Journal Entries: Starting Anew?

The Bizarre Game, Still...

Friday afternoon, 3 January 2003, Forestville CA

A beautiful day today. No rain. No fog. Traffic's stopped around Andy's Produce Stand on Hwy 116, overhead phone wires are being replaced. The sun shines brightly on little ol' Sebastopol. where I had to come today to get a tire, the tire next to the tire that blew a month ago, four weeks ago. It turned out to have big damage, as was determined when I was getting lubed and oil-changed. But now the RV is all winterized and lubed and fluidized and has good tires all around, they've been checked. Of course the tire that had to be replaced today should have been checked a month ago too. And they missed it...

Meanwhile, I've been considering ways to restructure my song lists. Think I will re-divide the collections up into different phases, had been thinking of just calling'em Phase One, Phase Two, et cetera. But that's a little dry, so I will name them after the Greek alphabet: Alpha Phase, Beta Phase, Gamma Phase, et cetera. [As if THAT isn't dry too... but a tad more exotic, eh?]

Had a dream last night that a curator sent me a letter saying the Hans Bols prints were worth a total of about $1600. Hmmm... Of course none of my dreams are necessarily sensical, so quién focking sabé...

Hmm, relabeling my song lists: The idea of using the Greek alphabet was because that's a good ordered list, but maybe an even better one would be using the Mayan calendar. Talk about EXOTIC... [road noise] Except then I'd have to access the glyphs as images, wouldn't just be able to have a browser render the Greek characters. Well, maybe Greek it is...

The Bizarre Game, Going...

Friday morning, 10 January 2003, Volcano CA.

Last week was another week down in Marin for the Bizarre Game. An interrupted week, Wednesday was New Year's Day, so Maureen only had to work Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was nice and clear. We drove around the Point San Pedro loop, nice vistas across the bay - then up throught the town squares of Sonoma and Healdsburg, strolling around, shopping, in what shops were open, which wasn't that many. Very pleasant day.

Tuesday and Thursday, after work we went poking around the various shopping centers around Corte Madera, seeing what such an affluent area supported in terms of malls. Very pleasant. Friday, another drive around the Point San Pedro loop in the other direction. Again, spectacular vistas across the Bay, somewhat foggier. Saturday morning, we left early to come back home - driving across the Valley, the morning sun hitting the clouds in the sky looked like molten lava overhead. Very picturesque.

So, on up to this week, Sunday and Monday and Tuesday we were just exhausted, but Monday we managed to send in the resignation, and Tuesday we laid around, and Wednesday and Thursday we thought maybe about going up to Virginia City, Tahoe, but Wednesday we were still too tired and Thursday, yesterday, it was STORMY, not a good day to do so. And today it's rainy and Maureen has to go into Jackson for Physical Therapy, so this week we don't do any grand excursions, just puttering around the house installing infrastructure: curtain rods, lights in the, the last lights in the shelves.

And then this weekend we will pack up again for the, for the LAST excursion Down Below for the Bizarre Game. We're finally at the final chapter, Maureen's last day is a week from today, next Friday. And that will only be a couple of hours, saying goodbye. Thursday we see the lawyer about suing Fireman's Fund. Friday she says goodbye, we go up to Windsor to get the last of our consignment goods from Robert's Relics antique shop. And then, um, we're free. Wow. What a concept.

The Bizarre Game, GONE!!!

Monday, January 20th 2003, Jackson CA

Interesting day here in Jackson. It's very foggy in the Valley, has been for days, very clear up high on the ridges. Come down into Jackson today, it was a nice clear day when I got here an hour ago, it's what, a little bit before three in the afternoon now, and bought some veggies, came out of the shop, and it was FOGGY. So all this fog has blowing in an out all day, down there at the 1000-foot level. Eerie...

Had dinner at Beth and Brad's last night with much else of the family. Met Chris' fiancé Mayari. The purpose of the dinner was to introduce Mayari to those of us who hadn't met her, but also to ask questions about going to Guatemala for their wedding, and Maureen and I have pretty much decided that we'll be going. We might skip going to the lowlands - we'd also been considering Yucatan and Belize, but that might be the wrong time of year for that. And money, well money's always a consideration, so we're leaning towards spending three or four or more weeks in the highlands of Guatemala.

And then Beth went in for surgery today for her gall bladder, and as soon as Maureen is out of therapy, we'll get over to the hospital and see how Beth is, and what happens next with her.

Mayari, by the way, is a delightful little person, intelligent, articulate, organized, and seems to have Chris well under control. Heh-heh-heh.

At the moment, I'm hanging out in the cemetary at the St. Sava's Serbian Orthodox Church here in Jackson, it seems as good a place as any to kill time. An interesting place, a legacy of the Gold Rush. Speaking of Gold Rush, tomorrow we're possibly going to dash over to Carson City, Virginia City and Gold Hill, look around at old stuff -- gonin' up to Reno, see if we can get some maps and travel books for Guatemala. Come back, look at Tahoe in the snow, and yeah, there IS snow up there.

Wednesday January 22nd 2003, Sacramento.

Day Trip, Virginia City

Saturday 25th January 2003, Gold Hill, Nevada.

Down below, before we turned off Hwy 50 onto the Virginia City road there was a group of four horses, three looked full-grown, one pony, strolling along together beside the highway, unattended, just out for a walk.

Coming up here on Hwy 88, we saw three rollovers within the space of about 15 miles. Kinda treacherous up here between Peddlar Hill and, uh, where was the last one? Kirkwood? No, the last one was...

Jam-packed crowded around Tahoe, so we skipped around that.

TWO G&T's before lunch, Maureen will be VERY mellow today. About time.

A row of Sierra peaks across from us, looks like a tribe of pyramids lately escaped from Egypt, come here to the snow to cool off - they've banked themselves with the white stuff and are enjoying it immensely. Not 'from Egypt' - 'from the banks of the Nile.' 'From beside the Nile.' South of the pyramids, the next stretch of the Sierras looks like churned lava, shoved up and glaciated, a frothy blistered pudding of mountains, whipped up in an argent Alpine agony.

Sunday 26 January 2003, Volcano California

For a Saturday the town wasn't too crowded, still we'd like to go back when it's a little warmer and maybe off-season, or mid-week, to have it even more to ourselves, poke around more of the side streets, A splendid day, you could see forever. So many good view points there along Main Street - look off in one direction and see across the desert for hundreds of miles, and look the other way at mountains for dozens of miles.

For all the splendors of being there, getting there was, tough. The morning, the iciness, the slow drive, and going past all the rollovers. And coming back, well maybe it was just fatigue, but I my eyes seemed to be wearing out, and the light was always difficult to deal with - light, the light and the dark and the gray. So now it's Sunday and the latest InterNet rumor is that, Tuesday of course is George W. Bush's STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, and Wednesday the bombing will begin. Or commence publically, bombing's been going on for years. Will martial law accompany that? Oh I hope not...

Virginia City is a wonderful little theme park, clusters of, oh the main street, in the old old buildings in various states of restoration, but mostly at least sturdy enough to support the throngs of tourists, buying loads of incredible Chinese-made ticky-tacky crap, souvenirs that sustains the prosperity of the town. People that come there to see an Old Wild West town and buy crap, it's amazing. It's also pretty vertical. Main Street's pretty horizontal, but the side streets go straight up and down, what is it? Mount Davidson. Elevation of the town is the same as Lake Tahoe, about 6250 feet.

The Virgina & Truckee railroad line is being restored, soon they'll be excursions all the way to Virginia from Carson. And THAT will be an exciting ride, worth taking!

Just after we arrived in early afternoon, when the crowds were thin enough that many of the shops we entered were fairly empty and the shopkeepers had time to talk with us for quite a bit. Had a nice chat with a cute girl in one ticky-tacky shop, talking about how wide the cracks in the floor were, and how many valuables had fallen through them. I suggested that possibly lots of pinches of gold dust had gone through those cracks too [in the old days] and it'd be well worth her while to let, get the manager, the owner to let her crawl around underneath there and see what treasures she could dig up. Ha-ha-ha.

There's a bookstore specializing in Mark Twain books and other Western stuff. The storekeeper, a fat young fellow, would at first not look into our eyes when speaking to us until he thought that Maureen might be interested in buying a $150, $170 first edition of INNOCENTS ABROAD, and then he started chattering on about mechanical musical instruments [super player-pianos], of which he had several in the shop, playing away. And he spoke of some friend's collection, naming every single device - a grea enthusiast for mechanical musical instruments, yes... and apparently an enthusiast for frontier literature also, although he'd never heard of DESERT RAT SCRAP BOOKs.

Another shopkeeper was telling us how glad she was to see tall people like us, because it made her feel small. Seems she was all of about, 5'9", 5'10". Heh-heh. Must deal with a lot of midgets.

Monday 27 January 2003, Jackson California.

Been making tactical decisions about what to take to Guatemala. No computer, just another memory chip for the camera. Unless of course we can sell the Hans Bols prints for a good price, and then maybe I can get a new ultrasmall computer. Minidisc for recording. Digital camera - hey, if we're in the money, maybe a new one, fancier. [deletia - missed concert]

Last Saturday in Virginia City, walked past the august home office (??) of E Clampus Vitus. Today in Jackson, I stood before the old National Hotel and took pictures of their Clamper signs: CLAMPER CROSSING, yellow warning sign with a stick figure crawling across the sidewalk with a bottle in his hand; and a Stop sign, CLAMPERS STOP AT ALL BARS. ... As usual the downtown Jackson sound system is playing classy classical music, string quartets.

I'm considering that for Guatemala I really need, really WILL need a belt with pouches to put sound recorder, image recorder, maybe shortwave radio, all for easy access. So yeah, anoher goodie to get if we have some money: a shortwave, very small, portable shortwave radio. Yeah, on that, I don't really want to be loaded down with a lot of gear.

That indroductory letter for the family, informational letter, will be the start of a website about this trip. See if I can find a good Maya-looking font, blocky font. Call the site MAYA-HO! And then subscript: Easter Guatemala 2003. As at Amalfi, I'll be keeping a daily log. May even write some more songs, who knows? COULD happen...

Which reminds, me, NOW might be a good time to start dubbing these journal tapes onto minidisc. And of course start studying the Spanish lessons: tapes, CDs and such. While I'm at it I have to setup the audio-video systems in the house. While I'm at it I'd better setup the computer network. While I'm at it I'd better hang the guitars on the walls.

Marin-Sonoma To Reno To Amador

Tuesday, 4th February 2003, Davis California.

Now we just are crossing the Yolo Causeway. This has been an interesting trip. Dashed - this is Tuesday. Yesterday we dashed down to Santa Rosa for a medical consult, and were prepared to hang around for a week or two if necessary, depending on when exams and other stuff would be scheduled. As it is, the next event will be in three weeks.

So we drove out to, lessee, we found a nice spot to spend the afternoon up at Cloverdale, actually on the east side of the Washington bridge at Asti, which is out for the winter. That's a REAL nice place to hang out for the day or even the night. Nice strong cell signal, so it's a good place to take calls. Nice and quiet, end of the road, no through traffic, nobody there.

Then came down Hwy 128 to Silverado Trail, up to Lake Hennessey, camped at Lake Hennessey last night. Another pretty spot. Gee, were we at lake Atitlan, or where? Well, no, we weren't, because we were only at elevation 315 feet, nice and low. Drove down past [Lake] Berryessa, another beautiful drive this morning, crisp colors of autumn and winter and spring all mixed, spotted about in various locations, through clear air and dense fog and everything between. Now we're headed into Sacramento, gonna fuel up and go on to Reno.

Tomorrow, lessee, go around Lake Tahoe, and get Maureen down to Jackson for her PT by early afternoon. Ah, it's nice to be on vacation. Permanently.

Link to the Ledger-Dispatch website. HELL, SUBSCRIBE to the Ledger-Dispatch. Well, maybe once we get back from Guatemala. If we don't subscribe, will they still print our obituaries?

Get a mandolin gig bag. Check with AT&T about a cellphone upgrade and service plan upgrade for when we get back from Guatemala, so we have nationwide calling. Look for an ultraflat computer sound system. Do a RESET of the new minidisc recorder. Locate all the Kaiser facilities between Sacramento and Stockton, plot their distance from Jackson. Get post office box and cellphone in Ione. Finish my MOBILE HOMES FOR DUMMIES webpage. Send out some of my Psycho sightings as Psychos Galore on SkeptiChat. Get lists of stuff we want to see around the country - train museums, observatories, pueblos and ruins.

We're now in Auburn. Very good meal at Delicias', open 7 days a week from 11 til 9, well worth it, come back for dinner. [Note: we both shit and farted for DAYS afterwards. Avoid in future.]

Recycle my news bulletins to NewsBreak: As The World Burns and WarNews: All My Guns.

Circa Donner Pass

Now we're down in Nevada, having passed Boomtown, where there's an All-You-Can-Eat Maine Lobster Buffet Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We'll have to try that sometime. Out here on the Nevada side, the sky is blue, there's just a few clouds, no snow down here as we pass Mogul.

And now we're coming into the outskirts of Reno, just a few clouds over the mountains on the far side, the Reno basin looking exceptionally clear, you can see the jets taking off from McCarran Field, oh that must be five, seven miles away. It's just sparkling out here. Considering that everything's TAN. Lighter or darker brown. Those far-side hills are purplish with the taller ones with snow on top, like egplants topped with Kool-Whip.

Reno appears to have growed some more, even in just the few months since we were here last.

But it's still midwinter. Last night, camped out at Hennessy Lake, even though we were only at a 300-foot elevation, the stars were nice and clear, and Orion was high overhead. Now here we are, not even 4 in the afternoon, and the shadows are long. The sun's been 'way toi the south all day, of course, it does that at this time of year. And it's not long till sunset. Hopefully this time next year we'll be someplace with longer days. That means South. Or at least, lower latitudes.

Tuesday night, we're camped out at Washoe Lake, we're about the only people looney enough to be camping out here tonight, on a freeaing-ass night like this. The sky is brilliant, there's clouds sweeping past the stars, the winter stars. This was one of Jakes's favorite places, or at least it seemed so.

Wednesday, 5th February 2003 Carson City NV

Climbing up Highway 50 up towards Tahoe, Tahoe and Virginia City are both about the same elvation, a little over 6200 feet. Both excellent places to acclimate for the Guatemala highlands. Therefore: I foresee a need, in warm weather, to come up to Tahoe during the week and walk around. We will be In Training. At least, that's the excuse.

Crossing the Tahoe Rim, Spooner Summit, 7146 feet, mileage, 87300 exactly! Coincidence, or... question mark question mark... Yeah, winter-friggin'-wonderland up here, Spooner Lake looks all frozen over. Hey! It's only 11 miles to Ponderosa Ranch! Let's go have a HossBurger!

Remind Sharon to send her gambling card so Maureen can gamble it at Incline Village.

And now, Tahoe hoves into sight, another friggin' beautiful view, the mountains on the California side are NOT totally encrusted in snow. But then again, it's been a dry winter.

OK, it is rather beautiful up here on Tahoe, the sun's still at a low angle, the shadows are casting dramatic relief on the crags of the, I guess that's the mountains in the Desolation Wilderness, there on the southwest shore, as we're now cruising down the southeast shore. Still on the Nevada side of Tahoe.

South Lake Tahoe - consider, see if the Sail In next to Regan Beach has deep discounts midweek, AARP, deep winter, when there's nobody here. And also check out Motel 8 just before the turnoff to Regan Beach, on what was that? Lakeshore Drive. Lakeview. Lakeview is the turnoff from the highway. And of course bring up the bikes to Tahoe, after some of the snow has melted maybe. And get the maps for the bike routes up here. Acually I think that should be on some of our Lake Tahoe recreation maps, that are probably stuck in the boxes in the RV bathroom.

We just passed a little cabin with a sign on it saying Paleotic Pines. Near as I can decipher, Paleotic means 'old ears'. Must have moved here from Deaf Smith County.

Be sure to tell Beth and Brad about the Bear stores up in Reno, in the CostCo shopping center, the Bear store and the Americana store across from it.

We are now cruising around the backroads of Lake Tahoe following the bike routes, desperately looking for a view of the lake. Back here in the residential neighborhoods, where we can see how the colder half lives. And this is pretty nippy-looking territory. Maybe it's the three feet of snow on the ground that gives that impression. Squirrels hopping about. A few dogs being walked, with much puffing and exhaling of steam. I just slaughtered a huge pine cone in the middle of the road, and didn't even feel it.

Snow gets pretty deep around here. There are poles eight feet high, ones with a red sign on top for FH mark where the fire hydrants are: ones with the blue sign, MH,mark where the manholes are. They need the 8-foot-high poles to locate the infrastructure.

Well OK, now we're slightly out of town on Emerald Bay Road. We see the bike routes here, just out of town, are still all covered with snow, so this is definitely not the season to be hauling the recumbents [up] here. But as soon as things start to thaw, and before the summer adventurers show up, with their smoggy SUVs, yeah, then that'll be the time.

Leaving Lake Tahoe

Meanwhile we picked up a branch with leaves on it somewhere along the way here, looks like oak leaves. I pulled it outa the bumper back in Carson City, stuck it up in the hood grillwork next to the antenna, now it's very nicely camoflauged. We'll have to do that in the future. A new tradition for the RV: camoflauge the antenna. That's how we can tell it apart from all the others. That, and the big racing stripes down the back, of course.

Climbing up the LUTHERS PASS road, there's enough sunshine on one side of the road, a lot of big granitic boulders are clearly visible, all thawed out. The other side is shady and deep in snow. The lakes and meadows up here are under a deep wintry cover, even out in the bright sunshine. The white trunks of the naked birch or beech or aspen trees, whichever they are, sticking up here like spindly ghosts. Little clumps of them amongst all the pines and other conifers.

Now LUTHERS PASS, elevation 7740. Alpine County line. And a fast decent into Hope Valley, high atop Carson Canyon, y'know, the most scenic drive in America in 1965... And Caples Lake, what an icy realm nestled in here amongst all this shattered rock. And the little dam at the west end, all drifted in with snow. Not much evidence of thaw, here... Now past Kirkwood into the second avalanche alley, a very foreboding stretch of road. Like a narrow slot - and with a big truck coming at me in the opposite direction! ...We both went slow enough, and pulled over enough, that the, uh, had no impact. But that's a nervous-makin' area, there... Yup, scary.

Now dropping down to Silver Lake, or are we past that? Anyway, the roadside rocks are covered with ice flows... A sign, not Silver Lake, but it's a historical landmark, well it's supposed to be the historical landmark, which isn't there, but there's a big view out to the north. Look up at the Desolation Wilderness mountains, there... and a little further, we're at the Mormon Emigrant Trail turnoff, and snowpark, well, the trail doesn't go through right now, it hasn't been plowed for a while, won't be for a while. Signs back there were warning of ICY CONDITIONS ON THE ROADS ON ROADWAY. Gee, who could expect that at this elevation, at this time of year?

(all your base are belong to us - all your bass are belong to us - all your ass are belong to us - all your grass are belong to us - do the pictures)

Now past Peddlar Hill's vast view to the south. Then the Bear Resevoir overlook. Take a little break there, take pictures of ice flows. Now Ham's Station, getting lower, getting warmer, less snow, getting brighter, but then, that was inevitable, wasn't it? ... Now at Cook's Station. Gravel and sand all over the road here. Signs warning of roadwork but... O, here's the roadworkers, they're taking a break, having lunch. Meanwhile somebody had trouble back there, 'cause an ambulance just passed us, going east, Code 3. Oops.

A few weeks ago we came over here in a little colder weather and saw three rollovers in the space of just a, ten miles maybe. The woad is tweachewous...

Shake Ridge Road already. Looking nice and sunny and dry and thawed down here. It looks warm and green and sunny. Thawed, anyway. Some artsy-craftsy place with a sign up saying BUCKHORN ORIGINALS, just east of the emergency heliport, which is just above 4000 feet. Check it out one of these days.

Now Mace Meadows and Buckhorn and Pioneer and Red Corral and the Volcano turnoff. Nice warm spring day down here. Why we'd hardly even know that it was winter up above, if we hadn't been through it. Looks like the kinda day for pullin' out the lawn furniture, settin' out, watchin' the squirrels run up'n'down the trees. Watchin' the deer run by. Watch the dogs'n'cats run by. Putter in the yard a bit.

And now we have almost a whole hour before we have to head down to Jackson for Maureen's PT, Physical Therapy. Ah, a very event-filled three-day micro-vacation. But who needs excitement?

See HIGH NOONER: The Wild West Mythos