Category: Places

Gallup to Amarillo

We left Gallup in the morning, and not too far eastward everything began to look hazy. Then it was more than hazy: everything began to look foggy. We noticed that some drivers coming the other direction had their headlights on. Then I began to smell smoke very faintly. “This must be the smoke from the wildfires in Arizona,” I said to Carol.

When we got to the BLM ranger station at El Malpais National Conservation Area, there was a note under the day’s weather forecast about the smoke from the wildfires. From the trail behind the ranger station, we could see how a range of mountains to the north of us was mostly obscured by the smoke:

We stopped for a late lunch in Albuquerque. I couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant Dad had recommended, so we went to Old Town. Although it was very tourist-y, we agreed that we were tourists, so it seemed just about right. The owner of Bebe’s Cafe chatted with us while she made our sandwiches. Carol asked how she was doing in this economy, and she said that she was doing well enough. “I think places like this are doing well,” she said. “It’d comforting to go out for a meal, but people will pass by the more expensive restaurant to come here.” She asked if we had seen smoked from the wildfires, and we said that we had.

East of Albuquerque, the land gradually flattened out. The mesas got smaller, the dry washes weren’t as deep, until at last the land was pretty much flat and we were in the Great Plains:

And all along the highway we saw signs warning of extreme wildfire danger.

Needles to Gallup

We checked out of the motel and went to get gas The service stations were all displaying prices of $4.70 a gallon, but we really needed gas so I filled the tank. A man in a blue uniform shirt and dark blue uniform shorts, like mechanics wear, walked by and looked at my tires. He bent down to look more closely. “Did you notice this tire is all split?” he said to me. I decided he wasn’t one of those mechanics who lie to you to promote their business: he was looking at the tire, not me; and his body language said that he was actually more interested in the car than in the person driving the car.

I drove the car into one of the bays in his neat and well-organized garage. He put the car up on his lift, and we looked at the tires. They were all pretty worn. “Jeez, and before I left, the dealer I go to said the tires were just fine,” I said. “Course I should’ve checked them myself.” He gave me a reasonable price on four new tires, and as long as it was up on the lift, I asked him to change the oil. He pointed that the the oil cap was cracked and though he didn’t have one on hand, I could probably get one in Kingman. And he added, “Are you going to drive that car for a while. Because if you are, when you get back those struts are looking pretty bad.” I asked if he could recharge the air conditioner, but he didn’t have the right fitting for such an old car. As we drove away, Carol and I agreed that he gave us a fair price, when he could have tried to rob us blind, and he seemed to be one of those guys who just like automobiles.

In Kingman, we found an auto parts store and got a new oil cap. They told us we could get the air conditioner recharged at Cobb’s, next to the freeway. “Ask for Adam, and say that Kevin sent you.” We pulled up. There were half a dozen old cars in various states of repair, a man working on the engine of a tow truck, a thirty year old old mobile home, and four guys sitting in the shade talking. They told me to bring the car around, and three of them sprang into action. The first man didn’t say much, just started working on our car; the second man, a young guy, helped the first man as best he could; the third guy started cleaning up. The place was pretty messy, the three guys were not what you’d call neatly dressed, but the man who was working on our car worked with no wasted motion, and radiated calm competence.

The fourth man, neatly dressed and maybe 75, told us about his trips up the Alaska Highway to go mining. “We used to get enough money to live on,” he said, “and that was when gold was 325, 350 an ounce. Now it’s up about fifteen hundred an ounce. I’d love to go back up there.” From the tone of his voice, you knew he didn’t think he’d be going back up. He told us stories about grizzly bears in Alaska until the car was done. The work was done before we knew it, I paid a very reasonable price, and we got ready to go. “See you in Alaska,” I said to the former miner. He grinned and said he guessed so.

From there we drove straight across Arizona, stopping at Seligman for lunch, at Flagstaff for an afternoon break, and then once at some place out in the middle of nowhere to change drivers. Carol pointed out a bag at the side of the exit ramp: some long distance driver had spent the night there, shit in a white plastic bag, and dropped the bag out of the truck. This is the sort of thing you know when you’re an expert in composting toilets and alternative wastewater management, because you know where the conventional wastewater disposal method doesn’t work.

The moral of the story: don’t pick up bags you might see lying on the ground at exit ramps.

Photo: Carol Steinfeld

At the Bagdad Cafe

It was getting late. We pulled in to Newberry Springs hoping to find a place to eat. We drove for a couple of miles and didn’t see anything, until there was a little place called the Bagdad Cafe. “Just like in the movie,” said Carol, and wondered if they had copied the name from the movie.

At first we thought it was closed, because the sign said “Open 7 – 7” and it was after seven, but the door was open, and the man said they were still cooking food. He showed us in to the back room where we met the owner of the Cafe; she was holding a sleeping toddler in her arms. Carol asked if they actually shot the movie here, and the owner said that yes they did, and there were the photos on the wall from when they did. We met Halo, the owner’s 16 month old great-granddaughter, ate dinner, and then the man who waited on us told us that everyone had to stand behind the counter to get their picture taken:

Tehachapi Loop

We stopped to buy some fruit along state route 58 over Tehachapi Pass. I found a postcard showing the Tehachapi Loop, a point where the old Southern Pacific (now Union Pacific) railroad line passes over itself as it ascends the grade through the Tehachapi Pass. And our map showed an overlook just off the highway where we could see the Tehachapi Loop.

We got off the highway, drove down a couple of miles of winding mountain road, and saw a couple of pull-offs, one on each side of the road. Two cars were parked there. A man and a boy in one of the cars looked at us as we drove up. Carol wondered aloud if they were having troubles and were hoping we could help them, but I wondered inside if maybe they were rail fans.

I walked over to the side of the road where I could see the Loop. The boy was clutching some radio or something to him, and I realized it was a scanner tuned to the railroad’s frequency. “Is there a train coming soon?” I asked him. “I see you’ve got a scanner.” He said there was, that it had just passed the nearest detector, and was getting close.

Pretty soon I could hear the locomotives; then I could see them; they looked to be three GE Dash 9s pulling a train of empty double-stack cars. The locomotives moved around the loop until they passed over the tail end of the train following on the track behind and beneath them. In the photo below, you can see the locomotives at the near point on the track, and to the far right you can see the nondescript-looking empty double stack cars on the loop behind and beneath them:

The boy was standing a little way down the road with his father, and an older man whom I assumed to be his grandfather. The father had a big videocamera. When the train had gone, I said, “Did you get a good video?” “Oh yeah,” he said, “not as good as some of my others because the cars were bare. When they have double-stacked containers, you can see it much better.” I told him we thought ourselves lucky because we just happened to show up at the right time as we were driving to North Carolina. We chatted for a minute. “Have a good trip,” said the grandfather as we all drove away.

Preparing for a road trip

We’re about to head off on a road trip across the country. Carol is stopping the newspaper and asking the neighbors to keep an eye on our apartment; I’m ironing and packing. Tomorrow we’ll start driving towards Charlotte, North Carolina, planning to arrive in time for General Assembly.

Along the way, I’ll spend the Friday and Saturday before General Assembly at the National Sacred Harp Convention, and that Sunday at the annual all-day singing at the Macedonia Church outside Section, Alabama. I’ll be at Ministry Days before General Assembly. At General Assembly, I’ll be reporting for the UU World Web site, and I’ll be making a brief appearance at workshop no. 3049.

If you’re going to be at any of those events, look for me — I’d love to say hi!

Duckling update

The Mallard who is nesting in the basement stairwell of our building had six ducklings two days ago. Carol has been supplying the mother and her ducklings with water and food (greens and rolled oats), but sometime yesterday two of them died of unknown causes. Just now I heard the mother quacking furiously, and I ran out onto our balcony in time to see a white-and-gray cat scramble up over the fence with two ducklings in its mouth. The mother duck followed the cat out to the street and kept quacking in the direction the cat disappeared.

Carol and I met one of our downstairs neighbors in the yard. We all looked down into the stairwell: the mother duck was there with just two living ducklings, and there was blood on the concrete path at the top of the stairs. While I’m sure the mother duck feels safe down in that cosy little stairwell, staying there means that her babies are (as Carol pointed out) sitting ducks for any cat hunting in the neighborhood.

Post script to cat owners: This was no feral cat that caught the ducklings; it was plump, well-fed, and clean, and obviously someone’s pet. I wish cat owners would keep their pets indoors:– it’s better for the cat, since indoor cats are far less likely to get feline AIDS, or to become coyote snacks;– and it’s much better for the birds of the neighborhood, who won’t become cat chow.

Further update: Carol finally called the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA, who sent an animal control officer. It was pretty clear that in a neighborhood full of cats, the remaining two ducklings wouldn’t last another day. Olivia-the-Humane-Officer arrived at about seven in the evening; the mother duck flew away (apparently a common occurrence), so Officer Olivia had to take the two ducklings with her. In thanks, we made a donation to the Humane Society in honor of “all humane officers.”

Nesting

Carol discovered that there is a female Mallard duck with ducklings living in one of the stairwells that lead down to the basement under our building. When she took the photo below, she didn’t want to get any closer for fear of disturbing the mother duck. The babies are hiding under their mother’s breast.

Carol left some greens and a dish of water for the ducks.

I’m not sure where the actual nest was. It doesn’t look like it was down in the bottom of the stairwell; perhaps one of the babies fell down the stairs, and the mother is down there protecting them.

Bike party

We came out of the theatre at about eleven o’clock and looked to see if it was safe to cross the street. A whole passel of bicycles was coming at us. “Bike party!” said one of the bicyclists as they came near. We watched for about five minutes as clumps of bicycles passed by. There was a break in the bikes, and I scurried across; Carol wiated for another couple of minutes for another break in the bikes before she got across. There were enough bikes that we weren’t going to be able to get the car out easily, so we stood on the sidewalk and watched. Hardly anyone seemed to be talking to one another, except that everyone once in a while someone say, “Bike party!” A few of the bikes were playing recorded music ranging from rap to norteno to classic rock. Two daredevils rode too fast and weaved in and out of the other bikes, but most people just rode along fairly sedately. It looked a little boring to me, but then I never was one for making long bike rides in a group. Finally, along came two motorcycle cops, a few stragglers on bikes, and that was it. We got in our car and drove home.

Nests

At lunchtime, I went for a walk at Baylands Nature Preserve along the Bay in Palo Alto. One of the first things I saw was a baby American Avocet, still with downy plumage, sweeping the water for small invertebrates. American Avocets are a precocial species, so this little baby was pretty much on its own; there were no adult birds nearby.

A little further on I saw a line of Cliff Swallow nests on a building. The swallows pick up some mud in their bills, then fly up and apply it to the nest, gradually building the structure out so as to completely enclose the nesting birds except for small entry holes. The two nests closest to the camera are darker around the entry holes; that’s where mud has been recently applied, and the damp mud is darker than the dried mud.

I kept walking out the dike along Charleston Slough, past other birds that are I guessed were nesting, though I didn’t actually see a nest or babies: Forster’s Terns, Marsh Wrens, a Northern Harrier, Snowy Egrets, Mallards. About a mile and a quarter from the parking lot, I could finally see the California Gull nesting colony. The gulls were screaming and flying in swirling circles above the colony, and as I got closer I could see why: two researchers had kayaked out to the colony, and were walking around with clipboards checking out the nests. The gulls were divebombing them, and through my binoculars, I could see that the researchers were wearing helmets and jackets for protection.

I watched for a while; I like watching gull nesting colonies, and the addition of the invading researchers made it even more entertaining. Then it was time to head back to work, so I walked back to the parking lot, my mind completely emptied of everything except for birds, sun, mud, and nests.