up the road, in Congress, an Escapees park called North Ranch is home for three days. Escapees is a huge operation that runs a dozen or so parks all over the country, and also acts as a sort of support group for RVers, especially full timers and snowbirds. This park has a number of graveled sites for the travelers, and the rest is a sort of hybrid. You actually buy a lot outright, and some are large enough for a real house, others only just a trailer, or a more permanent park model or a modular home. Most of the lots are pretty spiffed up, a lot of serious desert gardening, cacti and succulents, and desert trees, and some are just paved. Nice place, and friendly people, but again, what would I do all winter if I stayed here ?

We do a little more geocaching, including a huge frog like rock painted up in green. Frogs in the desert ? I don’t get it. Prescott is our next stop, pretty much the gateway to the south side of the Colorado Plateau with its outrageous rock formations and canyons. We take a drive up and over a larger mountain range, not a road to take the RV;s over, and very spectacular as we rise up with the desert floor below us. We gain 1500 feet in altitude, and above this first range of mountains, it is cooler and must rain more, as there is grass, and wide open park like areas This is called Peeples Valley and appears to be entirely owned by one outfit called Maughan Ranches. There are a lot of horses, and some cattle, and lush grass, and miles and miles of expensive white welded metal pipe fencing. Clearly big bucks, and a really lovely valley.

I investigate Maughan, and discover that Rex Maughan, who made his stake money producing and selling aloe vera products, branched out into the resort business, and now is enormously rich, is the owner of Forever Resorts, the company that I will be working for at the North Rim ! His signature is on my pay checks. He supported Mitt Romney as a good Morman should, and was a buddy of James Watts, the not very eco-bambi friendly Secretary of the Interior. Rex sees no reason why folks touring the National Parks shouldn’t have good accommodations and good food, and believes the private sector is best to provide that. He also promoted smowmobiles in Yellowstone in the winter, not popular with us tree huggers, but since I think Yellowstone is mostly a theme park anyway, not a problem. Nice Ironic coincidence anyway.

The next mountain grade, a pretty scary road, takes us up to 6000 feet, and into the Ponderosa pines of the high mountains. We drop into the higher end of Prescott where the houses are perched on steep slopes, and come down into town. Prescott is kind of homey and self consciously western. It was established to be the capital of AZ, just a site chosen as near the bigger mining centers, although it lost that crown to Tucson and then to Phoenix. At the north end of town are piles of soft granite, pinkish enough to look like the classic western red rocks, and our CG is in the middle of these rocks that just might be a giant movie set.

The next day we pack up and take the RVs to Prescott, but not over the big grade, this time we go west, following the RR up a more gradual climb. Once we are parked, we discover that Don’s fridge is not cooling. Oh gloom. We transfer everything to the Airstream and to the small freezer in my truck, and hot wire it around the thermostat to see if it will cool. We are getting grumpy waiting and measuring, so we take off to see Montezuma’s Castle and Arcosanti.

The geology of this area is always surprising, north of Prescott, the top layer is dark volcanic and underneath that in the road cuts you can see the pastels of the sand stones, a first hint of the wild colors to come. We cross over into the Verde River Valley, where there is water and fields and the rocks are suddenly pale limestone, white or a little pinkish, and eroded and corroded wherever water has touched it. It reminds me of the Hill country of TX.

Montezuma’s Castle- is not Montezuma’s of course, but a cliff dwelling built by the Sinagua culture, pretty much contemporary with the other great cliff dwelling folks in the southwest. The first white men to see it, abandoned and crumbling, didn’t know their history or geography very well, but the name has stuck. The rooms are plastered up in a niche on the white, cottage cheesy limestone cliffs above Beaver Creek, which even now, in a drought, still runs by busily. They farmed, and made pots and grew cotton and wove that, and then in the 1400’s, for no one knows what reason, they disappeared. The modern Indians claim them, but there is no real proof. The castle is magnificent; we can only stand below, among the poetic white barked sycamores, and look up. Before 1951, visitors could climb ladders up into the rooms, but the safety of the people and the ruins was at risk. We know so little about these folks, I wonder what they feared enough to build this mud fortress up so high.

Down the road is Montezuma’s Well, a huge sink hole in the limestone with a great spring coming up and flowing out a side hole, over a million gallons a day that flows into Beaver Creek. Along its edges, more dwellings, some secure on the cliffsides of the sink hole, and others out on the bluff over the river.

Next day, we drive over the high road to Jerome. This is one of the few mining towns that has not turned into a ghost town, instead the main road winds through the cliff side town like an Italian mountain village. It had a huge copper mine in the early days, and somehow when the price of copper fell in the 1930’s, it managed to stay alive. The streets are lined with the usual tourist attractions, including many references to the good time girls that were often the only women in these rowdy mining towns. In Prescott, one whole side of the town square is known as Whiskey Row, with attendant pictures and risqué signs. It is indeed history, and I would like to know more of these ladies real lives, but buying the Tshirt doesn’t interest me.

Drifting North

2009-05-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

Drifting North

The wind blew hard from the west, driving us down out of the mountains and onto the desert where sand raced us down the highway.

There were folks out on the dunes riding around even in the cold wind. These sand warriors have special camping trailers with mini garages in the back to store their All Terrain Vehicles. They have ramps that fold down, and the back area is a sort of bunkhouse-garage. They park out on the sand with no hookups, and drive around. I never did that, and I must say I don’t see the point, except for the possible thrill of dangerous speed which has never tempted me.

First stop in Yuma a snowbird Mecca, and we are at a huge snowbird parking lot that passes for a campground. Most of the residents are gone, and they are herding up the picnic tables into tight stacks and trimming the palm trees down to a Dr. Seuss tuft on the top. I have no idea what proper palm tree care is, but it seems to be a pretty radical pruning. Maybe they stand the summer heat better ?

Being on the road feels good, although getting ready after sitting for 6 months is a lot of work. There are a myriad of little things that need to be put away and secured, and buttoned up, and my increasingly leaky brain needs a lot of time to remember them all.

The tire on the Airstream that developed a leak last year in Las Vegas was supposedly fixed by a tire place in San Diego, but still leaks slowly. I distrusted the false jollity and hard sell noisiness of the place just on principle. They have read some cheap how to book or attended a cheesy seminar about keeping business rolling, and I felt like they would bully me into new tires in a second. They also told Don they had put the requested 80 lbs in his truck tires, and when he checked they were at 65, so they flat lied about that. The sort of undertone of the place was that these old farts won’t know the difference so why bother ? It is difficult to find reliable repairs and service when we never stay still, and I sometimes think they see our SD plates and perform accordingly.

I spent the next day in bed fighting a cold, and then we headed north again.

Through Quartzsite, which is now a ghost town, a few trailers around, waiting out the snow storms up north, but a lot of the vendors are gone and so are their buildings/tents. They didn’t look like tents while we were there, wandering and poking around, but they must have been, since vast stretches of stalls and businesses are nothing but gravel. I’m glad I got to see it once, but like so many tourist destinations it’s more about shopping than anything else. I will admit that the people watching was pretty good, and the Kofa Mountains are still magnificent and strange.

We are now in Salome, AZ, in a very small park of elderly RV’s and even more elderly people. It’s clean, and the sites would be way too tight if there was anyone left here. A lot of industrious paint work on everything, including the trunks of the few trees. Cheap enough for the social security crowd, no pool, no activities, just miles of desert and the mountains.

The town was named for Salome Pratt, wife of a founder, who danced as the hot sand burned her feet. Also the hideout of Dick Wick Hall, a vintage humorist, who wrote a poem about a frog in the desert, so there are frogs everywhere.

Don took out his golf clubs for their annual exercise, and found some old friends at the spiffy golf resort up the road. They have a lot on the course where they park their big motor home and little red Jeep. Nice, but too tidy, too expensive, and what would I do all day ?

The toy to have here is a Quad, a 4 wheel all terrain vehicle. Everyone who winters here has them, and there are trails everywhere. Since AZ registers them as street vehicles, you can even go on the road, although going off into the great sandy nothing of the desert would be the best park, with the mountains all around.

We went out geocaching yesterday, in Don’s truck, and went down a dirt road and got stuck in the sand. His transmission, not 4 wheel drive, and engine make a powerful pulling machine, but have no low range torque, especially in reverse. We spent a hot hour digging and trying to get out of the hole, while I said a few Hail Marys, and lo, a nice young man in a red Jeep came and towed us out. Once out of the sand we got out in a hurry.

My Darling Daughter ran the Boston Marathon for the charity she works for, Community Servings. I am imagined her back in the huge mob, plugging away. I can’t imagine running for 4 hours, which at her amateur pace is how long it will take her. As a first timer, she just has to finish to be a star, and she is a star to me for even trying.

Desert Flowers Reprise

2009-03-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

I wrote last year about going to the Anza Borrego State Park to see the magic of the desert in spring bloom. We wanted to go again, and this time to take the Airstream off into the desert and stay for a few days. So we did.

The rains in December and January have greened up the whole county. Our campo (field) is lush now that the cows are in another place, and it now makes more sense that the Texas ranchers that settled this area would like the grazing. Even up in the desert there are mists of green on some hillsides, and water flowing in a few of the creeks and washes.

Still, it’s the desert: miles of flat sandy stony land with brushy shrubs, and spiky cactus, agave and ocotillo.

The ocotillo is a bizarre plant, also known as coach whip. Most of the dry times, it is a 7-8 foot high collection of straight up sticks with spines, a pretty brutal coach whip. The minute there is any rain, it gets covered with tiny round bright green leaves, and the tips have a long bunch of bright red tubular flowers that look like a red pennant. The transformation isn’t as dramatic as the juicy annual wildflowers because they appear out of nothing but sand, and run riot. But the ocotillo is a more visible example of what is dried up and dead coming to life.

We parked up a wash, ie dried up stream bed. They only get rain that would make it run every two years or so, and they did in Jan, so the marks of the rushing water are still visible. I would love to see a flash flood in the desert, rushing all brown and violent, hoping to catch something unaware. The weather is fine, so we drive on up to a wide spot. Going in here with a 29’ trailer is a little adventurous. We might get stuck in sand, as the truck, in spite of being 4 wheel drive, doesn’t have big fat tires, or we might never find a place to turn around. Nothing ventured though and we find a good wide spot. Mountains all around, and a silence that makes your ears ring, as though they are trying really hard to find something, anything to listen to.

I love this empty stillness. It is desolate, no man made thing to see or hear, no trees to speak of, and few creatures. Sitting in the morning sun beside the trailer, I see a humming bird, hear other small birds chittering now and then, and grasshoppers fly by once or twice. I just dream of nothing, my mind empty and cleaned. I have wanted to do this for so long, my trailer is designed for just this, and in spite of some new scratches in the shiny skin, it feels as though I have achieved something to be here.

We spent the first day revisiting the more accessible wild flower hot spots, which were a little passed, and the effect was diminished by a lot of green between the flowers. The green obscured the flowers some, but also made it less clear that the flowers came out of nothing, no top soil, nothing.

After lunch at an aging resort, we got in touch with some Airstream friends, Linda and Jack Laughlin, who have lived here in Borrego Springs (at least in the winter) since 1982. They spend much of the summer traveling in their exquisite small, ’56 Airstream that shines like the sun pulled by a terrific yellow 4x4 Chevy truck of the same 50’s vintage. They met us at the last rally, and when we mentioned we were coming for the flowers, they said to look them up. We did and yahoo!

We got the tour of tours of this enormous (600,000 acre) park. Down white sandy washes and along mud stone canyons and finally into the Borrego Badlands where we ended up on Font’s Point. From here you can see the distant mountains, and at our feet the wrinkled and lined eroded soft rocks winding and twisting around the washes. The mud stone is a tan color, the sediments that made it came from the ancient Colorado River when it was more of a sea most of the time.

The layers are a little different in texture, with rocks in it sometimes, but all of a color, and sharply defined by the setting sun. We sit in chairs and have cheese and crackers and wine as the sun sets.

Jack and Linda took us to places where

the sunflowers turned the sands yellow,

where hawks nested in a soft canyon,

where Indians moved stones out of circles to sleep in, where Patton trained his desert troops,

where the usually rare desert lilies were thick on the ground and fat with flowers, impossible plants in this dried up place.

We saw cactus starting to bloom,

and Linda and I ran from flower to flower, finding new ones and hooting with the fun of the hunt. What a day, what a day!

Jack and Linda

I know that this place is dreadful in the summer, daily over 100, often 110 or even 120 degrees, but I would like to feel that, to see the desert in that white heat. I would sort of like to live here for a year, to have citrus fruits in my yard, and feel the warm night wind.

Quartzsite and Slab City

2009-02-26T08:03:00.000-08:00

We took the Airstream off to a rally in Quartzsite AZ. This is a sort of pilgrimage site for RVers, and rock hounds.

In the mountains around here, old volcanic action has brought all sorts of interesting and valuable rocks up to the surface. Blessed with piles of possible riches, the rock hounds began to gather at the intersection of I-10 and Rte 95 in the winter to trade rocks. Surrounded by miles of desert, this small trading get together grew, principally because the combination of free or nearly free boondocking for miles around, and the good winter weather made it a natural for snowbirds. While some RVers prefer a resort with pool, full hookups, and all, there is a sizeable group that put solar panels up, and head off for the empty spaces. As soon as the numbers of customers grew, so did both the rock show followed by every imaginable vendor and flea market endeavor. Once the big RV dealers realized how many of us were there, either for the winter or just for shopping, they began to send fleets of RV’s to Quartzsite to sell.

So that is really it. Rugged mineral rich mountains all around, and a vast desert sprinkled with motor homes, fifth wheels and trailers. From a plane high up, it must look like melting snow bits. In the center, a disorderly tent city selling everything and anything. In the summer, the heat drives all but the leather skinned locals away.

One family of locals has collected bottles for years, cleaning up the desert and arranged them in an acre sized glass parterre garden, with beds of colored rocks.

Other yards have cacti, weathered stumps, and rocks, but nothing as interesting as this, another example of what people do to cope with the endless blank that is the desert.

Another oddity, the grave of Hadji Ali, or Hi Jolly as the locals called him.

In 1856, the Gumment decided that one possible way to cope with The Great American Desert was a fleet of camels. They hired a number of middle easterners, with Hi Jolly as head camel driver, collected 33 camels, and they all made a round trip Texas to California and back. The camels did their job well, but the horses, donkeys and mules of the army were terrified of the camels. I can imagine the pandemonium. The Civil War ended the experiment in 1864, Hi Jolly tried to do hauling with the camels, but eventually released them into the desert at Gila Bend AZ. Ghost camels in the sky.

We had a nice drive and hike in the Kofa Mountains, a wildly scenic pile of flash frozen eruption, it would be good to camp out here, and watch the light on the mountains change. Much more my idea of what to do in the desert.

On the way home, we stopped at The Slabs, another desert RV Mecca. Slab City, in Niland CA was a Marine Corps training base, long abandoned, only building slabs left, and now a winter squatter city of Rvers looking for free camping and laissez faire in the sunshine. We came to get an estimate on putting solar on the Airstream ( $$$$$$$!) and stumbled on Salvation Mountain.

This has to be one of the wildest examples of making your mark on the desert.

Leonard Wright was born near Burlington VT in 1931. He was in the army, held various jobs and in 1967 had a religious awakening. No established church was comfortable with his vision of the Lord, and one day a hot air balloon passed over Burlington. Leonard suddenly saw a huge balloon with the words of God on it as a way to reach people. He began to collect material and sew it together, drifting west in his van. Several attempts to inflate the balloon failed, and he eventually ended up at Niland, making one more heartbreaking try on the balloon. He decided to make a sign on the side of a hill, just a weeks worth of work, with cement and paint. That was in 1984, and he is still there. Using adobe and an ocean of donated paint, he has made Salvation Mountain. And next to it, The Hogan, and The Museum. Hay bales and tires and mud and paint, with trees inside, and car windows to let in the light, all in a riot of colors, adobe flowers laid on.

He lives in an old truck, with bible verses painted all over it, there is a car, a vespa, a tractor a school bus and even an Airstream, all painted with verses. He seems to sleep in a swing with a thatch of cloth strips.
I didn’t see Leonard, but the work is arresting, vibrant, primitive and idiosyncratic. It reminds me of the Bread and Puppet group, low tech, high spirited, and utterly outside of the world of “art”. The mountain is not satirical and irreverent like B&P, at least in content, but it is a great and glorious shout in the face of the establishment. The local establishment did in fact try to shut it down with bogus toxic waste tests, hoping to somehow charge money for the use of the free campground. Now Salvation Mountain is a National Folk Art treasure. Bring paint if you can.

Cleaning

2009-01-10T21:05:00.000-08:00

My second most important job on the Christmas trains is cleaning. Not easy anyway, but also fraught with all sorts of issues.

Since the people who come on our Polar Express show trains pay $30 per adult and $20 per non lap child, it is my feeling that they should be seated in cars that are clean. Our passenger cars are all about 1925 vintage, so they show their age. The floors are particularly difficult since they are cement and the ground outside is coarse grit. This literally acts like sandpaper, especially when it rains.

Last year, I tried to clean with brooms and the museum’s vacuum cleaners but the vacs have been mistreated, and always need new filters or bags which can’t be found. There is no nearby electricity in any case. So I went out and bought a sort of compact sized shop vac, and now I drive my truck with generator on the tailgate up and down the “consist” of cars ready for the Xmas train.

One day my visiting daughter ( nice hostess…) swept two of the cars, filling the dustpan. I later was told that they had already been cleaned. I really got disgusted by this. The person who supposedly cleaned must have done what I call zombie cleaning. Mostly practiced by men, this involves moving the cleaning tool in the general vicinity of the dirty area and assigning a random amount to time to continue doing this. Then, in their minds, they have cleaned. Any cursory inspection of the area will reveal plenty of debris, dust and perhaps Leggos that have been left behind. In the case of the RR cars, the debris included 10-15 brightly colored jelly beans, 5 paper wrappers, 4 crumpled napkins, a lost sleigh bell, enough cookie bits to make 2 or 3 whole cookies, and plenty of just plain sand.

And then there is zombie mopping. This entails a big yellow janitor bucket and a disgusting string mop. Since getting a clean bucket of water to the train is a good 50 yard trek, and the attached wheels are useless in sand or on a train, the technique involves getting the first 10 feet fairly clean, then after than the water is as dirty as the floor, soon dirtier, and the string mop spats dirty water over the lower 4” of the cream colored wall. And leaves brown puddles in all corners.

Since the people in charge of this production either literally can’t see the dirt or avert their eyes so they don’t have to deal with it, I should just go along with their standards of clean, and avert my eyes too. In truth, the cars are boarded at dusk, the ride is in the dark, and the cars are dimly lit to conserve their batteries. The passengers are all over excited, get entertained in various ways, and probably don’t even look at the floor. “ They’ll never see it from the second row” is what you say in the theater when someone is fussing over tiny details.

But no. I apparently am still burdened by that scourge of womanhood: you are how you clean. Good Housekeeping seal of approval, Martha Stewart, and legions of (mostly) male run corporations that sell us the tools and chemicals, have ganged up on me, and brainwashed me.

I also get disgusted that a number of people actually put in a lot of time and energy on zombie cleaning, get praised and generally pat themselves on the back. Not that they don’t applaud my work, but it all seems incredibly Sysiphisan and torturous.

I wonder if I am being like the Dutch housewives that go out and scrub down their front steps every day. Do they still do that?

My personal living space is usually not ready for Martha Stewart, a certain amount of clutter from projects not finished, or left out as a reminder. After a full day of work, I’m not about to start cleaning. The small size of even Don’s palatial 5th wheel is pretty easy to keep clean, even though there is no “mud room”, and the Airstream can be spit shined in an hour. But if I know someone is coming, especially if I don’t know them, then I kind of go into a frenzy of cleaning, probably a displacement activity for being a little nervous about what they will think of me.

First impressions, the book’s cover, we do tend to make at least a preliminary judgment on the worth of a person by their clothes, their car, their personal hygiene, and sadly how clean their house is. I guess that is why I really want our funky train museum not to flunk its inspection.

Unto Caesar

2008-12-26T14:59:00.000-08:00

“And Jesus answering said unto them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marveled at him. “ Mark 12:17

Apparently, there was a tax rebellion going on at the time, and the inquisitors were hoping to trap Jesus and arrest him for tax evasion. But Jesus, always good at thinking on his feet, gave them an ambiguous answer. His words have been used as an excuse for civil disobedience of all kinds, and as a vague scriptural support for the separation of church and state.

An ad on the TV says one of this season’s “cherished traditions” is getting a good deal on a Hyundai auto. Cherished tradition? I have never known anyone who gave or received a car for Christmas, and would like to believe that it doesn’t happen at all. And for that matter, a great deal of the things we might buy someone for Christmas seem way over the top of what most of us can afford or should spend. I have always felt this way, and this year with greed and grasshopper short sightedness about to bring the economy down on our ears, it seems almost obscene to be enticing us to buy something we surely don’t need nor can we afford. Maybe the bank will give us another loan, or we can just put it on our credit card.

It would be so good if we could put the brakes on. Give a token of love and joy, eat and laugh together. I love the idea of Operation Heifer, and other goodly ways to spend for good. I have come close to just telling people that their present this year is a chicken for someone in Africa, but it sounds sort of sanctimonious, and if they buy you a real present, they probably expect something back, not high mindedness. It is difficult to change the course of traditions, and difficult to ignore the disappointment of those who want loot. Maybe if there was at least a homemade ornament for the tree as a token.

I have run away from my family Christmas back in Massachusetts. I miss the people, but the event itself was an exhausting production: way too many nerves about how presents given would be received, were they enough? And presents received required heartfelt enthusiasm, no matter how thoughtless the gift. The tree took all day to decorate, the meals took all day to cook, even if shared. Ate too much, drank too much, and then that hollow 8 year-old feeling: is that all there is?

In one of the Little House on the Prairie books, Pa goes to town just before Christmas, gets caught in a blizzard, and finally staggers in with, I think, an orange for each of the girls. I remember being astounded that an orange would be a big deal, and that those girls had only the smallest expectations of presents. Having Pa home safe was supposed to be the real present. As a probably 11 year-old, it struck me that it was sad that was all they got, but there was a lingering wistfulness about being content with an orange instead of visions of sugarplums and piles of presents.

Caesar would have us spend, that he might tax us. It was his decree that sent Joseph back to Bethlehem to be registered and taxed. The overcrowded Bethlehem mall had no parking and so Mary was stuck with a stable.

In this rather nerve racking season, I wish you all the peace and quiet you need, as much food and family as you think wise, and the hope that we can avoid rendering too much to Caesar in the coming year.

Trains Redux

2008-12-15T07:54:00.000-08:00

We are back, all hooked up and ready to play with the trains. My job in the Display building has been taken over by a new set of workampers. She runs the museum and he does mechanical work, plus other odd jobs. This means I finally get to do what I really wanted, fixing stuff! I still have to help out in the museum; we took down and stored all the Halloween decorations.

First I cleaned and painted a wall and helped install a new ice machine in the lunchroom, then scraped rust and old paint off a vintage baggage cart. We then put it back together which involved muscles and tools, and I think I have earned my overalls.

The main restoration project is known as the Jim Crow car. This is an old (1885) wooden car with fancy moldings, red velvet seats, pressed, colored glass eyebrow windows. It is technically known as the R&S Combine car, R&S for the Mississippi rail line it served on, and combine because the original all passenger seating was altered to have a baggage section. The really big deal is that the passenger seating is segregated, with an area set aside for black people, and doors in between. Hence Jim Crow. It is a handsome artifact all by itself, and with the added history, it is even more interesting.

It has been the object of hard work for several years, and the outside has new paint. My job is to grind off the old paint and rust from the railings on the front and rear platforms, using a small grinder with a stiff wire brush. Lots of noise and dirt, whoopee !

Don and I are replacing the big rubber weather bumper on one car, well, reattaching it actually, and then there are the new O rings on the solenoids on the smaller diesel engine, “The Goat”.

Last week, we hired an expert to come and put our new wheels back on our fanciest car, known as 1509. This is a vintage Pullman bar and dining car, fully restored with a shiny stainless bar, comfy chairs and sofas, 8 dining tables and an epic kitchen. The centerpiece of the kitchen is a wood burning stove, and lots of stainless counters and cupboards all the way to the roof. Not much floor space, more than two cooks would have to be pretty friendly. I had never seen inside this snazzy car because it was up in the air on jacks awaiting new wheels.

The process sounds simple, until you realize that each wheel/axle set weighs 1500 lbs. Three of these wheel sets had to be removed from and replaced in the trucks ( that contain the brakes, springs etc). The trucks themselves weigh 10,000 lbs. We have a big gantry crane on tracks that picked these up. Now for the car: It is 83 feet long and weighs 85 tons !!!! Too much for the crane, so we use massive compressed air jacks, running the big diesel engine for the air pressure. Clearly, a project not to be undertaken lightly. Our imported expert does this all the time, the RR buffs in attendance were in awe. Now, a few more tests on the brakes and 1509 will ride the rails with Santa.

You can learn more here:

http://www.sdrm.org/roster/passenger/din-1509/index.html

and here for pictures http://www.psrm.org/events/rentals/private-cars/

The main push now is to get all the cars ready for the Polar Express trains. I have decorated and cleaned, the costumes are ready and pretty soon elves and cookies and cocoa will appear along with Santa and Mrs. Claus!

Usually, we go east to a place called Miller’s Creek where a lit up Santa’s Village is placed by the tracks, Santa and the Mrs. waving to the train. We get on board and visit as we ride back with very excited kids and grownups. This year we have to find a new place to put the “North Pole” as a trestle to the east is deemed unsafe.

The whole production takes a lot of time and work, it is our major source of funds.

Alas, the workamper couple has left, they decided the disorganization was not to their liking, plus for the lady, not much to do out here. This means I am back in the Museum all day Saturday and Sunday. Very boring, and I can’t do the fixit projects. I do enjoy showing the train stuff to the visitors, but playing in the car barn is WAY more fun.

Another couple is on their way, will be here right as we start the Polar Express. I hope they like it here.

Out the window, the tan grasses have matching cows grazing. They are supposed to be Charolais, but instead of the normal white they range from caramel to chocolate and blend in perfectly. Four coyotes crossed the field, only visible when they moved. There must have been some rain while we were gone, the sagebrush is tall and healthy and lots of birds are feasting on the seeds. We are still in shorts although the nights get down to the 40’s.

The smell of bruised sage, by wind, by rain, by touch has become a permanent motif. After my first trip west, 50 years ago, I made a little pillow of sage leaves that I crushed and buried my nose in when I felt sad. Now, I only have to step out the door.

North Rim to Campo

2008-11-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

We left the North Rim, dropping down off the high Kaibab Plateau with the great colored cliffs ahead of us, and then paralleled them heading west through Fredonia. Colorado City is on this route, where the polygamous breakaway sect of the Mormon Church hides out. An innocent enough town, and perhaps I was imagining it, but the houses did seem a lot larger that one would expect out here with no visible means of support, room for all those wives, I suppose.

Just before Hurricane, we dropped down steeply into the Virgin River Basin. This is pretty much the edge of the great Colorado plateau uplift, and therefore an angry rough place. Not only does the river continue to carve as it did in Zion, but the fault at the edge of the plateau has had upheavals and splits and volcanic action. A wild place geologically, the edges of the fault rear up like the plates on a stegosaurus, the sedimentary sandstone with its bands of color get twisted and tossed, and everywhere the black volcanic rocks lie in boulders, in heaps or in congealed flows.

Hurricane got its name when Erastus Snow, an important early LDS leader, had the top of his buggy blown off, and decided to name the place Hurricane. In 1904, water from the rivers was diverted into irrigation, and the mild climate made this area a fruit-growing center.

Here we pick up I-15, and through St. George UT where volcanoes, and faults and the Virgin River have the land in an uproar, it descends the Virgin River Gorge. The river has cut through the same rocks as seen in the Grand Canyon, and this highway, one of the most expensive ever built, dives and careens through a sort of IMax version of the Grand Canyon. Next time, I would like to stop in the middle, but as it is an Interstate, I have to pay attention to the road and not goggle. I CB to Don that this is much better than a mule ride !

We drop down onto the Mojave Desert. Miles of flat sand and creosote bushes, with the naked brown volcanic mountains popping up, looking huge until we drive close. The Virgin River goes south and ends up in Lake Mead. Little of it is left to join the Colorado River.

We come over a ridge and there, deep in smoke and smog is the skyline of Las Vegas. It looks like something out of Mad Max movies, Sci-Fi wild cities that sprang up after the nuclear holocaust, powered by methane from pig manure, and inhabited by a wild and woolly bunch of survivors. Not a tempting sight, and soon we are crashing along I-15, dodging construction and zoomy traffic. I can only glance at the towering hotels, more being built as older ones are torn down. Mostly they are just very tall and sandy colored with gold windows and faux Palladian windows, temples and palaces plopped on the top. How could there be so many people coming here that they need all that space?

The best building is the enormous black glass pyramid of the Luxor hotel. It squats there among the other hotels with a lot of drama and portent, sparkling in the hot sun, like a huge alien ship.

Our campground is suitably splendid, a vast marble and gold lobby, avenues of palms trees, several pools and miles and miles of roads. Right by I-15, it is pretty noisy, especially in the cheap sites in the back. As I get out I notice one of the Airstream’s tires is flat.

When I replaced the old, mismatched truck wheels with aluminum wheels, I got new lug bolts too. That’s right lug bolts, not lug nuts like everyone has today. The bolts are way deep in the holes, and a regular socket can hardly get enough purchase to grab them. So I knew I was in trouble, and also knew that we had to get them off and not trust some hot head wrench monkey at the local tire store.

All this put a damper on our Vegas fun. We did go out to eat with a friend of Don’s and his wife, driving up and down the strip in the dark with all the wild lights and garish architecture flashing and trying to seduce us. I hope I can come back, it was hardly a taste of one of the strangest places on earth.

Finally, we got a socket and Don filed it down enough to get a grip on the bolts. We could find no hole or nail, so we aired it up. The stupid thing has held air ever since. Hard to understand, I must have hit a bump just right to let the air out and then it resealed itself.

So we boiled out of town, headed down through more high Mojave desert, past Barstow where a Harvey house station languishes, and several rail lines come together, over the Cajon pass, littered with volcanic granite in every possible size, and down into the Moreno Valley. Lots of dairy and market gardens. Our stop over is at the edge of an upscale development, with a huge diary farm next door. A nostalgic odor for me, not so nice for non farmers, I’ll bet.

From there to Campo the next day was a rather rattling reintroduction to California Interstates. We know where we are going, so it’s not too bad, wish there were back roads, but the big mountains all over the place sort of prevent that. We all have to rush along in torrents of cars and trucks in the valleys in between. Finally, we turn off “the 8” as I-8 is known and come down through the bony mountains to our same spot at the RR Museum. Feels sort of like home.

Hiking Boots

2008-11-05T17:07:00.000-08:00

The Uber hike here is called the Rim to Rim. This involves hiking down from one side of the Grand Canyon, spending the night at Phantom Ranch and then hiking back up out again. It is 22 miles of steep walking, and much of the trail is narrow and rocky. As the crow flies, it is only 14 miles, but what with 5,000 some feet of drop and then back up, I imagine you would have to be in pretty good shape. In addition, the actual altitude of the bottom is 2650 feet above sea level, so both rims, especially the north rim 8200’ are pretty high up. Some completely crazy extreme hikers do the whole thing in one day !

Like any National Park, there are lots of other hikes of varying difficulty and length. One called the Bridle Path, the old mule trail when the mules came right up to the lodge, is easy enough for me, and I often walk it back to the trailer instead of taking the employee shuttle.

What struck me was that dressing as though you had just done, or were about to do, the Rim to Rim was the thing. There were new hiking boots everywhere, and shorts with many pockets, and hats and packs and walking sticks and poles. Maybe all this made me feel sort of old and overfed, but I am sure that at least half of these people could not have walked 5 miles at this altitude, let alone the hard trails. But there they all were, REI, Cabellas, and LL Bean to the teeth.

The day trippers off the bus are not dressed like this, of course. They come in with their heads full of Zion or Bryce, scuttle through the lodge to look at the canyon, have a meal, buy postcards and stamps, mail them and then climb back on the bus. Many of them were from overseas, and many fairly well aged. Three times while I was there, people felt short of breath and had the EMT Rangers in, and one night three folks were helicoptered out with altitude sickness.

I watched all this through the metal grill over my Post Office window.

Many people are amused by the heavy metal bars and the rustic wooden sign : North Rim Post Office, 86052. Retired postal workers stop by to sort of check in, wondering what it would be like to work out here. They are amazed by my total lack of modern postal equipment, only a digital postal scale, all the rest is historically accurate for say 1950. Pretty Jurassic. Mostly I sell post card stamps. In my 5 weeks there, I sold nearly 1,000 27 cent postcard stamps, about 1/3 as many overseas post card stamps. I hand canceled at least 150 postcards a day. People often asked me to hand cancel, and would hardly believe that I had no choice. The cancel marking says North Rim CO, standing for Contract Office. That is how a greenhorn like me gets to play postal worker, as this seasonal Post Office is under contract with the concessionaire company that runs the Lodge, the cabins and the restaurants.

My initial nerves over the job gradually faded, although on a busy day it was pretty frantic to get all the paperwork done and the mail ready for the pick up. Way too many details and multitudes of opportunities to get things wrong. The girl I replaced had done it for 2 years and while she was training me, she did everything at light speed, and talking just as fast. I was sure I would never learn it all.

The last day, when my boss at the Fredonia AZ post office came to tally me up and take the important stuff and the stamps and money, I was a bit nervous too. But she was really complimentary and pleased with me, how fast I had learned it and how few mistakes I made. Very gratifying to have learned so many new tricks so fast.

We have really enjoyed our brief stay here, and before we left we filled out applications to return next summer for the whole season. It is partly for the money, but also we like the climate and the isolation. In these uncertain times, it seems smart to have a paying job for a change. Working at the Front Desk and the Post Office are really a better fit for our computer and mental skills, painting all day in the hot sun was hard work.

The end of the season is sort of sudden. On Wed Oct 16, it’s all over. No more rooms, no more food. The ice machines are all turned off, the cabins deep cleaned or stripped out for renovations. We had signs up that the Lodge was closed, but people still came in. Soon it will all be locked up, even the bathrooms and the gift shop, visitors can go out on the edge and look at the canyon, but no other services. The vans are driving the employees off to meet the bus in St. George, and soon only a handful of people will be here. Two couples will spend the whole winter out here, snowbound sometimes. To get to town will be an all day snowmobile ride, then another 40 miles or more in their car or truck.

Not for me, we are off down the road, heading south.

Grand Canyon

2008-10-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

First, the canyon. It is enormous, not only the main channel of the mostly invisible Colorado, but every side stream has made its own contribution. The high points are raw rock, and farther down eroded sand spreads like skirts, pale green and then almost ruffly then dropping off steeply. There is no where near the colors of other great rock spectacles , some dull reds, and high up paler. The layers are visible, but there is a lot more vegetation than I expected. Perhaps in sunrise or sunset the colors would be stronger. The sheer size is monumental, and the drop off is terrifying. The standard short walk out to Bright Angel Point is a nice paved path, with what feels like thousands of feet of drop on each side. I make it halfway out and decide no view is worth the terror. To my chagrin, lots of others go on by, immune to the call of the deep.

At first look, from the open deck of the Lodge, it seems it must be painted on a scrim. Too familiar to be real, so iconic that when we are faced with the real thing it is some how less real , sort of faded. Several prescribed fires are burning on the South Rim, 14 miles away, and the smog of pollution make most of the distant walls of the canyon a misty blue. Maybe the old photos are what I remember, taken before the air was so dirty.

The Lodge sits right on the edge of Bright Angel canyon, somewhat to the north of the main channel, at 8280’. Only the stone work is the 1928 original, a disastrous fire in 1930 took the rest and one or two of the rustic log cabins. In 1936 the lodge was reopened, rebuilt in classic NPS rustic style, big logs, big stones, local material. Iron work is bold and hand wrought, and the inside has enormous Indian rugs. Outside, around a central court are shops and food, and beyond that, the log cabins that are the only lodging available.

We are here to work. It has been over a year since we were gainfully employed. We understood that we might do almost anything, and so far I have learned to run the telephone switchboard and radio base, then the next day, to work the computer check in check out at the Front Desk. Gasping for breath from altitude and too many new things, the third day I ended up in the Post Office, with a whole nother pile of things to learn: forms, procedures and heavens, making change! How did I get this old and never have to make change? I was exhausted for the first week, tense from trying to get things right, especially the complicated accounting rigmarole. Now, two weeks later, I’m feeling reasonably relaxed and competent.

Although this side of the canyon is quieter than the South Rim, there are still plenty of people coming to see the big hole. By car, and by bus loads, sometimes just for the day (madly rushing from one must see to the next) and sometimes for the night or for two. I would guess that at least 1/3 of the folks are European. That’s only based on the post card stamps I sell, nothing scientific. We have 218 cabins for them, no TV, no Internet for them, and only one nice gift shop. The cabins pretty much date back to the era when people came here in open touring cars, swathed in protective veils as though on safari in deepest Arizona. I get the impression that people are a little surprised by having to live rustic. We are almost always booked solid, and at the desk we get a constant stream of people who drove all the way out here, a good 50 miles south of another motel, without checking first.

It’s 150 miles to Walmart in St. George, UT, and other forms of civilization, so although there are plenty of people here, 200 +/- employees in dorms or RV’s, it is still pretty remote. They run a shuttle bus for us to go shopping, although I am still on supplies from Price UT. Don’t want to waste a day off doing that.

We like working here, the majority of the other workers are still cheerful and pleasant even though they have been here, dealing with the public, since April. This maybe a corporate personality, as this is run by Forever Resorts now, who got the NPS concession here away from Xanterra, a not so pleasant outfit. We are actually considering coming here for next summer to work the whole season. It’s a good fit for our skills and lifestyle, and we need to watch our pennies for a while.

There seem to be two classes of workers at this and other NPS resort facilities. There is us, the retired RV crowd who have the management and guest handling jobs. The physical work, housekeeping, bag handling, cooking jobs seem to be college age drifters who often have no car and go from one park job to another with the seasons. They live in dormitories and eat at the EDR (employee dining room). Many of them are smart, and well educated, but prefer this lifestyle. At the bottom of the ladder, locals and imports who do the most menial work. Many of the lower two groups are from overseas, here on a work visa, and here a number of Navaho. Judging by the number of workers who have moved on from the lower ranks (I have to forward their mail), there must be a pretty high turnover. Many of those who go from park to park have adapted to the isolation, which we like, but for some the lack of shopping or anything to do is a problem.

Until today, the weather has been perfect, high 60’s and sunny during the day, low 50’s at night. Now, in the first week of Oct, it has turned chilly and wet, high of 44 today and rainy, and more for tomorrow. At this altitude, snow is a very real possibility, but we only have two more weeks and then we bolt for sunny southern CA.

Rocks

2008-10-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

Our route from Rapid City begins by going over the southern end of the Black Hills, and over the rolling grasslands of WY. At this time of year, most of the land looks like the fur of a Steiff Teddy Bear. I watch this roll on by, daydreaming as I drive. As the rocks come out more often, and as the road cuts and bluffs begin to show the colors of the past layers, I wonder about their history in an idle way. Looking at rocks, picking up rocks and saving them for a while is something I have a habit of doing. Later, I find them and can’t identify them or where they came from, so I leave them behind. I guess I am a sort of miniature glacier.

As we work our way southwesterly, past the badland hills of Rock Springs, we are heading for the wildest rock show in the west, maybe even in the world. And as we get further into it, I get more and more determined to learn more about these rambunctious rocks.

Flaming Gorge-Coming at this big reservoir from the east, the flaming part is not as obvious, but once you drop down into it and drive across the big dam, you can see the red rocks. This is the Green River that cut down through the layers into the red ones, and created a canyon that is now flooded. Still pretty spectacular from a pure scenery point of view, and as we look back, it is clear there has been some underground excitement here. Instead of the horizontal layers of different colors that we will see in the next three canyons, here the layers are kicked up at an angle, and cut and torn where the edges broke away from their long sleep.

Briefly and so over simplified as to horrify a geologist, there was a huge sea here, and later big lakes. Silt, tiny animals and plants, and later blowing sand formed layers and under the weight of what was added later became rock. As the solid top plates of rock floated island-like on the liquid layers below, they collided. Some times causing a great tipping up, sometimes just raising up a whole huge section thousands of feet as one mass slid under another. These restless edges are an easy exit for volcanoes, and a likely place for earthquakes too, and there will be newer mountains of fresh rock, layers of ash, and evidence of the violence of a sudden upward thrust.

The Colorado Plateau is a huge uplift of the old striped sea/ lakebed. At its edges, you can see theses layers clearly, and anywhere a river starts working on it, these layers get brought out into daylight with astonishing results. Each layer has a name, and somewhere a detailed and jargon filled description of what it contains and what its personal life has been like. All I really care about is why are they all those wild colors?

Bryce Canyon- Not really a canyon, this is actually the eastern side of a wide valley. Water has chewed away the layers in an idiosyncratic way here. On the top, a fairly tough skin, and below that, vanilla ice cream and orange sherbet. The top skin has kept some parts protected, but the rest has “melted” into a 50-60 mile bewildering field of dribble castles, mini mesas, gothic tombs and deep folds. The pillars are called hoodoos, to rhyme with voodoo, because it is too spooky and colorful to be natural. A rancher who settled in the valley below, apparently immune to the spectacle, said” It’s a hell of a place to lose a cow”.

On to Zion, we are dropping down the stairs of the uplift, along the Sevier River valley. On our left, “Pink Cliffs (Bryce is part of this layer), Gray Cliffs, White Cliffs, Vermilion Cliffs and Chocolate Cliffs. Apparently, the most vibrant colors happened in the lake time, as rivers washed minerals in. Iron, oxidizing or under pressure, makes the nearly tomato red, manganese the purple, sulfur-yellow, copper-green. After following the river bottom a ways, we turn west and begin to climb.
Zion is a really truly canyon,, and we are approaching the rim at 6200 feet. The Virgin River that carved it is down at 4,4,00 feet. The 1928 road in from the east drops gradually and then goes through a tunnel with portholes that we can’t stop at anymore and then a series of tight switchbacks. Any vehicle taller than 13’1’’, or over 40’ long can’t make it at all, and many can only go with the road closed one way ($15) so they can go in the middle of the tunnel. Another example of an engineering marvel built at great expense just for us tourists.

There are three major layers here in Zion: a thin soft bit of the same orange as Bryce, which sits at the top, in a few places. Next, the major layer ranges from white to red in soft swirls that are not always parallel, nor equal in hardness. Instead of the deposits of salt sea or freshwater lake, sand dunes drifted here once, blown by winds that carried slightly different colored dusts. The upper part, mostly white, has washed into shapes like an upside down cow’s udder sometimes, especially at checkerboard Mesa. In other places it looms like a citadel.

Down at the bottom, the lowest layer is deeper red, harder yet which means the bottom is darker red, and narrows to a slot canyon. Since most of the canyon is one type of rock, the sides are nearly vertical, only at the top do the domes form. Cathedrals, a city of window-less, door-less temples. One of these, with a flat top, is called Angel’s Landing, a heli-pad for Gabriel. There is a hiking trail all the way to the top, which makes me shudder to think about.

The river, a creek really, burbles and splashes innocently at the base of the sheer cliffs, and people take off their shoes to paddle. You can even hike up further, walking in the creek with the right shoes. Rain water that fell up above thousands of years ago seeping thought the porous sandstone, drips out of the rocks and flowers have found a foothold there, yellow columbine, red penstamon.
I imagine what the spring thaw is like in here, the river showing its teeth, red brown with silt, throwing boulders and sticks. A good thunderstorm will make the river do this too, making a deadly trap for hikers. Still, it’s hard to under stand how this pretty stream could make this city of cliffs and temples and white topped towers. Its scale is portentous, and the early mostly Mormon settlers named the peaks: The West Temple, Altar of Sacrifice, Towers of the Virgin, The Four Prophets and the Great White Throne. Maybe the Virgin River had some divine help.

The Very Un-Ranch

2008-09-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

We have spent nearly a year away from campgrounds for any length of time. At the RR museum in Campo CA, we had two neighbors, at Pocket Creek, we had none. Now we are back at Hart Ranch Camping Resort which is a mini city of big motor homes and big white trailers. The 460 sites are large and well spaced, everything is green grass or paved, trees, the monster pool, 6 Laundromats and 6 “comfort stations”. This is a 5 star resort, probably one of the top 10 camping resorts in the whole USA. And I don’t like it.

Way too many people, and I feel as though I am always under inspection. Everything has wheels, but it might as well be suburbia. There are as many rules as a homeowner’s association, and a security patrol and lots of nosy neighbors to enforce them. Heaven for people who are afraid that “camping” might be too rustic and uncomfortable, or that RVing is too close to trailer trash for comfort. Maybe I am imagining it, but I feel a sense of competition here, which I don’t like. Smells like rat race to me. Plus everyone here is old………

Along with that, some friends are no longer here, and there have been two disastrous attempts to hire a new resort manager, leaving us back at the mercy of a woman who technically knows how to run the place, but is rude and abrasive and plays favorites. This is not a good thing in the hospitality world, and hard on the employees. Since I have never just vacationed here, but always worked, I have a very different knowledge of the back stage workings. Back stabbing, political maneuvering and bad behavior are always going on in large organizations, but it seems to be running wild here. Maybe those who are just playing here don’t even realize the drama that has gone on. I was treated very rudely by the fall back manager, which hurt me more than seems sensible. This is supposed to be “home”, whatever that means.

We are here for our annual check ups, and to order up our absentee ballots. All that is done, we have passed all this with flying colors. It has been rainy and cold, too nasty to go geocaching or even touristing.

Today, we drove up into the Black Hills in the rain anyway, there has been lots of rain here all summer, so everything is very green. The rocks are dark with the wet, and sharp and shattered and tipped by forces more dramatic than the slow, soft erosion of the sand rocks of the Yellowstone Valley. We are aimed for Pactola Reservoir, which holds back Rapid Creek. In 1972, a thunderstorm sat up here in the mountains and dumped 17” of rain in 4 hours. Rapid Creek tore the heart out of Rapid City that day. Now, what was destroyed has been replaced by beautiful parks and recreation areas all along the creek, so the gutting has been good in the long term. The reservoir has a huge dam to keep this from happening again, but for the last two years of drought, it has been shrinking. Now it is full, marinas where there were grassy mudflats, surrounded by mountains, and even on this cold rainy day, there are two boats out fishing.

Tomorrow, we will hitch up and head for the Grand Canyon, north rim. We met the HR guy for the concessionaire at the North Rim Lodge at a workamper job fair last winter, and he said he loses a lot of his workampers after Sept 1 and so we are headed there to work for pay for 6 weeks. We have no idea what we will be doing, working in the store, at the front desk or in maintenance. I’m looking forward to a chance to see the Grand Canyon in all sorts of lights and weather, although we will almost certainly see cold and maybe ….snow.

And I’m looking forward to getting off this un-ranch, and on the road.

Paradise at Pocket Creek

2008-09-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

I was sure that I had written about Pocket Creek when we went there for weekends, but I can’t find it.

My friend Ellen and her husband live in Custer MT, about 40 miles north of the Custer Battlefield, on the east side of the Bighorn River. There they have 40,000 acres of rough, dry country used mostly as summer cattle range, along with several hundred acres of irrigated bottomland.

Ellen’s mother, a graduate of Bryn Mawr from Illinois, came out west, loved it, bought a ranch in Montana (Lodge Grass) and married Ellen’s father, Wailes Wolfe. He was a handsome charming man, a cowboy, an airline pilot, and polo player. They mostly lived at a small and lovely ranch in Wolf, WY, close to Sheridan and civilization. Pocket Creek Ranch in those days was all dry, and so isolated that a trip to town took 3 hours on rough dirt roads. The ranch foreman’s children had to move to town for school.

Ellen was send back east to Concord Academy by her mother, in hopes that culture travel, and education would broaden her horizons and keep her from becoming “just” a ranch wife. College was next, but as we can see, Ellen had her sights on being a ranch wife, and here she is. Someday I should write more of Ellen’s life, the parts I know anyway.

I met Ellen in 1958 at Concord Academy where my mother had sent me in hopes I would amount to something. We lived on a working dairy farm then and had horses, and barbed wire fences. Ellen had said in a response to a welcome letter that she would miss both of those, so I was very intrigued, and invited her to visit me. She thought there were way too many trees, and roads and fences, but we had a good time anyway, and she got to escape dormitory life.

Concord Academy was a very good school, we both got an excellent education and were directed to go do something besides find a husband. But Ellen and I, along with Penny and several others felt we did not fit in with the sophisticated, well-turned-out upper crust girls there. After revisiting some of my classmates, I guess most teenagers feel kind of hopeless and out of place, but with two long pigtails, spots, glasses, a big mouth and few social skills, I felt like a miserable disaster. As it was a girl’s school, boys were a mystery, and my few contacts with them were discouraging to abysmal.

Ellen invited me to visit her out west that next summer. That was the beginning of a wonderful friendship, the beginning of my love of the west, and the beginning of my personal journey to becoming a grown-up who is pretty comfortable in her own skin, if not always properly behaved.

The social standards for girls at Concord Academy were impossible for me to even get near, but out here on the ranch, I discovered to my great joy and relief that riding well, working hard without complaint, and having a sense of humor were all anyone cared about. Here at last I felt like I was OK, and that what was eccentric and tiresome back in Massachusetts, was actually an asset.

I came out nearly every summer for a month or so from 1958 until 1963, riding, branding, moving cattle around, and actually going on dates with boys !!. We had many adventures, got into some very minor trouble, and I felt as though this wide open, dry, windy treeless place was where I belonged. I had a few moments when marrying the nearest willing cowboy looked like a great idea, but saw that would lead to a kitchen full of hungry people, not riding the wide open.

College, city life, family came along, but I never forgot. Sometime in the ‘80’s my kids and I went on a train ride and visited Ellen, she was living in Sheridan then, but we did a ranch tour, and I remember being overwhelmed by the sight of it all and the smell of sagebrush.

Now, after a summer on Pocket Creek, I have even more love for this place and these people. Ellen and her wonderful husband Harry have been great to live with and work for, the guys that come in for lunch think I am hilarious, and once again as long as I work hard, don’t complain and am amusing, that is all there is. I can be me, in the way that is most comfortable. It is a clean, and a safe place emotionally. Some of this feeling is just plain nostalgia, age will do that to you, and since I am far away from the more recent turbulence of my history, that has all retreated into the far distance.

There is a knoll against the sand rocks south of the main barn area where there was once a trailer. There is power, a well and a sewer system, and a view of the river and the bottomlands. My heart longs to put the Airstream there and just leave the real world. All a fantasy of course, we have commitments waiting for us, and Don is not cut out for ranch life. And there is lots of stuff to see and do down the road.

All well and sensible, but I found myself brimming with tears for the last two or three days before we left, still do. When we drove away in the rain, when we crossed Harry’s engineering triumph bridge, when we pulled out onto the main road, and even when we crossed the state line out of Montana, I had waves of sadness catch me.

This is really the first time I haven’t been ready to move on, to hit the road with all the possibilities and freedom out there. I know I would not be happy here in the winter where it gets cold, and snow blows, and everyone just sort of hibernates, at least not in a trailer. I also know that my sort of ad hoc assistant grandmother and colorful character roles might wear thin after a while. But Lordy, I do love this country.

Salida

2008-09-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

The Denver Unit of the WBCCI and the westerners in the Vintage Club put on a Rocky Mountain Vintage Rally every year in August. This time it was an all boon docking rally, with the trailers all in a circle around a tent. I signed up immediately, and so a week a go we set out.

Don’s trailer went in for some repairs while we were gone, so much had to be removed from it, and my usual and apparently unavoidable need to stock the Airstream for a 6 month trek went on at the same time. I know there are stores everywhere, I just hate to spend fun time looking for them and shopping.

We dodged the pivot and went on our way, down through the rolling hills which are now the soft brown furry rolling dunes of late summer. Barley is being cut, pivots running for the second hay cutting, and all manner of irrigation is being put to corn, and sugar beets.

The Bighorns drift by, obscured by smoke from fires, still spots of snow on the highest peaks, then we are out on the vast cattle plains. Sometimes a set of rocks will appear jutting out of the smooth hills. They cast sharp shadows, have unsettling silhouettes, and grab the eye tired of endless rolling grass lands. I tend to have a second’s though that they are man made, ancient battlements, or temples, because they appear so abruptly, and so singly.

At Douglas WY, we pull into a city park that has free camping, parked around the grassy islands. There is even a bath house with brands burned into all the wood trim. Free camping brings in other drifters too, a thin gray bearded man living in his van, and three youngsters in a tent. There is a limit of 2 days, which may explain why the van man was keeping a sharp eye out and periodically driving off. The youngsters went for a walk downtown and were told by the police to stay in the park and off the streets. I suspect the police don’t like the free parking. In addition, the sprinkler system comes on in the night making the lush lawn a bad place to pitch a tent.

We roll on south, into Colorado where the Rockies rise vaguely from more smokes, and we are soon in the Ft. Collins-Denver version of Rte 128. Like a piece cut out of the urban eastern seaboard, suddenly the drivers are all in a terrible hurry, rude, aggressive. A side trip to a Ham radio store in Denver leads us through detours and traffic which would be a pain in a car, towing a trailer it was no fun at all. ( Don has recently taken and passed the first two levels of his Ham License, and talks to other hams about their radios mostly ).After that we head up towards Evergreen where my friend Penny lives. More aggressive folks in SUV’s passing me, rushing, competitive, elbowing me and my trailer aside so they can get up the mountains faster. So why live up in the tranquil mountains if you are going to drive ( and probably behave) like you live in Brooklyn?

Penny and her husband welcome us, and we set up in a pasture above their house. A nice evening, and get together, it is remarkable how little we have changed in the 50 years we have known each other, well, inside that is, we are both wider and grayer. It is very reaffirming to talk to someone who has known you that long.

Next day we head over to the South Park, a wide plain of grass with the mountains all around. It lies at 10,000 feet and covers 1,000 square miles, not too many people live up here in this magical place, no doubt a nasty winter and no jobs to speak of, but it is remote and very beautiful, a lot of cattle out on the lush mountain grass. And quiet, and no SUV’s.

Over another pass and down into Salida where the Arkansas River tumbles out of the mountains and makes giving river raft rides the going business. I have followed the Arkansas River for several long trips, so it feels like an old friend. It occurs to me that while Don knows all the route numbers and where they go, I am more oriented toward the river drainages. Up on the Yellowstone and the Bighorn Rivers, they were the highways of history, and everywhere the rivers are the carvers of the rocks, and the water in them brings life to the valleys. The highway numbers seem sort of peripheral information.

We are here for the Rocky Mountain Vintage Rally, one of my favorites because of the congenial folks and terrific planning.. Our Airstreams were born and bred to rally like this, and us die hards take great pride in our ability to be happy off the grid, no water, no electricity, no sewer. We happily join in an endless round of feasting and talking about our trailers.

One afternoon we went off in a geocaching foray and wound up 4 wheeling up on the slopes of Mt Shavano, an amazing place. The name of the cache was 360, for 360 degrees of mountains, all around a wide-open field of late summer flowers. Coming down another way, we followed a creek bed as the walls got higher and higher, and finally it dead-ended. Turning my truck around was a bit of a trick but we had a grand time.

Back in Montana, we go back to ranch life. My friend has two granddaughters, 3 months and 15 months that spend a good deal of time with her. It is hard to get anything done with them around, and sometimes hard to handle both, so we have been double teaming the grandmother deal. Fun unless you are trying to get something else done, so I hold the fort while she gets lunch. Nice to know I can still burp a baby, and interesting to see them grow by leaps and bounds.

The big project, stripping and restaining the 400 square foot deck is nearly done. I had no idea a wooden deck was so much work. Another reason to be glad I am trailer trash. I also made 4 raised bed vegetable plots in old tractor tires, and cucumbers and tomatoes are really starting to bear. That’s the only part of being a rolling stone that I don’t like is no vegetable garden. I do carry 4 large pots of cooking herbs with me and one house plant.

Water Dragons

2008-07-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

From the ranch house porch, you can see the three giant pivoting sprinkler dragons that turn the bottomlands into huge green circles. Up close, they look like strange insects, thin pipes and wires, tires that roll along the ground, and at the end a big jet that looks like the head of a creature. The head goes cha cha cha as it shoots a rooster tail of water 40’, and all along the spine hang down smaller twirling sprinklers, swish swish. Every minute or so, the electric motor moves the whole thing another 6” with a soft whir,

The change in the landscape is tremendous. It was a dry, sagebrush flat, hot dusty and white to the eyes. Bound by a line of sandstone bluffs, the natural shape of the flats echoes the wanderings of the Bighorn River, but the green circles impose a radical and regular geometry. When the tractors cut the hay, they move in a perfect series of concentric circles too, and then later the balers follow, making giant clyndrical 1500 lb. bales. These get stacked in long rows.

I have always been fascinated by looking down from the air at the squares and rectangles of farmed fields, and how their geometry meets natural shapes of rivers or mountains or canyons. How close can the tractors go before the arroyo is too steep, or the river too deep ? I remember the first time I saw the circles from the air, I remember worrying about the corners of the old squares that now got no water, but also liking the interplay of shapes and colors of various crops and cycles.

If you don’t have a pivot, which costs a good $100,000, the work of irrigating is backbreaking labor, fields must be level, ditches dug and maintained, and monitored constantly. Gravity and muscles. Maybe pipes and sprinklers, but still an enormous amount of hard labor in the mud. When drought struck the heartland in the 1950’s, irrigating became mandatory, and Frank Zybach's first experimental center pivot system – built in 1947-8, soon became the only way to irrigate big acres. By 1973, there were 10,000 pivots in Nebraska alone, and the green circles were visible to the astronauts 270 miles in space.

Using water pressure to move at first, Zybach’s machine now runs on electricity, with rubber tires, and a computer system that controls the speed, the water amount ( less closer to the center where it moves slowly), even an extension arm that follows a buried wire and swings out to water those corners that worried me. There are now 4 manufacturers, all located in Nebraska. . The largest pivots use 10-inch diameter pipe and extend out 2,600 feet. So, the water in that system can weigh over 88,000 pounds, an under truss system and guy wires support the weight, especially important because it has to clear the tops of corn as high as an elephant’s eye.

The great beast can climb hills, and go down depressions. I can see the closest one ambling its way over the raised road that cuts through the field. The work of leveling a field to use gravity for irrigation isn’t needed.

The Pivots around here say Zimmatic on a sign hanging from their spine, for Paul Zimmerer of Lindsay NE, whose Lindsay Manufacturing introduced a knuckle joint that allowed his pivot to travel over even rougher terrain. Lindsay is the largest exporter of pivots, and second only to Valmont, the descendant of Zyback’s original company.

Green circles everywhere, even in the Sahara. Reliable crops even in the desert, even when the rain goes away. But all that water doesn’t always go back to the aquifer, and the cities in the desert use more and more water.

I have cleverly placed my tiny herb and tomato garden, in a big tractor tire, right at the edge of the pivot’s range, and until they make the second cutting, it gets watered by the dragon.

For more than you want to know about pivots: http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/water_02.html

Saddlebags

2008-07-28T19:21:00.001-07:00

Here we are, horseback again. Ellen on her palomino Jay, and me on Pancho. Ellen very kindly borrowed Pancho for me to ride !

In the good old days, we rode all the time, moving cattle, or just riding for the love of it.

Today, cattle work is done on 4wheelers, so we are of no importance on our horses, except to ourselves. Which is very important to us as we both love it.

Both horses are proper babysitter horses, we are way beyond getting bucked off and laughing about it the next day.

When we were teenagers, we called each other Old Bag. Now, that's bit close to the truth, so Ellen decided we are the Saddlebags !

Battleground

2008-06-27T05:54:00.001-07:00

Fouch photo of LBH soon after.

Sites of slaughter are not my favorite, no matter what the motivation for the killing it all seems barbaric and tragic. Custer’s Last Stand, now more tactfully known as the Battle of the Little Big Horn is THE local tourist stop, and there is a geocache there, so off we went.

When I first came here, some 45 years ago (yikes) there was a monument on the top of the hill with all the dead (whites) on it, a rather gothic black iron fence around the area where Gen. Custer fell, and then 2’ high marble tombstones placed all over the landscape where white bodies were found. This is all on a high grassy ridge to the east of the Little Big Horn River , looking down on the bottomlands. There was a museum building there then and interpreters I guess.

A quick background: Gen Custer was a brilliant but impulsive man. He led an expedition to the Black Hills in SD and found gold there. Since the Black Hills had been given to the Indians by the Fort Laramie treaty, they were rightly angry that prospectors came in droves. Atrocities on both sides followed, and Custer and the 7th Cavalry set out to either annihilate or round up the Indians and make them stay on their reservations. A large angry group from a number of different tribes was camped by the Little Big Horn. Gen. Terry, the Commander of the 7th, got lost in the breaks of the Big Horn, right here on Pocket Creek Ranch, other parts of the force got separated (hung back?) and Custer’s tiny group attacked the Indian camp. Predictably, the Indians attacked back , slaughtered Custer’s band, and went and mopped up the rest of the part of the 7th that was nearby. By the time the rest of the force arrived, the Indians were long gone. And in the end, lost the war.

There is a vast body of work about this battle, one of the few resounding white defeats. Generals were chastised, hands wrung, strategies analyzed, and people come to reenact the battle in accurately scripted and costumed detail.(although NOT on the actual battle filed) I guess playing Calvary and Indians is fun for some folks.

What struck me was what we have made of the event and the site since. Faced with utter carnage, the 7th did the best they could to bury the dead in the bony soil in the immediate aftermath. Later, the army came back and reburied, this time marking each grave with a post, and finally they dig up all they could find and put them in a mass grave on top of Last Stand Hill. There were numerous horses killed too, and they picked up their bones and put them in a sort of miniature wooden stockade. Imagine what this looked like, the whole ridge covered with white bones glistening in the hot sunshine, the bones of men, and the bones of horses. That would be a sight, a war memorial of power. But too horrible for civilized folks to see, so soon it was all cleaned up, the posts replaced with tasteful if anonymous small white headstones, and the bodies of officers dug up and taken back east to lie in civilization. Gen. Custer is buried at West Point. And a large military cemetery is part of the site, with veterans from other wars buried under orderly lines of more white tombstones. I guess it was already a gravesite, but I don’t understand burying more fallen soldiers at the site of an embarrassing and complete loss. Maybe it is considered that we lost this battle but won the war.

At the time, the battle was one more nail in the Indian’s coffin. Since the Indians stood in the way of progress, didn’t use the land “properly”, wandered “aimlessly”, didn’t understand private property, any verifiable act of violence (however justified if that is possible) was inflated by the gumment and the press. “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” General Philip Sheridan.

Today, there is an Indian Memorial to those who fell “ defending their way of life”. It is a sunken stone walled area with the names of the dead by tribe, some drawn images and written descriptions of the battle and the reasons. Facing north the open side has a metal line sculpture of three mounted Indians. All black and open, the grassy hills and far away bluffs show through the figures and the wind blows through it. People come into it and are still, reading and looking.

In some places on the battlefield there are new red stone markers where Indians fell during the battle (not sure about these locations, since their dead were carried away right after the battle) and in the museum the Indians presence is equal to the Cavalry, artifacts, recollections, photographs. We overheard the ranger talk, he seemed to be “teaching the debate” ie presenting both sides of the Indian vs white question.

Since the battlefield is surrounded by the Crow Indian Reservation, the only for-pay tour guide available is run by the Crow, allied with a local community college. Also, nearly all the people working the gift shop were Indian. The Crow were not a part of the hostiles in the battle, serving instead as cavalry scouts apparently because the tribes in the hostile group were old enemies.

Also new is a road that connects Last Stand Hill with the Reno-Benteen Battlefield where the other part of the on site 7th tried to make a stand after they were cut off from Custer.

The scenery is very beautiful: the lush bottomlands where the Indians were camped are all irrigated croplands. The ridges and folds of the high ground are treeless since a fire in ?1980’s and this year all green and grassy from the rain. The reservation horses are out on these rolling hills, the Crow tribe were early and skillful adopters of the horse, and in the old days were known to be relentless horse thieves. The postcard prettiness of the place makes the visual reminders of the battle all the more poignant.

Soggy In Bozeman

2008-06-27T05:43:00.000-07:00

Rain, rain and more rain. The creeks and rivers were already full from snowmelt, and then it set to rain, and the water went over the roads in a number of places in Bozeman. We went out geocaching, which usually involves driving around a lot trying to get close and find a parking place. A lot of our roads were blocked by water, and some of the walking trails had turned into streams too.

My recollections of the Montana landscape do not include everything green and wet, but it surely is lovely. When the cloud cover lifted a bit, we could see lots of snow covered peaks.

We went to Montana State University to check out the campus where we will be hiding the caches for the Airstream geocache hunt. I always wonder what people think we are doing wandering around looking for caches, and finding places to put them, marking the coordinates and taking notes meant we got some odd looks. Two elderly people out in the rain standing around looking. Not at birds, but taking notes. I pretended we were two professors doing some kind of study. I had previously gotten permission to do this and told the head of security about it, so we didn’t set off a panic.

That done, we really had nothing else to do, and it was too rainy and wet to wander around. I will be back there for the Airstream get together anyway. So we sort of moldered away in the trailer waiting for it to dry out enough to get into Pocket Creek.

Eventually, we just headed out, even though Pocket Creek got another 1” of rain that day, and it was still raining. The drive through Livingston and Big Timber is spectacular, no huge grades, as we are soon following the Yellowstone River east, with several exciting snow covered ranges on all sides. Where the Yellowstone comes out of Yellowstone Park, you look south into a steep fold in some very craggy sharp peaks. These were all snow covered, and it looked like it was still snowing up in there, the entrance road on this side is still snowed in. Sort of like looking at Shangri –la. I still think I would like to spend more time in Yellowstone, but camping maybe or doing short hikes. Probably not in the high season though.

Gradually the tawny cliffs that give the Yellowstone River its name are the only heights we see near by, the Bear Tooths off the south. The wide river bottomland is full of green pasture and hay and even the bluffs have a hint of green on them. The river is fat and sleek, and just as yellow as the bluffs with the silt and mud it carries. It is moving along at a good clip, and is full to the brim, but not over the banks that we saw. We get off the interstate and head south to the ranch, even more astonished by how green everything is.

We cross Harry’s bridge over the Big Horn River, which is just as fast and fat and muddy as the Yellowstone that it is heading north to meet. Crossing the big hayfields and pull up into the ranch yard, to be greeted by my friend Ellen, and now for the difficult part.

We are supposed to be in back of the new shop, where we have a 50 Amp hook up, water and the sewer line from the old ranch house that once stood here. We even have a nice shade tree and Ellen promises a picnic table, so it will be just about perfect. But, it is a sea of mud and puddles, and the rain has delayed the branding so we have to pull up in front of the shop, kind of in the way, and in the mud and not level. Don’s truck gets stuck, and so a tractor is produced to pull us to some sort of spot for the meantime. Embarrassing, although I think the ranch guys were actually amused.

This is the first place that we have come to workamp that didn’t advertise for such a thing, and we are a little nervous about being in the way of a working cattle ranch with lots to do and already a full crew. After our weekend visit here last summer, we hatched the scheme of being here for the summer, and wrote to Ellen and Harry asking if we could, working off our electricity. We are not expecting to be entertained, and only to be paid if we do more than 20 hours a week, but it still isn’t clear what we will be doing. So far Don has mowed the lawn, I have weeded and trimmed and planted 4 large junipers. I help out with the huge lunch the crew gets every day, and also help Ellen with her granddaughters who come one day a week. Not quite enough to keep us busy and to help us feel like we are an addition to the operation. But we’ve only been here a week, and branding is almost done.

And still it rains.

Yellowstone Addenda

2008-06-27T05:30:00.000-07:00

We heard from an Airstream friend, one adept at winter camping, that his weekend in Yellowstone was a little hair raising. He had blithely taken his snow chains out, figuring Spring was here, and had several exciting trips over nearly snowed in passes. Many of the smaller roads and camping areas are still snowed in. We are very glad we went with plan B, as we own no chains. Another winter Airstreamer chimed in saying that this snowy spring time is his favorite at Yellowstone. Hmm, maybe we need to get some chains for Darth.

I wondered about the Norris Geyser Basin Museum, which looks to be classic late 1920’s National Park Rustic. It is, along with the similar museums at Madison and Fishing Bridge, a national Landmark for just that reason:

Wikipedia- Norris Museum
“…one of a series of "trailside museums" in Yellowstone National Park designed by architect Herbert Maier in a style that has become known as National Park Service Rustic. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is one of three parts of a National Historic Landmark, the Norris, Madison, and Fishing Bridge Museums.[2] Built in 1929 to 1930, the Norris Museum is sited on a hill between the Porcelain Basin and the Back Basin of Norris Geyser Basin. Its central breezeway frames a view of the Porcelain Basin for arriving visitors.”

The stone foundation grows out of the ground and the huge logs support low eaves, as though it just grew there. All the wood is painted regulation NPS brown, and the shingle roof has weathered to a mossy grey. Inside, it is pretty dark, like a cave, without any lights on as it isn’t open yet. Classic NPS rustic.

While looking up the Norris Museum, I stumbled on an article about 5 dead bison found on the Gibbon River, just down hill from that geyser basin. On March 4, 2004, they were found dead, legs out straight, no signs of disease or struggle by rangers who monitor such things, partly to know where the bears are likely to be hanging out. My understanding of the bears is that they would all be fast asleep at that point. Yellowstone NP is open all winter, at least some of it, only the road in from the north through Mammoth Hot Springs over Red Lodge Pass. There are various winter activities accessible only by Ski bus or skimobiles, and cross country skiing too.

The rangers suspected the 5 bison had been essentially gassed to death by either Hydrogen Sulfide or Carbon Dioxide. The temperature was 1 the night of the 1st, with no breeze and they think that the gasses pooled down hill of the vents. Like everything else the NPS does, there were many attached tables of gas level testing, dead bison vitals and etc, along with other NPS articles about deaths from gasses in the park. There is also an area called Death Gulch where it happens now and then.

I was entranced by the thought of the bison sleeping next to the warm vents on a cold night, and wondered if the warnings to us about staying were we were supposed to be were over stated. I guess not. Those 5 bison apparently just keeled right over, dead.

I was also wondering about the Native Americans and Yellowstone, did they avoid the place as bewitched, for example. Apparently not, stone tips and tools have been found here from just about every period, as well as Shoshone teepee circle (rings of stones). The NPS admits to have done very little archeological surveying of the park. As though the Native American’s presence somehow spoils the idea of virgin wilderness perhaps, or maybe the battle of the Little Big Horn (which happened only a year after the park was official) and other similar horrors were not the image of the park they had in mind. An Indian* on a nickel is one thing, Sitting Bull was another matter, and not good for tourism

Further investigation finds the Nez Perce Indians passing through Yellowstone on the run in 1877. Their route, the Bannock Trail, was an old one they regularly traveled to get from their winter home in Western Washington to the plains of MT to do their buffalo hunting. There were two parties of tourists, one from Radersburg MT and another from Helena MT, going in to see the geysers. They ran into the Nez Perce who were pretty hot at this point having been battling Gen. Howard and the Cavalry all the way. This band of Nez Perce had not signed any treaty with the US Gumment relative to staying put on a reservation. The USG considered that if one Nez Perce signed, that was good for all. Two tourists were killed, another left for dead, two ladies were captured and released unharmed (and not insulted in the words of their captors). However, with Sitting Bull still on the loose, and Custer’s Last Stand (oops, the Battle of the Little Big Horn) fresh on everyone’s mind, I’ll bet it put a damper on the tourist traffic into Yellowstone. There are, in fact, historical markers along the Nez Perce route which probably tell this story.

Clearly murder by noble savage is too wild for tourists, but even today Yellowstone has an edge of danger in its spectacular scenery.

*In 1911James Earl Fraser featured a profile of a Native American on the obverse of the coin, which was a composite portrait of three Native American chiefs: Iron Tail, Two Moons and John Big Tree. Big Tree's profile was used to create that portion of the portrait from the top of the forehead to the upper lip. The "buffalo" portrayed on the reverse was an American Bison, possibly Black Diamond, from the Central Park Zoo.

Yellowstone

2008-06-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

The oldest national park in the world. The most over stimulated geothermal region of the world. Bison and Elk and Bears. And the birthplace of the National Park Rustic style. of architecture, Old Faithful Inn.

The wildlife part, well, we are so used to seeing buffalo in the Black Hills, and we saw elk at Dinosaur NP, running through the clouds. I must confess, I don't want to see a bear, they scare me. And we didn't.

Visiting a place that has had 125 years of promotion applied to it is sometimes a peculiar experience. The geysers, the deep blue bubbling springs, the plopping mud pots, and the colorful mineral and bacterial outflows are all pretty wonderful and strange. We walked on boardwalks around a lot of them, and dutifully sat and waited for Old Faithful. Plop plop fizz fizz, a dangerous and alien landscape. I actually heard someone say “ Is that all there is ?” after Old Faithful finished its act. I wonder what the Native Americans thought of this place, was it full of ghosts and avoided or did they come near for the heat? It didn’t take us palefaces long to figure out that it should become a tourist destination. Oddly, making hot spring pools and soaking facilities was never a big deal. There were some early tent cities around the pools and one large indoor pool in the 1920’s.

We are seriously warned against stepping off the boardwalks, as the crust may open up and dump us into scalding steam. It is hot, you can feel the heat from the holes. But there is buffalo poop everywhere and buffalo foot prints and smooth places where the buffalo have cosied up to the heat during the winter. Hot tubs for buffalo. Most of the buffalo have moved down into the valleys where the snow has melted and grass is coming up lush and green. We did find two grazing by one geyser area, we had to pass much closer than the 25 yards we are to keep between us and the big brown beasts. They look disarmingly tranquil, but are grumpy and dangerous.

The thing I came to see is Old Faithful Inn. Designed by Robert Reamer in 1903, the large central building is a rustic palace, using huge lodge pole pines and local stone.
The lobby is 7 stories high, all logs, with balconies upon balconies of peeled, knurly pine logs. It is an astonishing space. People, including me, come in under a low, massive, dark covered entry and stop and stare up at the sight. It is twilight dark, and has the sort of coziness that you associate with rustic log interiors, but it is so huge and sort of delicate that it is mesmerizing. I couldn’t stop looking up at it, moving 30 feet and looking up again. Architecture as sculpture. We took an architectural tour, and got to see inside a tiny bedroom, double bed, pegs on the wall and a sink replacing the original pitcher and bowl. Bathroom down the hall. http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/harrison/harrison3.htm will tell you what we learned.

Not only is it a wonder, but it started the Architectural style known as National Park Rustic or Parkitecture. When the National Park Service was formed in 1916, one of its directives was to fit into the landscape, not dominate it (per Olmsted of Central Park fame and others) so a committee of architects and landscape architects was formed to develop the standards. Briefly this meant using local materials, rustic, as in whole logs rather than sawn, low profile, and in keeping with the park’s natural and historical features. These standards gave the national parks their unique look, log guardrails, huge stone and log buildings and entrances.

The Northern Pacific RR was the major funding source for the inn, as the rush of tourist train passengers meant a “modern” and comfortable hotel at Yellowstone was necessary. This included electric light, full plumbing, steam heat and a big wooden door to lock out the wild at night.

So is this the wildness that is the preservation of the world? Not hardly, unless you count the damage the bears and buffalo do to tourists. Certainly the backcountry is pretty wild, and the park is proud of its successful introduction of wolves. We were in constant traffic on the main roads and in gridlock if an animal was visible, and this is very early in the season. The next day the park got buried in snow, by then we had fled to Bozeman MT, where it is 43 and raining endlessly.

Salt Lake

2008-06-04T17:02:00.000-07:00

Our route north was in two of the long flat valleys of the Great Basin, miles and miles with the mountains on either side going up in a smooth swoop, and nothing in sight ahead. There are a few salt flats, but mostly these valleys are dry sagebrush. We cut east across a couple of valleys, and then over a rise, the Bonneville Salt flats.

White, white, flat flat, the air a little pale with wind-carried salt. At the edges, red raggedy rocks, dangerously sharp and not of this planet. Still some distant snow covered ranges, but once we are out on I-80 in the middle of it, only a faint blueness. 60 miles of sensory deprivation, and mirages of water, the red rocks become islands, the road looks as though a big puddle is ahead, and even Don’s trailer gets wavy and indistinct. Out here they race things, sometimes each other, sometimes just the clock. It is strange enough on the highway with other vehicles and the RR tracks on the right, I can’t imagine what it would be like to sit in a rocket powered car trying to set the land speed record. Not a tree or a light pole to hang your eyes on, nothing but white, and a black line to steer by, as though you out ran your sight. I wonder if they see mirages.

Occasionally there is standing water, pale green, and nothing growing at all. It smells salty like the sea, but with no rotting flora and fauna smell, it is clearly not the ocean we smell, just pure salt. They scrape up this salt, refine it and on the table it goes, although the majority of it was used in silver refining.

The Great Salt Lake is indeed great, big enough for sailing boats and salty enough to float you high. After the mirage lakes of the salt flats, it was a little hard to believe my eyes. The grand Wasatch Mountains surround the south east and eastern end of the lake, massive and snowy, and Brigham Young’s city sits there, protected from the north winds, and green as the mountains catch moisture coming from the lake. There are many green fields of alfalfa, and cattle once we get beyond the city up the east side of the lake.

I sort of imagine that the first Mormans must have thought this was their own promised land, and it is an amazing place. We just zoomed on through, not much for city tourism. It was a long day and we are taking a layover in Garland, where the mountains have run out and it is very green pasture land. We are also looking at some cold and wet weather that will be coming in to the north of us, and trying to decide what to do.

We have had perfect weather for the whole trip, but now rain and cold and snow are predicted for Jackson WY and Yellowstone. We had planned to stay in Jackson, so I could finally see the Tetons, then go up and stay in Yellowstone for a few days. As the National Forest CG in Jackson isn’t open yet, we were stuck with $50 a night parking lots. They probably wouldn’t let me park the Airstream out of the way for free either, a trick we have managed to do almost everywhere. Then we thought about Yellowstone in the rain and snow decided to head for the Idaho side, West Yellowstone area. We then could take the last nice day in Yellowstone and bag the rest of it.

So we came up the Snake River Valley into Idaho, through the naked potato fields, and hay fields with lots of sweeps for irrigation. The mountains were pale and snow covered, and very far off. Above Rexburg, we were suddenly climbing into real mountains, with snow hiding under the lodge pole pines, Snowy peaks on all sides. To the East, the Tetons poke up over the ridges, impossible vertical peaks, so steep and rocky the snow is blown off. Someday, I’ll get to see them, watch the sun come up on them with the lake at their feet.

More snow in the open areas and hiding in the pines, and at the campground in Island Park, the bathhouse is drifted shut, and many sites still are snow bound. We have been sort of chasing spring as we go north, and right now, I think we went a little too fast.

Ely, NV

2008-05-22T11:11:00.001-07:00

We are headed for Ely, where there is yet another RR museum, the theme of this trip so far. Our route, 50, is known as the loneliest road in the US, going nearly 300 miles and passing through only one or two tiny towns.

Many parched lifeless flat areas, where the kids have put their names out in black stones on the white salt: who they love, signs and symbols. We see this in other places too, as thought the flat white surface demands something be written there. And strangest of all, a huge cottonwood tree covered with shoes! Further investigation reveals similar trees around the country, (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/set/shoetrees.html). We really didn’t stop there for that, it was a good pull over for a potty break. Very strange fruit.

This is the Great Basin desert that stretches across central Nevada and Utah. It includes the Bonneville Salt Flats and the Great Salt lake, and numerous other low places that now are just sagebrush flats surrounded by ribs of 11,000 foot mountain ranges running north and south. We are running east, so we go up and over each range, sometimes at quite a grade, down the other side, and then a long flat area between. As we leave the Reno area, there is more grass and we see a few cattle, but this is really out there. And beautiful.

The Continental Divide shows on the map as a single dotted line, from there the water goes east or west. The Great Basin is a huge area where the water, what there is of it, goes nowhere, either seeps into the ground or runs out onto the flats and evaporates on white salty flats. Alkali flats, salt pans. I imagine a wagon of emigrants crossing this, especially the Bonneville Salt Flats. They must have thought they had died and gone to hell. The Great Basin is a place where the continental divide line on the map swells out and leaves a whole big hole, and all the salt that should go into the ocean eventually, ends up staying.

As we near Ely, the mountains of tailings from the Robinson area copper mine show blond against the gray sage, juniper and pinion pine hills. The largest, the Liberty pit, is one of the biggest in the US, and is the reason that Ely and the Nevada Northern RR existed.

We pull onto a side street, discussing on the CB which way to head, and a nice guy broke in and said to come see him at the Stardust and he will help us. Since we needed to pee and get out of the trucks, we did. Looked just like any old bar, with a few more paintings of naked boob and fannies than normal, but when I started to look for the ladies room, the guy stopped me and said “this is a brothel, so we only have a men’s room”. To which I replied, if it is a brothel, there must be somewhere for ladies to pee. He laughed and showed me to the back, which was clean and tidy like any suburban house, alas, and no ladies in sight. Don didn’t even realize it was a brothel. So that is a first for both of us !

After some discussion, we headed up the Cave Lake State Park, to a 12 star campsite over looking the valley with the snow covered mountains in the distance. Amazing place, with elk warning signs all over the place, but no elk that we could see. There is a sort of slot in the rock where the creek from the small lake above passes down, and the slope is all south. I imagine the elk all holed up in here for the winter, safe in their fort.

The next day, down to the RR museum. The Nevada Northern was a short line that moved ore to the concentrator in McGill, 20-30 miles to the north, and then 100 miles on to connect with the Union Pacific in Shaffer to go to the smelters in AZ or TX. It also brought passengers back and forth. In 1965,they just shut down and locked the doors. They left cars and engines, including steam and diesel, they left the tools in the numerous and huge workshops. They left the desks and old typewriters and all the company books and records. It is a time capsule, weathered, but the volunteers are keeping it all going.

The main depot is a big stone building with a rounded triple arch front and back, Mission Revival style. Here the offices and records sit up stairs, frozen in time. The yard is huge, the coaling tower and water tower looming over it and beyond it a wide endless valley that the wind whistles down. Off to the left, their excursion train, two cars, an open flatbed car and a yellow caboose, sits by its lonesome. Some old wooden ore cars and a few odd freight cars sit in various places, but the general sense is one of desolation, and abandonment. A ghost railway. They call their excursions train the Ghost train, so they must feel it too.

The cavernous shop buildings have walls of small paned windows and skylights up above, so you can see the mountains and the emptiness outside. Inside are two steam engines (both under repairs for cracked axles) several vintage diesels, a really old steam powered rotary plow, and some other cars. There are other huge glass paned shops that are locked, these have several huge cranes, and some very old passenger cars, but we don’t get to see them.

It is the buildings and the yard that are the best of this museum. They are not polished up at all, the tour is right through the shop area with holes and dirt and things to fall over and into. There are hardly any interpretive displays, but the shop areas are clearly in use and they have taken the wheels and axles off one steam engine. It looks as though someone makes sure the tools are put away, too ! They are conserving both the physical treasures and the skills that RR work requires, and that may disappear in time. Our museum in Campo has a much bigger collection of rolling stock, but the structures here are wonderful.

The museum is worth a long drive, and the town of Ely has wonderful murals painted on every blank wall. The Great Basin National Park is up the road, and I would have liked to see the mines in Ruth. There are 6 stone round beehive shaped charcoal kilns, looking like something from Italy, the charcoal was used in the early refining process. Ely isn’t a boom town anymore, but the price of copper and now gold has kept it going, and it has a lot of energy and appeal. There is talk that the Nevada Northern line might be resurrected, now that using trucks is getting expensive. I think all RR buffs have that dream today, and for Ely the talk of possible gold found in the mines still gets everyone stirred up.

The valleys stretch on for miles into the distance, carved smooth by glaciers, with the peaks still stiff and snowy. Bierstadt and others who I thought had romanticized the west, were just painting what they saw. Even the quality of the light on these mountains looks a little forced if you see the canvas in Boston, but when you are right here, then you really know what they saw and captured. .

Nevada (Snowy)

2008-05-18T16:32:00.001-07:00

The area around Placerville and Auburn CA is cut by huge, deep valleys, with steep sides. We took route 49 to Auburn on our way to tour Sacramento, and it was a narrow winding 10% grade down to the confluence of the north and south forks of the American River, and then just as steep and twisty back up again. A wild ride just in the truck, especially with double trailer gravel trucks roaring up and down. This road is known as the Auburn Grade, and it was first used to supply the gold miners in the Placerville area, where the excitement all started. It passes through the town of Cool, named for Aaron Cool an intinerant preacher, not some 60’s commune, and their huge limestone deposits and caves are the reason for the gravel trucks. The locals drive these roads with brio, and so does Don.

On our way to Nevada, we avoid this wild road, and go around to pick up I 80 over Donner Pass. Lunch anyone? I have a hunch there were many emigrant parties that came to the same desperate straits, the press just got a hold of this one. It is a long, long pull, but not particularly steep, 7,000’ at the top where we stop for lunch. Snow still lies in the shady areas, and the trees and the dirt look sort of exhausted and squashed after being under huge drifts of snow. The snowplows up here must be monsters driven by demons. I can see scrapes on the paving and light poles pushed over.

We are following the Central Pacific’s route to Promontory Point, and high on the side hill are the snow sheds, miles of wooden tunnel to protect the tracks from avalanches and 20 foot drifts. Just building the rail line was another feat of engineering madness, and making the sheds seems almost too much work, but necessary up here.

The California side of the pass is green, and lush, above the line for deciduous trees, the pines are magnificent. Beautiful Donner lake with chalets all round, and several ski areas. On the eastern side, we follow the Truckee River down to Reno NV. This is one of the few places where crossing the state line does have an immediate visual change. The Sierra Nevada (Snowcovered peaks) catch all the rain that comes in from the Pacific, so from lush forest, it goes to just rock, with a little sagebrush, in a hurry. The rocks are a dangerous looking rainbow of colors, copper greens, black silver ore, sulphurous yellows, and red lava. It looks so toxic with minerals that even with rain, I doubt much would grow.

And of course, since Nevada is all about separating you from your money and your virginity, there are huge flashy billboards and casinos everywhere. We fly through Reno, flashy and noisy, and out into the rowdy naked hills. There is mining every where, and processing plants. Limestone trucked down to a huge cement plant, Diomite, for filters and abrasives. A hundred ways to strike it rich in hard rock mining, and in the Casinos. We see some small ranches right along the Truckee River, but the rest of the land is only good for digging up.

Placerville

2008-05-18T16:22:00.001-07:00

We carefully came down from our way high up campsite at Laguna Seca, and roared off down the road. Well, not really roared except on the steep grades, we drive even slower now that diesel is running us $4.45 a gallon. It’s putting a dent in the bank accounts, but we aren’t going to just stop. Time enough for that when we have no choice.

We ran up the Salinas Valley of veggies and fruit, bought artichokes and strawberries. California strawberries were always looked down on back in MA, as pithy and lacking in flavor. We had been looking for strawberries to buy, as they are madly in season, but they were all expensive. And besides, buying strawberries inevitably leads to strawberry shortcake, a dangerous tendency. The strawberries we finally did get were amazing. Perfect red cones, perfectly red all round, and sweet and red all the way through. Yum. They were so good we managed to avoid the shortcake trap. The artichokes were terrific too and we cooked chicken over the fire. Camping is great!

We climbed up into the Livermore Hills, golden with dried grasses, with the same noble oak trees, and down the other side into the San Joaquin Valley, miles of grapes headed for life as raisins, not wine. Through Stockton and Sacramento, highway highway, zoom zoom.

Then we climbed up again into the foot hills of the Sierra Nevada, to the banks of the America River. Our campsite is right on the river, which rushes by with lots of standing waves and occasional rafters. Above is a ripply golden hill, made even more golden by the late sun. Yet another scene in the commercial for perfect RVing.

There are a number of Canada Geese on the river, one pair with 7 babies, and various others all engaged in the usual arguing and complaining. The sun sets on a grassy hill, turning even more golden, and 4 horses doze in the last light. Must be a hydro-electric up stream as the river level rises and falls. I saw one goose family shoot the rapids with the babies. I’ll bet they are clamoring to do it again.

Down the hill to Sacramento and the CA State RR Museum.

First surprise, ships tied up on the river bank! I confess I never looked very hard at the map to see that Sacramento is connected by water to the Pacific, not even any locks. Today, there are three stern wheelers tied up, and the railway is right there next to the dock. Tomorrow we go see the place where gold was found, that started Sacramento on its way to being a city, and eventually the state capital. And from here, 4 barons of commerce, Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker got fired up by a mad engineer named T.D. Judah to take the Central Pacific over the Sierra Nevada and meet the Union Pacific at Promontory point in Utah. This really made California a power, and so it is fitting that the state has a magnificent RR museum here.

Interstate 80 runs close to the river, and in between is old town, the old buildings were a nest of bars and flop houses in the 1950’s, many of the first floors abandoned after endless floods. In the 1960’s, this area was the first federally funded urban renewal project, and it is now a splendid restored train and waterfront village, lots of nifty 1870+ architecture, board sidewalks, and thriving tourist attractions. The RR museum is the northern end of this, and pretty humbling compared to our museum in Campo.

They have a working round table, and a huge indoor, air-conditioned area full of immaculate restorations. Steam engines galore, although none working right this minute, really old restored passenger and baggage cars, a great dining car and sleeper to go through. There are masses of interpretive exhibits about the people and the building of the Transcontinental RR, all spendidly top drawer, labeled, lit, with mannequins in place. And a real movie theater with a great film about the Transcontinental Railroad.

Sigh. They get huge funding from the state, and are located where any tourist can hardly miss them. However, the docents (maybe 10 or 15!) were a little bored, and it was all very slick and uptown. If they have a collection beyond what’s all polished and here, don’t know where it is. The museum lacked foam, and bubbles. At Campo, we are all a little mad for trains, and love playing with them and sharing them. We don’t have trains under glass, we have real trains, and real dirt. Any one of our cars or engines might someday be fixed up and run again, a big might, but the State Museum collection is not going anywhere, and seems stuffed, as in stuffed animals, not real ones. They do run an excursion train down along the river and back, but I suspect it has a theme park quality to it. They also have a whole play area devoted to Tommy the Tank Engine. This “star” of merchandising is a fake train that has to be pushed by an engine, no power of its own. We are averting our eyes.

I guess Old Sacramento is a fun thing to visit, but I prefer real life in Campo.

Monterey

2008-05-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

We are camped at the Laguna Seca RaceTrack, which is also a county park. It is up in the steep hills above Monterey with great view of the surrounding hills, and a distant slice of the sea. The road going in is a 16% grade ! Both trucks roared heartily and made it up. We can look down on the infield and part of the track on the other side. It is a Grand Prix auto track which means it loops and doubles back so the drivers have something more serious to do besides turn left all day, and it goes up and down too. I walked out to one nearly 90 degree corner that looks as if you would be quickly and seriously airborne if you missed it. It’s quiet now, but down on the infield guys are putting up huge tents and fussing over the track. It would be cool to be here for a race.

The Aquarium here is world class, so off we went to see it. It is part of a spiffed up, wharf area known as Cannery Row. Once full of fishing boats and fish canning factories (and chronicled by John Steinbeck, local hero) it is now full of gift shoppes with a salty theme, like the Fanuel Hall Market area of Boston.

In the Aquarium are the usual eye level tanks of some invisible creature, and a lot of information for us about saving the ocean and the world from ourselves, and several belt level tide pool petting zoos. I get to meet my first abalone, with a black fringe of short tentacles all around. They have two huge two-story tanks, one of a kelp forest, one of open bay, where a lively assortment of fish go round and round.

The kelp forest really is a forest, the stems of these vertical vines can be as tall as 60 feet and can grow a foot a day, straight up towards the light. California redwoods in the sea. The “canopy” of this forest is the home of sea otters, three of which have their own tank and are twice as big but just as charming as their fresh water relatives. Grooming themselves while afloat with multiple summersaults, zooming around in the water with ease and speed, and a familiar dog like, whiskery face.

There is a wave machine that sends a big breaker crashing over you as you stand under plastic, and at your knees nearby starfish and small fry put up with the excitement. Very cool, especially with the sun shining through.

Most spectacular, a jelly fish area. Here the jellyfish are in tanks with a deep blue back ground, and some current, and they are lit up with orange light. This is not aquarium, this is ART. We can see every detail of them, and there are many different kinds, large to small, umbrella-ing their way along, trailing lines and ribbons and tentacles in a mesmerizing frame. We are not bombarded with their life stories or dinners, or niche, just left to wonder at them, slack jawed in the dark as they swim forever on stage.

Two other exhibits of sardines and anchovies put us in the midst of an ever-swimming silvery cloud, best of all in a dome over our heads, lit up so that they shimmer like stars in the night sky.

It’s a wow. And so was lunch with the waves crashing under us, looking right down into a real tide pool and watching cormorants and seals.

El Camino Real

2008-05-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

Along the highway are the bells on a sort of shepherd’s crook post, the sign for the King’s Road. I wondered at first if we were supposed to ring them as we wandered on our pilgrimage, but they are too high. We are also following the trail of De Anza, one of the first conquistadors to come through here.

We spend the next night at Pismo Beach, where cars and trucks and even RV’s can drive on the flat packed sand. We didn’t take our RVs out there, duh, but toyed briefly with the idea of taking Darth Vader out. Instead, we just walked and walked. The mountains pull back right here and then the next day, bam there they were trying to fall into the ocean again. The road goes up inland to San Luis Opisbo, up a steep grade and them out on the top of more lovely rolling grassy hills, with big trees and cattle fat and sleek. Very lush, the morning fogs off the ocean dampen everything.

A beautiful drive, with the ocean breakers, and soon some rocks poking out of the surf and the tops of the hills. In Morro Bay, a great huge rock that looks like a turban. We are in some promotional movie for buying an RV. At this point, CA route 1 becomes two lanes and turns into one of the most beautiful blue roads in the world. We have come to San Simeon to see William Randolph Hearst’s Castle.

George Hearst came to CA in the Gold Rush days, and found silver instead. He went on to be the richest hard rock miner in history, owning the Comestock Lode and the Anaconda Mine, among others.He bought up thousands of acres of ranchos, including the one at San Simeon. His son William Randolph went on the Grand Tour with his mother, and was determined to bring it all home and put it up on the top of the mountains here, with the great grassy sweep down to the sea. The location is superb, but the pile is pretty over the top. Too many different periods and countries, too many patterns, too many colors, just too much stuff. He was here for 3 or 4 months total out of the year and invited scads of the beautiful to come and enjoy it. Interesting from a logistics and engineering standpoint, and a symbol of the excesses of the period ( think Spanish cathedral Newport RI “Cottage”), but rather needy and insecure. Julia Morgan, his architect, was the first woman to be admitted to the Ecole des Beaux Artes in Paris. She certainly knew her chops, both engineering and decorative, but it looked more like she was enabling his ego and ever changing vision than a consistent design. Still, a fabulous playhouse, two pools, tennis courts, private zoo, vine trellis covered 2 mile riding path, naked marble and antiquities everywhere. Some is good, more is better.

We stayed at San Simeon State Park, way up on our own hill, and had two nights of no hookups, sitting by the campfire, watching the sun go down over the ocean. Another RVing ad come to life, and now our sweaters smell like wood smoke.

A walk on the beach here had us picking up rocks all rounded and polished by the sea. Agates, clear ones are the local moonstones, blue green jasper, jade in black and dark green, red cinnabar fillagreed with white sparkly quartz. They used to mine these stones and truck them to construction projects, I was reminded of Nikki St. Phalle’s mosaicked serpents, and the paving in the courtyards of the castle was made with these stones as aggregate.

California Highway 1 from here north is a roller coaster ride along the edges of the mountains, hanging over the sea. Tight corners, tricky switchbacks up canyons, narrow lanes, it was a drive of a lifetime. Every turn was more spectacular than the last, it took all my concentration to keep my eyes on the road instead of the scenery. The mountains are trying even harder here to get into the sea, and there are slides and repairs everywhere. In January and February the rains make everything slump down the steep places, and sometimes the road has to be closed for long periods to fix it all again. Where the mountains draw back, the grassy hills of cattle take hold, but only for a bit. At the end, the mountains are truly huge and rocky and towering over us.

Houses reappear, clinging to the cliffs below the road, and then the road turns up into the canyon of huge redwoods that is Big Sur, with coffee shops and galleries and Mercedes and Porches and BMWs. Back to civilization, alas, down the coast to Monterey.

California Coast

2008-05-11T21:18:00.000-07:00

We packed up and left Campo on Sunday, after a farewell dinner, we will miss this place and our RR friends.

Grand to be on the road again. As always, it took a little time to readjust my fear level about towing in city traffic, on California Freeways. (Actually, compared to Rte 128, they are not that fearsome, they drive better for one thing). Statistically, there is hardly a more dangerous thing to do than driving, but we all have to do it, so we learn to tolerate the danger.

The Pacific Ocean meets pretty soft rock and sand along much of the southern coast, so where the often spectacular mountains and steep hills meet the sea, it is a battle zone between the waves and gravity. We are taking the Pacific Coast Highway up and turning east to Sacramento, still only a smallish piece of the California coastline. This section runs more nearly east and west, so if we could see it, San Diego is in the distance to the south for much of our route.

This highway is often closed by mud slides, and the houses clinging to the hills above regularly get dumped off. They don’t get the hurricanes that the East Coast does, but a good winter storm will eat more of the road and more houses. I’m used to the more permanent granite that seems to be a match for the Atlantic, and here, with the mudslides and earthquakes I feel a little more at Nature’s mercy.

The ride along the coast is spectacular, the Pacific waves with surfers on them, and the rounded headlands, with the mountains on the right. We get glimpses of the valleys up in canyons, lush ranch lands, rounded soft mountains with grass and only mature live oaks for trees. It might be Tuscany, as there are vineyards, and many tall skinny cypress, just not enough people and buildings and no ancient, terraced olive groves.

Through Malibu, where you can’t see the sea for houses crammed along the shore, I guess it’s neat to have a beach house and have waves for breakfast, but from the road it is pretty dull. Most of the drive, between cities, is open, the waves too near and the hills too steep for building.

Anywhere the mountains leave a large flat place back from the sea, is covered in truck farming fields. Living in the dry mountains, I had forgotten how much of California is devoted to vegetables and flowers on enormous fields. The strawberry fields in Oxnard are full of workers picking as fast as they can, since they are paid by the box. There are so many people that it looks like flocks of giant birds have descended on the fields. I wonder what changes will happen here in these fields, now that the jet fuel to fly produce from far away is expensive, and now that the illegals are fewer. We have been so accustomed to cheap food, and I think it's about to get much more expensive.

First night at Mugu Rock State Park, where we squeeze into a small site, and can walk under a bridge to the ocean, so I get two terrific walks on the beach, waves crashing, seagulls, wind, and seals resting (maybe dead?) on the sand. Mugu Rock is really the small side of the mountain cut for the Pacific Coast highway, it makes a unique silhouette, the name is from the Chumash word for beach.

Train Rides

2008-05-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

We were getting pretty blasé about riding the train, regularly going down on the Tecate run into Mexico for the day, and on the long, once a year trip nearly to Tijuana. Last weekend, we got the ride of a lifetime.

The RR that the museum runs on connects San Diego with the Union Pacific in El Centro. This rail line is known as the impossible railway as the terrain is difficult, to say the least. El Centro is actually below sea level, and San Diego is at sea level. In between are a lot of steep mountains and valleys, very little flat land, and all of it strewn with rocks, and lacking water. The path of the railway through this looks like over cooked spaghetti, squiggles and loops, there are 18 tunnels and 20 or so trestles, rising to 3660 feet and back down. The line had to go into Mexico on its western end to avoid the San Ysidro Mountains. I-8 crosses this territory with 23 miles of 6% grade.

The most spectacular part of the line goes through Carrizo Gorge, hugging the steep sides, passing through tunnels, over trestles including the Goat Canyon Trestle, the tallest wooden trestle in the US. Railroad buffs dream of going over this, but the whole eastern end of the line is not certified for passenger traffic, nor could we afford the insurance. We have many visitors asking wistfully when we will run a train there, and could probably fill a one time train at $500 a seat.

There is a small freight train company that runs over the whole line, usually only one or two trains a week, and a museum member drives for them on occasion. Don and I were invited to go along!! WOW. This is huge, and there are many members who would give their eye teeth to go through here, so we keep it quiet.

We drove east down in the desert to Coyote Wells to pick up the engine, and spent most of the day moving cars around, a time consuming and bewildering process. We sat in the cab of the diesel engine, with earplugs on and watched our friend and the other RR employees do their thing.

The first excitement is plaster dust on the rails where we pass US Gypsum’s drywall plant. The load is heavy, dry hopper cars, and the engine comes to a halt, slipping on the dust, sanders not working very well. So we go back and leave half of the cars, go up to a siding, and then back to get the second half.

After some more switching we head up for the gorge, throttle on Run 8, which means flat out, past an old water tank, climbing up through the desert hills and then turning into the gorge. With the engine roaring and throbbing with the effort, we are going about 10 miles an hour.

It is now late afternoon, and the mountains are pale blues and lavenders, the air is softly hazy, and we go out to stand on the very front of the engine. The sides of the gorge drop away blue on our right, we can see palm trees at a spring down below, and cactus and yucca and tough bushes on the sides. On our left, the rocks and cactus soar upward, lit up all yellow-orange by the last sunlight. It is all loose rock, decomposing granite, and the tracks weave along the edge, ducking onto tunnels, and shooting out on trestles. Building this rail line was pretty nearly madness, in many places you can’t take a step without climbing from rock to rock, summer daytime temperatures go well over 100, and it snows regularly up at this altitude. I worried that my fear of heights was going to send me scurrying back to the cab, there is a rail for only part of this bowsprit place and when the engine starts into a curve, it goes alarmingly straight for a little ways. But it is all too beautiful to be scary.

The next excitement is mud on the tracks in a tunnel, which make the wheels slip again. We have been obeying the speed limit, 5 mph, but we back up and take a run to get past the mud. I wondered if we would get stuck out here, no way to communicate, I never thought trains had trouble like this, I thought they just went on, saying I think I can I think I can.

And then, coming out of another really long tunnel, in the distance, there is the BIG trestle! It curves along the side of the gorge, made of massive redwood (steel can’t take the temperature extremes) a spider bridge spanning the canyon that enters the gorge. There is a lot of visual tension between the steep sides of the mountains all around and this thin rail line that tries to stay as level as it can. It’s almost like a reversed roller coaster: the ground is swooping up and down and we are trying to stay still, at least in the vertical plane.

Another two tunnels and we are going out on the big trestle. Oddly, it doesn’t seem all that high off the ground, and not scary compared to the abyss of the gorge. It is a gorgeous structure, a sculpture stretched across the canyon, and on a tight curve as well. We are whooping with the sight of it, and the thrill of the ride, and also that we are seeing something most folks will never see. A slightly insane engineering marvel.

Gradually we come up out of the gorge, up on the shoulder of the grade, and pull into the little town of Jacumba as the sun falls. The train guys have to stop here because they have been working for 12 hours, which is the legal limit. We are still, even after all that climbing, not at the 3660-foot top of the westbound grade.

I still get a buzz remembering those depths and heights with our train running along the shoulders, plunging inside the mountains and then flying over the trestles. We weren’t going very fast, but we surely were high up and it was just stunning.