First Days of School…
Budget cuts have hit the California State University system hard this year. Getting classes is proving near impossible for some students as demand has risen while course sections have been reduced. Frustration and confusing reigned supreme in the first week at San Francisco State…
A New Day in America
My household was a flurry of activity this morning; we rolled out of our beds and fired up the computers to stream the inaguration. It’s surreal to think that W is gone. Certainly there is already something to celebrate - science got numerous mentions today and even the “non-believers” were acknowledged. Now, we wait with baited breath and fingers starred, crossed, and crescented to see what happens.
Zack, a member of www.rollersoccer.com, was on Haight street in full patriotic regalia to mark the day.
Burning…
I’m getting tired now and burning up lots of country, chasing the sun into the Pacific.
But I’ll be back again, or so I tell myself.
Forest Hostel - Brunswick, Georgia
My last stop in the coastal south was a utopian outpost in the forest - part intentional community, part hostel. Guests are asked to help with chores and are required to keep personal technology hidden away in their private quarters. A hippie colony in Georgia I did not expect to find. It’s the typical custom of such places to blissfully isolate from the outside world and related problems, with participants all the while maintaining their global consciousness through organic food and yoga. Perhaps that’s a cynical view; to it’s credit the great folks at the hostel grow a lot of their own food, maintain a low footprint, and use humanure to grow flowers. It’s an easy place to get stuck in, especially for unsuspecting wanderer without a set schedule, and so at the first signs of comfort, I fled.
Jesus on the road…
Somewhere in Mississippi, driving from Jackson to New Orleans, I spotted Lance on his northbound walk along Highway 61. I u-turned and walked out to great him. “I’m walking up the Mississippi River and praying for the country.” In our short ten minutes together, at least a dozen passerby slowed dramatically; a parade of supportive smiles, approving honks, and enthusiastic cheers. Several more pulled over to seek the cross bearer’s blessing and offer him rides and money (Lance doesn’t take any donations while bearing the cross. Standing in a circle, hands clasped with the believers, I endured a short prayer and smiled and with respect and relief when we broke the huddle. A frail white man, with a heaviest drawl, muttered something about the glory of living in the end times. A stout black woman, squinting and beginning to sweat in the unseasonal January heat, proudly claimed to be “walking with the Lord” and concurred that indeed, “It’s a good feeling.” Lance offered up the latest fighting between Israelis and Palestinians as proof that, indeed, the end is upon us.
More prayers for the country… the end is near.
Asheville Arts
Like many towns trying to distinguish themselves and build higher level economies, Asheville stakes a lot on it’s arts district. It’s certainly the most successful example of this I’ve seen. Hardly a novelty here, the town is known nationwide for being the hip jewel of the south and cultivates that reputation. Galleries and open studios can be found all over the city. Walking around the river arts district I had chanced upon the Asheville Arts Council “Artist of the Year”, Jonas Gerard, in action.
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Olwell Family Christmas
“The Holidays” are an odd time for to be on the road alone. Driveways burst with out-of-state license plates - family caravans arriving late into the night after braving Midwestern ice and wind, the dreaded Lake effect, and gas station gourmet. Candles in the windows of neat white clapboard houses and from the car, quick glimpses of dinner tables and living rooms bathed in the comforting glow of twinkling lights, make a strange passing in the night feel quite apart from the land.
Owing to godlessness, I had no particular plans for Chanukkah nor Christmas, and I am planning to spend the New Year on a nature walk in the forest. It was my traveler’s luck then to couchsurf with Miles, a superb musician and teacher in Charlottesville, Virginia. I expected to pass through town for just a day, but he kindly invited me to spend Christmas with family and friends - the Olwells - in the quiet one street village of Scottsville, Virginia. They privileged me with warmth, kindness, and inclusion into their annual family tradition. For two days we holed away in the house of Matthew and Emily, feasting upon things home cooked and freshly killed, unhurriedly basking in great company. Music filled the air - old time clawhammer banjo, guitars, fiddle, Appalachian body percussion and Irish flute; the Olwells happened to be renowned makers of traditional Irish flutes with a six-year backlog for their work.
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Open for Business - Inauguration Superstore
The business of America is business. Truer words have not been spoken. In the wake of 9/11 we were reminded of our patriotic duty to consume as usual and overnight a cottage industries for limited edition patriotic hanging plates, flags and flag pins, and fuck em’ up bumper stickers was born. Every great calamity and joyous moment brings an opportunity to sell commemorative trinkets to the masses. Today, in happier, more hopeful times, as Washington DC is shrouded in a suffocating blanket of security in anticipation of four million inaugural revelers, an Inaguration Superstore is setting up shop nearly a full month before the historic moment.
John B. Free
A backtrack to Nevada: Life in a box is no life at all. But that’s our sad reality - packed like sardines into steel and glass cans with holes cut out for the view. Four corners and walls are the canvas upon which we express our vision of the world - lease terms permitting. So it’s always refreshing to find those who’ve to etched a grander vision on a more inspiring canvas. Perhaps they’ve no use for boxes. In Nevada, the disappointment of my failed summit attempt at Great Basin National Park, was erased by the distinct pleasure of befriending one John B. Free.
John and his wife, a Park Ranger, live in a yurt at the base of the park, nestled right up against magnificent 12,000 foot peaks. The structure serves as a sort of mothership to which various appendage experiments in strucutre and design are attached. A solar panel, green house, and hot tub are directly attached to the host vehicle. Nearby lay the ruins of the an authentic Indian sweat lodge - of adobe and straw - built by John and a local friend. The dome came down under the weight of a particularly heavy winter. Most impressive is the desert croquet course.
John has built a sprawling maze - a long course of neat rock-lined paths that can be played in dizzying variety of configurations totaling over thirty holes. Golf clubs, bats, and croquet mallets of factory and home manufacture can be shot using either their business ends or the butt of the handle, pool shot style in putting situations. - to achieve over thirty holes of action.
Their spread overlooks a vast, seemingly desolate basin. John pointed out a small intentional community that home schools their kids, with an emphasis on the “spiritual.” Further off, across the plain, a fundamentalist Christian group - centered around music. They put on great concerts for the surrounding community - from classical to rock.
Go Vonsky, Go!
Vonsky is still blowin’ hard. I was introduced to the playing of Von Freeman two years ago, on my first visit to Chicago. A veritable hidden treasure, a master of bop, it’s safe to say most Chicagoans don’t know about this legend playing right on their back yard. Every Tuesday night at the New Apartment Lounge. Admitedly, at 86 he was in worse shape than at my last visit. Still, he lead the talented band with a quiet authority and measured taste, leaving space for virtuostic displays from three amazing backing players, as well as his own delicate phrasings and long, improvised journies across the soundscape. When he breaks the space between songs with a silky smooth “Yeah Baby,” you know it’s all good.
Great Sand Dunes National Park
A night was spent camping in Great Sand Dunes National Park. All the geological pieces fell into place to form these massive dunes, nestled below the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Minimal light pollution created an amazing stargazing experience. However, I could not be bothered to commune with the heavens for more than hour - it was complete dark by 7pm and the temperatures dropped to fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. In the morning I awoke thirsty, only to find my camelbak frozen into a solid block of ice.
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The Night Manager Comes Out…
Anxious to make eastward progress after a week spent traversing Nevada, I left the truckers, cowboys, and a few lonely hearts at the Border Inn-Diner-RV Park vegetating on a steady stream of talk shows (Ellen Degeneres is the perennial favorite), a back to back parade of TV courtroom judges, and reality TV intrigues. This was simply background music, a fluff track to fill periodic lulls in an otherwise engrossing banter of local gossip about anyone and everyone who was not present at the given moment. Banks of slot machines punctuated the air with clicks, bells, and laser beeps; one contraption played a jingle so hideously grating upon the ear, that even jaded local workers disapproved. This is your last chance to strike it big in Nevada.
A friend had accurately described the Utahan landscape as extraterrestrial and so I cut short my nighttime push through the state to savor the sights in the daylight. I pulled into Salina and splurged for a bed and my first shower in a week at the Ranch Motel. Salina has nothing to distinguish itself by, save for that Utahans in other towns give a knowing grunt of disgust and mutter “Ugh… Salina, Suh-limey” at first mention of my visit there. The motel was even less noteworthy, but for a touching exchange with the night manager:
“Hi, I’m Mike, from 21. Do you have a cup and a microwave to make tea?” The amenities were scarce.
“Sure,” replied the manager as he sprung eagerly and nervously into action and disappeared into the room marked PRIVATE. I inspected the leaflets promising easy adventures ahead; helicopter sightseeing, rafting, canyons and caves, petroglyphs. Salina, the gateway to…
“So, Mike, are you married?” A fair, if irrelevant question. I want tea but fear that he’s hiding a Mormon girl in the wings.
“Ha! No.”
“Oh good. That’s smart. You can come and go as you please, don’t gotta listen to nobody. Me too, man, I’m not married.
I do what I want. Come home late, sometimes don’t come home at all. Yeah, we have a great time out here. Go drinkin’, camping, there’s lots of action.” By now he had nervously brought out all the cups from the backroom and presented the merits of each one - this one will keep it warm, this one holds more water, this one’s kinda nice. Eventually we settled on a small cup, large pitcher combination, and set the microwave to four minutes. Time to kill.
“So, what kind of interesting folks come through town?”
“Oh man, I’ve rented to all kinds of people - all kinds.
I’ve got gay and homosexuals. Last week I had two gays in that room, down there. And another one of them gays upstairs. And a month ago, two lesbians right over here.
Man I don’t care who you are, long as you’re honest with me. Yeah, all kinds.
The other day, these two young guys - twenty-four twenty-five - invite me to their room for a drink. So we’re drinking having a great time and I left to take care of something up here. Then I come back and they’re sittin’ outside on a chair making out! I’m like, Jesus fellas, ya’ll should have told me you were that way. Give me a warning or something. They’re trying to get in my pants right away.” At this he smiled nervously then chortled with glee.
His crooked, uneasy smile, revealed a set of braces glistening with saliva under bare fluorescent lights. Greying hair, in fast retreat, clashed with an unshaven face which couldn’t quite muster a five o’clock shadow and the boyish figure he tried to affect with nut-hugger jeans an tight salmon color polo.
Water still boiling.
“Tell me about a typical evening out in Salina.” I wanted to know the real America.
“There’s not so much action here you know. All the action’s down in Redmond. Nice bar down there.
Man I walk in there any night and right away I get about fifteen of them gays hitting on me. But you know, it’s because of my buddy. He’s gay. I don’t care.
That place is crazy man, all sorts of freaks down there. Gays, straights, and then you go in there and catch the straights in the dark corners…you know…” he trailed off.
“Well, it’s good to know people can be themselves here.”
The water has boiled.
“Yeah, it’s good here. I do what I want. I don’t really care what people do, you know. I mean, I’m not like that. But the Mr. L, the big rancher in town, his daughter… You know, she’s always going down there with her lady. Grabbing crotch and ass. She’s very open about it…”
Time to go.
“Alright Mike, you take care. Don’t let this little town scare you…”
Up to the mountain, Come back down…
“Nobody’s been up there this winter so we don’t know what the trails are like. Come back and tell us if you make it,” the ranger said.
“It just looks like a light dusting from here,” I told myself, rationalizing my attempt to summit Great Basin National Park’s Mt. Wheeler, the second highest peak in Nevada at 13,063 feet. It didn’t occur to me that the snow I was seeing belonged to the lesser Mt. Jeff Davis [think Confederacy], whose 12,771 ft. bulk entirely obscured my target. A painful lesson would soon be learned - that the accuracy of trail condition predictions is proportionate to the hiker’s distance from the terrain.
The next afternoon, I filled out the “recommended” backcountry registration form - “Just so we know where to find you” - and embarked, against conventional prudence, on my first solo hike, my first winter camping, on poorly marked snowed over trails. To my delight I had earlier discovered that my Wal-Mart purchased compass came with clear instructions on the package.
Starting late in day, I gained 2,500 vertical feet over four miles, but began doubting my course by sundown. It was a new sensation of aloneness to find myself alone in the quiet, darkening forest seeking out the last faint traces of the trail, now just a long, thin, depression in the snow. Truly, however, there was little chance of losing my way; hoof prints from deer that preferred the easy way up and “Jack loves Jill1987″ knife carving on tree trunks suggested the right course. The temperature dropped and a fullish moon cast its silver glow across the snow. The last light identified a clearing in a thin stand of aspens; I stomped the snow level, set my shelter close to the trees for comfort, and settled in by six o’clock.
I beat the cold with wool and down, but within the hour craziness set-in and I could not distinguish the music of the forest from the rustling of my gear from the sounds in my head. Excruciating boredom threatened to end this first easy experiment in sylvan solitude. A solo hiker later explained that this is why she always started early, hiked hard and tired out, in order to avoid too many waking hours with nothing but her thoughts. It was a sharp reminder of my daily preoccupation with things and tasks; convenient masks for a mind too undisciplined to be left without direction, racing from fleeting thought to fleeting thought, tearing itself apart in all directions. A copy of the New Yorker read nearly cover to cover by headlamp was my saving grace.
Up early with the light, I wolfed down a triple dose of instant oatmeal and was on the trail by eight, finally gaining a clear view of the summit - over 3,000 vertical feet away. Inspired, but ill-equipped to hike through foot deep snow, I sunk with every step. Snowshoes had not been on my packing list when I observed the “light dusting” of snow and I worried about tackling the last steep face to the summit without an ice axe for self-arrest. After much internal debate, I turned back, leaving the summit for another attempt.
Into Thin Crust
Palindrome
The main artery cuts straight and true through the basins, straying from its determined transcontinental course only for the ranges where it winds a path of least resistance through canyons, pinon pine forests,and over summits into the next mind numbingly vast expanse. The unhurried traveler marvels at sweeping vistas and towering peaks in the offing. History seeps from pores in the crust, defunct mining shacks and shafts, and the withering disjointed dots of the Pony Express Trail. A series of inscribed plaques with the honorable and official of Nevada offer historical context and visual marker for some relics; other are strewn deeper in the landscape, waiting for more determined explorers.
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Old mines ran dry and ghosts inherited the towns, while some clung to life by reinventing themselves in the shell of an exagerrated Old West mythology. Today the all the attention falls on the Little Big City to the east and the Big Big City to the south. New prospectors stream board Southwest for weekend warrior bachelor & ette bacchanals, fueling late night descents into pitch-black-jack-pits with vodka red bulls and strategically timed snorts for optimal buzz.
Yet all across the state outfits continue to wrest their daily haul from trench and pit; gold, tungsten, silver.
Veering south onto NV-376, one the countless north to south channels forming perfectly tidy T-intersections
with the mother road I sought to find my own riches in the earth. Another left and six miles by Forest Service dirt road to a Y-split capped by a final left for 1.5 miles on the most disastrously packed gravel path my car has ever met. Find it somewhere there…
The signal is strong.
I didn’t. And looking around for clues, noticed my pursuers on the detour from 50 changing on a hill. “May I soak in with you guys?”
Josh, Laura, and the dogs.
How oddly appropriate to find myself basking in Spencer’s Hot Springs - the product of a divergent tectonic battle, nestled between the Toiyabe and Monitor ranges - with Josh and Laura, two self described “liberal-progressive” geologists with a very healthy sense of adventure, working for a gold mine sixty miles down the road.
“Sorry for being so short with you earlier.” said Josh. “We’re usually much nicer, but one of the dogs got it’s leg caught in trap and we almost scrapped coming here.” Laura’s arm bore a bandage from the struggle to free the wounded animal from its unintended prison.
Two-Buck-Chuck, cheese, crackers, and sausage were offered.
In the aeonic tug of war played by the California and Nevada plates, I was the winner.
Descending fromt the Toiyabe Range.
A Night in the Drunk Tank
It should have been an empty road. Well thumbed guidebooks lent by concerned friends promised nothing for the 110 mile stretch betwen Fallon, Nevada and the next closest town Austin. “Nothing” is in fact the headline attraction”The Loneliest Road in America,” Nevada’s portion of Highway 50. Yet, still paying the price for two weeks of a night owl lifestyle and the prior day’s uneasy sleep courtesy of rummaging bears outside of my tent in South Lake Tahoe, Middlegate Station was an unexpected, but pleasant surprise.
A sign for gas directed my attention to flickering lights beckoning a quarter mile down the road. On the approach, obligatory “BAR” and “OPEN” neon confirmed life and a through the window I glimpsed a guitar neck cutting the air sharply on a riff; a man crooned melancholy tunes. The preponderance of double sized trucks, big rigs, and ATVs resting before the morning’s hunting expeditions gave this city boy pause. “Empty desert…dark night…truckers…roadside bar…” I thought, conjuring up movie memories of glass bottles breaking on bartops, ready for blood. Making sure to keep on my conical, comical hat I entered. Shelly was a quick draw with her cheery “What can I do for ya?” and ignoring the only lonely tap handle, I pressed “What’s on tap?” then sat down with my Miller Light.
That’s a hell of a hat you got man.
Joel joins my solo game of pool - cranes and trucks for oil-geothermal-solar-wind, the latter two are gaining more work, he brings home the bacon, has been away from his family for a week, Jesus loves him, and he works so damn hard it’s making him sick.
Paul doesn’t write his own songs, but friends are making it big on Reno radio, though he downplays it. “Hey - that’s bigger than I’ve made it Paul.” I request Dylan and Cash and offer some of my own in return.
Two songs turn into a set and audience with the station owners and residents. It was a most unusually encouraging thing - that strangers in a bar in rural Nevada really felt the music.
After a hug with Joel and Paul and another beer, we civilized with smoke…
Did these guys know if I could pitch a tent sixty miles down the road in Austin. “You can do whatever you want… Hey man why don’t you just crash in the drunk tank back here. It’s free.”
It had been pouring rain. Middlegate Station wasn’t even supposed to be here.
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