SouthWestSlide: _{Spring 2004}

Phase Six_(b)
Nevada & California & Home

We drove all the way across Nevada (via Area 51) in one single day because it was just too focking hot to stop anywhere. And this in early June. Wait till summer comes. Bring water. And money.

California really *IS* cleaner and brighter and greener and nicer than just about anywhere else in the SouthWest. More crowded and expensive and neurotic too, of course. There are always trade-offs.

Day 67: All The Way Across Nevada
(Sunday 6 June 2004)

Sunday Morning, Parowan Utah. We've dropped 4000 feet in 14 miles from Cedar Breaks down to this quaint old Mormon town with lots of BIG houses that seem to have multiple entrances. Hmmmm. I suspect polygamists. Anyway, lots of the buildings around here are brick. The streets are wide. The town is tidy. Big trees. Big lawns. Big sprinklers.

And then we roll through Cedar City, the Ashland of Utah. A bit bigger than Ashland though. Very prosperous looking. The Shakespeare Festival and university must help. And the proximity to, but much greater elevation than, St George. Cedar City's nearness to Zion and Cedar Breaks and Bryce probably doesn't hurt any either.

And climbing westward out of Cedar City, we - surprise! - go through more sagebrush and up to the piñon-juniper zone again. Up at Cedar Breaks we were in fir - spruce - quaking aspen territory, and bristlecone pines. Seems like miles above us. Well, it was.

NEVADA: And now we're in Nevada. We roll through Panaca with nothing to see; don't feel like going to Pioche where there *might* be something to see, but it's not worth it. We roll on back through Caliente (Kal-YEN-ee in the local dialect) - even less here that there was the last time we came through, eight or ten years ago. On that last visit it was I think a Memorial Day weekend - no it wasn't that, it was just before our anniversary - but it was *some* big weekend and there were thousands of off-road vehicles here, owners chomping at the bit to go tearing across the devastated zones.

And at the time, the biggest office in town looked to be the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's station for measuring radiation and radiation-related illnesses. Turns out, THIS is the number one county in the country for getting downwind fallout from the nuclear tests. The county that Kanab is in is number two on the list for receiving radiation,

Meanwhile the countryside outside Caliente in both directions is really rather nice - steep canyons, hot springs, gnarly red rocks, lots of exposed sedimentary layers just sitting out there in the sun saying BITE ME! Caliente is named after the hot springs near town; and one of these years when we have nothing better to do, we'll stop by and see just how hot they are. But we probably won't do so between May and October of any given year. Inclusive.

We're seeing limestone and lava and sandstone. So the drive through here is pretty scenic if you have air conditioning. Your WILD IMAGINATION can get exercised here too.

West of Caliente, elevation 4300 feet (ugh), we gain attitude if not altitude or maybe that's the other way around, back into juniper-piñon-sage. Natiljas, prickly-poppies, have been beside the road off'n'on for many miles now, their great papery blooms saying SNIFF ME - EAT ME - SMOKE ME.

JOSHUA TREES: Going through another pass we enter Dry Lake Valley and we leave the junipers and piñons behind and now we're in the Joshua Tree zone again after so long away. Joshua trees, sage, rabbitbush. And to the north, a big dry lake.

And after a bit we're in a zone, behond which even the Joshua Trees don't grow. Now we just look like we're going across a stinkin' desert. In this dry valley bordered by rocky dry mountains, blue in the distance. I forget what these kinda valleys are called, Saucer Valleys or Platter Valleys. The idea being that if ya get up towards the rim on any of'em ya can see EVERY THING THAT HAPPENS in the valley, ya can watch EVERY BODY enter and exit. There is NO PLACE TO HIDE.

And as we go through the Hiko Range we're surrounded by a layer of granite weathered into great boulders looking like petrified bunny poop. So says Maureen. Really big monster bunnies. Y'know, the radioactive mutant kind.

ET HIGHWAY: At Crystal Springs we turn off on Nevada 375, the ExtraTerrestrial Highway, the designation sign of which has been shamefully defaced by many disgraceful stickers. Just beyond, we pass the first Alien Research Center, portions of which appear to be still under construction. Awaiting alien assistence, no doubt. Martian or Guatemalan, who knows?

We roll over a summit, down into the next valley east from Area 51. The great dirt access road upon which the busses with blackened windows carrying the anonymous workers in and out, clearly visible, streaking arrow-straight across the valley. The Tikaboo Valley. Another Joshua Tree zone. Or are some or all of these really disguised aliens?

And beyond, the cattle. Just waiting to be mutilated.

BLACK MAILBOX: I return to the infamous Black Mailbox which of course is not black. It now has a slot for Alien Mail. Most of the old grafitti has been cleaned off and new grafitti has been added. A dedicated researcher would come by here every month or so, over a span of 10 or 15 or 20 years, and photograph the Black Mailbox and note the rise and fall of the grafitti and stickers on it. I however am NOT that researcher.

I was last here just a tad over four years ago. And all the sensations and memories come flooding back: The abduction. The probing. The alien costume contest. The filthy smoky interior of the Little A'Le Inn and all their ripoff literature inside. And the alien Joshua Trees, leering down on us.

Midway between the Black (or white) Mailbox and Rachel, we turn off to the right on the unmarked road to Tempiute. The road is asphalt, obviously not maintained for many years. It's still in good condition. Nefarious plants have tried to take it over but they have not yet prevailed. At least one lane is open. We climb back into juniper-piñon-etcetera. The air gets cooler. The road is a bit rattier. The trucks coming to the remaining mine up here keep the roadway open. Now that the mines are mostly closed, Tempiute functions as Rachel's summer resort. Or does it?

MIDAFTERNOON, Tempiute. After midday refreshments we conclude that it's too warm up here, even at elevation. At 6600 feet or higher it's too hot to lay around through the afternoon and into the night. So we descend into Rachel, try not to get abducted, and press onwards.

Dropping down out of Tempiute, out of the junipers and piñons and etcetera, past the mining operations, we come back down through sage scrub, overlooking the vast Sand Springs Valley. Off to one side is Rachel, and straight ahead is that big old dry lake I got lost on four years ago. Refer to my earlier account. It is now aswarm with dust devils. A most uninviting place. Unless you like dust.

There's something sublime and awful, looking down from a height onto this playa several miles across, and seeing a huge brown vortice roiling over its surface. The dry lake is nearly circular, the dust devil was at least a quarter mile or a third of a mile across at maximum, and throwing dust at least a mile into the air. Even now as it's run off the edge of the playa and across the brush-covered desert, it's still leaving a smoky plume stretching high into the atmosphere.

And now other smaller devils are forming on the west side and continuing in a procession eastward. Indeed, it is a nice day for dust.

RACHEL, NEVADA: The situation in Rachel is: DEAD. The old Area 51 Research Center is gone, replaced by a candle shop. The Little A'Le Inn, well, who gives a fat rat's ass? If there are any humans left here they've long since been picked over by the extraterrestials. The only ones left are the ones they wouldn't take. So we bid fond farewell to Rachel, elevation 4900, and vector towards Tonopah.

Running past the west shore of Sand Springs Dry Lake, four spinning dust devils try to abduct us, but we escape! (Maureen laughs.) Not without some battering though. AARRGGHH!

Look up GREFFCO in Basalt Nevada. See what kinda stuff they're mining. Is that borax.

Almost California: Meanwhile we are approaching Montgomery Pass. I have no descriptions of the landscape for the couple hundred miles from Sand Springs to Tonopah because it was too hot and I was too tired to describe it, all stinkin' desert. You wouldn't like it. Go away.

Just beyond Montgomery Pass is California. We can hardly wait.

Day 68: Refuge In California
(Monday 7 June 2004)

MORNING, Benton California. Last night we camped on Old Railroad Grade below Montgomery Pass Nevada, escaped the heat. Rolled out of Tonopah past an old Desert Rat - didn't look that old but he sure looked fried - sitting beside the road with his little pack. Past volcanic hills, past the turnoff to Oasis, on up to Montgomery Pass for a quiet night. This morning, over the pass - the casino and motel up there look defunct, I guess there's not a lot of tourist traffic this way any more - on down into Benton.

We stopped by Terry the Geologist's new house past the windmill. And he's not there. He has a guest, Alec, up from Darwin; we chatted for a couple hours about geology and travel and whatever. And then onward through Benton Hot Springs and the last irrigated we'll see for a bit as we cruise towards Mono Lake and Lee Vining.

The road suddenly cuts uphill through a sagebruch scrub, oh very rocky peaks. To the east, the 14,000 foot White Mountains; to the west, past these hills and rocks, the 14,000 foot Sierras. This is a locale that's a geologist's delight, this is why the geologist retires here - oh, and then there's the hot springs too.

This is really a steep climb, westward out of Benton. This is one of the steepest paved grades we've been on, on this trip. Nice rocks all over though. And climbing up to Sagehorn Summit, almost 8200 feet, we're suddenly struck - WHACK! - with the full impact of the High Sierras dead ahead of us. Not near as much snow as in past sightings. Just as well, this is summer. The Mono Cones rising dramatically in front of the Sierras. It's so green out here out here in this volcanic landscape! And the road's lined with carpets of purple flowers, looks like short lupines.

And finally over the hill into the Mono Basin. The road is forested with gorgeous pines with bright red-brown truncks. This soil here is all pumice sand, volcanic ash. There through the trees we spy Mono Lake, the inland sea. And then the trees open out and we see one of the weirdest beach scenes you can imagine: white sands with red-brown-green pines dropping down to the bright blue of the desert lake and the blue-gray of the mountains behond, some snow-capped.

MONO LAKE: We stop in Lee Vining and are nicely stuffed at Nicely's for considerably less than we would have been at the restaurant up at the Yosemite junction. Nicely's is open now, it was closed on our last pass through for a month-long spring cleaning. Inside there's little decor change but it's pleasant and clean and the food's wonderful and reasonable. Two thumbs up.

So now we're dashing along the shore of Mono Lake, made more dramatic by the wind that's blowing big ripples across it. As we get closer they even look like waves. The lake itself is looking better, the water level seems to be up a bit. Less has been drained off for Los Angeles from its feeder streams. Lotsa birds flying around and siting in the water. The islands look like they might be separated from the shore again; vital so predators don't ravage the migratory waterfowls' nesting sites.

We saw ads for boat tours of the islands. Very tempting. But not today, we're tired, we want to head up to a mountain fastness to cool off and relax for a couple days before we make our final push homewards. And all the chores of unloading this vehicle and re-stashing everything for a few weeks until we load up again and depart for Bisbee.

IMAGING: Meanwhile for the last couple of days we have been discussing (as we roll down the road) plans for Bisbee, how to furnish the house. Plans for producing images to try to sell. Plans for driving across Mexico to Guatemala and seeing the rest of the world.

For the imagery: we can produce photographic images and posterizations and paintings. I have just finished reading a book of essays on avant-garde artists from the 60s to the 90s. One team of artists did some research to see what kinds of pictures people liked. And what they came up with was: landscapes with a lot of sky; and pictures with famous people, with happy families, and with animals. So of course they produced some that contained all of those.

So we project that in the next phase of our life we shall be not just travelers, but artistes. Or at least decorators. There are those who hold that if a work is not challenging, it isn't art [, it's just decoration.] I'll buy into that to the extent that the pictures we produce will be with the intent of actually selling them.. And we won't be in a major art market, therefore they will be decorative.

Einstein and his happy family walking their pet cheetahs before a forest with a big blue sky. Marilyn Monroe riding a tiger in front of ancient cliff dwellings. Oh, I'll also print pictures of townscapes, ancient and modern. And people, and cats - I have a lot of cat pictures on hand. And places we've been, stuff we like. And ethnic arts. And roadside memorials. And maybe even some artsy-fartsy stuff, who knows.

Oh yes, I have a task - dig up all my old negatives, put them on the scanner, scan'em and reverse'em and blow'em up. Especially my German pictures and my Army portraiture. And of course, extract still images from my videos.

And I'll need to shoot and create some new images, of food (to pair up with my food songs) and Tarot (to pair up with my Tarot songs), et cetera.

MID-AFTERNOON: approaching Walker, cruising downstream north along the East Walker River. It's about as gorgeous as it was coming in the other direction a couple months ago but a bit warmer. We stopped for a walkaround break a the tiny high-desert county seat of Bridgeport. And as we get back to California we note that even this stretch of high desert eas of the Sierras is a lot greener than anything we've seen in a long time. Maureen says, from the Verde Valley. I don't think even that was this green. Even the dry side of the Sierras here looks pretty luxurient in comparison.

We stopped in Walker to look at Injun Stuff. A few shops there have enticed us for years but we've never been here before when a) we have time and b) the shops are open. Some surprisingly fine baskets and pots amongst the tourist crap; beyond our budget now.

LATE AFTERNOON, Grover Hot Springs State Park outside Markleeville California. We have come to ground for a couple of night before continuing the last few miles home. Nestled into the mostly abrupt east face of the Sierras, and the wind blows and blows, the Sierra Express train roaring through the trees.

And what a day it's been for animals! When we pulled in a Terry's this morning, there were bunnies and jackrabbits and birds hopping around all over the place, and a bunch of ground squirrels. As we were driving out here from Markleeville, a turtle was crossing the road - we just barely missed it - maybe a foot long. And out here at the park there's squirrels running all over too, Yours Truly included. (wind noise)

Day 69: Grover Hot Springs State Park
(Tuesday 8 June 2004)

ON RETREAT, Grover Hot Springs California. Another day of retreat. Nippy last night, we're about what, 5000 or 6000 feet - I'll check on that. Nippier here than it was up at 10,000 feet at Cedar Breaks. We ran the cabin heater this morning, first time we've done that since Prescott. Grover is in a little valley; meadows and pine trees. Soon as ya get off the valley floot it's sage under the ponderosas. And mountain misery, mountain mahogany, volcanic rocks.

This morning a small group of Japanese tourists walked by. Two women picked up large pine cones, exclaimed over them, passed them around to be admired, then put them back. The wind still roars through the trees like a freight train.

IMAGING: We've been discussing photography for sale again. Besides the stuff that surveys say people like, we'll also do the stuff that WE like - some of which is MISSIONS. I already know that I'll have to go back to San Xavier del Bac to reshoot that. And it occurs to me that in October, when Maureen and her sister and mother go off to Switzerland, after I drive Maureen and her mother down to the airport in Sacramento and whip up north to see me Mum and the rest of the southern Oregon family, then I can head south along the coast and do the Mission Trail, and shoot and reshoot all the California missions. And add to my saints song-cycle with songs about the saints to which the various missions are dedicated.

Hmmm, I have all those SAINTS songs that don't relate to specific missions, guess I should include renderings of representative saints. That will we difficult in some cases, especially for St. Dracula and the Robot Pope. I'll think of something.

Day 70: Rolling Home
(Wednesday 9 June 2004)

DEPARTURE: Markleeville California. Roll out of Grover Hot Springs State Park, elevation 5500 feet. NIPPY! The outside temperature a bit above freezing but not much. Roll out through tiny Markleeville which is due to be rebuilt as a tourist destination. Oh boy. But winters are rough here, there's a REASON this county's population hovers at just above 1000. Turn on the radio - SNOW SHOWERS at Lake Tahoe today, let's hope that our pass is open and that we can get home without having to detour hundreds of miles around.

Meanwhile, ahead of us: oh, the usual rocky gnarly (Maureen laughs) mountainous escarpments with heavy clouds above, snow in the upper elevations. The sunlight at a low angle and the clouds overhead cast dramatic shadows on the protuberances. Tall pines rise around us. The cat sits quietly, having puked during the night.

So we refuel in Woodsfords, most expensive gas for the trip, US$2.70 per gallon. And we close the loop. We had lunch in Woodsfords on our first day out. Now we're skipping the Woodsfords Inn, it'd be really good to make it up over the pass before we get snowed in.

NOTE: Search for SCAN VINYL - see about ways for taking scanned images of record discs and turning'em into sound files.

And we come up to Hope Valley, elevation 7000 feet, alongside the West Fork Carson River, which is rolling and flowing and frothing and spitting and spurting and splashing and dashing and drooling and spittering and sputtering through rocks amid the pines and cedars and firs. And we not how a couple days ago we were running from the heat and now we're running to beat the snow. There's a metaphor embedded here somewhere.

And we climb up the familiar terrain towards Carson Pass. The CHAIN REQUIREMENT signs aren't up yet. Yeah, we've been here before. Right around HERE is about where Maureen whacked the deer.

And the odd flick of snow hits our windshield, and the mountains are a brilliant white ahead, the sky is dark and murky - clouds.

SURPRISES: And as this journey journal nears its end, we look back upon the trip. Maureen asks, "What's the most *surprising* thing of this trip?" And for her it was:

MAUREEN: I don't remember now.
RIC: She doesn't remember now.

(intense cogitation and remembrance) Ah, she's surprised that Chaco Canyon was so green. I was surprised that Carlsbad Caverns was so overwhelming. And that the UFO Center in Roswell was so professionally presented. And that instead of collecting souvenirs, we bought a house. And Maureen says that the little Prescott museum, where we saw the Western art exhibit, the Phippen, was so excellent - oh, not that one, the one with all the pots, the Smoki. No, they were BOTH surprisingly excellent, as was the museum in Roswell. And that there such good deals on jewelery in Zuni, at least at the Arab's shop. Maureen's surprised that Arizona and New Mexico produced such good wines.

Otherwise on the trip, what didn't we do? What didn't we USE? Let's see, we never took the bikes off the back of the RV. Didn't use our raft. Didn't dig out all the books we took, just ignored all those guidebooks.

And what we didn't do: we didn't go to Mexico, we didn't go up the Rio Grande Valley to the pueblos, didn't make Canyon de Chelly or Mesa Verde, Durango, Four Corners. Let's see, we didn't take any hot-air balloon rides or glider rides or river rafting trips or horseback rides (but that's no surprise.) We didn't do more pueblos and missions and observatories, [skipped most of the scenic rail rides.

More of Maureen's surprises: how much Prescott had grown; that Chaco had an observaory; that Bisbee had a four-star **** resTaurant. I was surprised that Arcosanti was so funky and that BioSphere II was so unapproachable and slick and corporate.

CARSON PASS: And now we're going through Carson Pass, elevation 8573, and there's still the odd flake of snow but no accumulation on the road. So I guess we've made it. Although we still have another avalanche sone to go through, so... let's see. And we go past a work crew tearing up the road and rebuilding it here at Carson Pass - cold miserable work right now with the snow coming down.

And we think of more surpises: how disappointing the Heard Museum was. How spectacular coming back to Amador County in these conditions is. How splendid the White Sands were. How easy it is for wind o blow over a camera on a tripod. How well we've all gotten along here inside this RV or over two months.

And we pass Carson Spur, elevation 7990, the far end of the avalanche zone, and now we can say WE'VE MADE IT.

HOME ON THE RANGE

O give me a bed / and a girl who gives head
With a lack-a-daisical style
And I'll use my thumb / just to keep feelin' young
Tho I'll start to decay in a while

Home, home on the range
Where anything normal is strange
Where the birds in the trees / have a social disease
And my doggy's come home with the mange