Category: Road trips

Virginia City to Salt Lake City

Paul, our host at Cobb Mansion B & B, prepared baked eggs with herbs and cheese in individual egg cups, bacon, fresh fruit, and rolls. He said he was disappointed in the rolls because he can’t get the second rise to happen in Virginia City, which is 6,200 feet above sea level. This led to a discussion about high altitude baking. Anna, one of the other guests, and a native of Germany, said that when she moved to Utah where she now lives, she had to give up baking some cakes and other traditional baked goods because they all came out flat. Paul said that, contrary to what you might think, high altitude baking requires less leavening, not more. It was all very interesting to hear, but I decided I was glad we live near sea level.

The drive across Nevada was notable because it rained off and on all day long. The sagebrush was greener and brighter-looking than I had ever seen it before. We stopped at one rest stop — nothing more than a gravel lot with two pit toilets — that was surrounded with yellow flowers. In places, the flanks of the mountains, seven or eight thousand feet high, were covered with light green. I have never seen this stretch of Nevada look so alive. And looking out across the wide open spaces between the mountain ranges we could see rain showers moving across the landscape:

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We didn’t see the sun for nearly the entire day. We stopped for lunch in Winnemucca, and the cloudy sky seemd to make the garishly colored signs for motels and casinos look even brighter:

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The sun came out briefly and brilliantly for us when we stopped in Wendover, where it made the town look less tawdry and depressing for the short time it shone. The long drive across the salt flats of Utah was made more tolerable by the audiobook we’re listening to, A Thief of Time by Terry Pratchet. We finally arrived at our cheap motel near the Salt Lake airport at a quarter to ten, feeling just a little bit road-weary.

San Mateo to Virginia City

We left San Mateo at ten in the morning, and drove to Berkeley where we had a dim sum brunch with my cousin Nancy and her husband and daughter. From there we started driving west on Interstate 80. I had hoped to stop to visit a member of the Palo Alto church who now lives in the Central Valley, but the timing didn’t work out. We stopped at the rest area on Donner Summit, and I walked a little half mile loop trail through the heavily glaciated alpine environment. The little loop trail intersects the Pacific Crest Trail, and sure enough I passed two hikers with full packs on. We exchanged cheerful hellos, and I couldn’t help smiling at the similarities of, and contrasts between, driving on the interstate highway and backpacking on a long-distance trail.

We got to Virginia City, Nevada, at about five o’clock. We were too late for the tour of the Cobb Mansion, the bed and breakfast where we’re staying — and the house was interesting enough that we were sorry to have missed it — but we were in time for happy hour: a glass of wine, and time to chat with our hosts, Paul and Jeff, and the other guests. Paul made us a reservation at Core, a new restaurant in town. It was a little out of our price range, but this is our splurge day for this trip. The most memorable part of the meal was the appetizer: mussels in a light sauce with a touch of fresh mint; the delicate mint was a nice contrast to the rich seaside flavor of the mussels.

We stayed in Virginia City because we had both read Mark Twain’s Roughing It; this was the city where he got his first job writing for a newspaper, the beginning of his career as an author. Unfortunately, there was a big fire in Virginia City in 1875,after Twain had left the city, so there aren’t any buildings left from his time there. Nevertheless, you can see many of the things he describes: the little city perched on the side of Mount Davidson, the sage-brush covered slope of the mountain going up to the distant peak high above the city, the houses built into the side of the slope so that the main entrance to a house might be in the second floor, and so that the first floor of one house looks down onto the roof of the house below. And in honor of Mark Twain, I bought copies of the two little local newspapers, the Virginia City News, and the Comstock Chronicle.

Tomorrow we start driving to Salt Lake City.

Conclusion of youth service trip

Here’s the rest of the story about the youth service trip….

We finished up with Habitat for Humanity on Thursday, June 20. From there, we drove to the Big Oak Canyon site of Earthroots Field School, in Silverado Canyon east of Los Angeles. We worked there on Friday, June 21, helping prune and rehabilitate an abandoned orchard, and doing some trail maintenance. We camped at Big Oak Canyon — half of us slept outside under the stars. (Since June 21 was Pee on Earth Day, several of us celebrated the day by avoiding the portapotty when possible.) Then on Saturday, June 22, we drove back up to Palo Alto.

Starting tomorrow — Sunday, June 23 — Carol and I start driving across the country to visit family.

(Posted on July 1, and backdated.)

Youth service trip, day two

We worked on a Habitat for Humanity rehab project today. Three of us worked on nailing down oriented strand board on the roof, then putting up drip edge. Four of us worked on painting and other miscellaneous tasks. I posted a couple of photos here. And here’s a photo proving that, even though I haven’t worked as a carpenter for 18 years, I still actually know how to use a hammer (thanks for taking the photo, Samuel):

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By the end of the work day, we were pretty dirty, a little sore, a little sunburned, and very satisfied. Habitat for Humanity is a great organization to work for: they are well organized, they have clear goals, and they know how to manage volunteers.

We have another day of work at Habitat, and then we head off to volunteer at an ecology school doing trail maintenance. We’ll be camping at the ecology school, with no Internet access, so don’t expect another post until Saturday or Sunday.

(And, honestly, this service trip is more enjoyable for me than attending General Assembly. I’m doing something to make the world better! )

In the Holbrooke

In room 2 of the Holbrooke Hotel, supposedly California’s oldest hotel in continuous operation, there is a bookcase. In the bookcase there are a number of old books. In one of the old books (I won’t say which one) there is a dollar bill. On the lower edge of the front face of the dollar bill is written: “THE Beginning (1) Russ and Sue 8-5-12 (2)”. Don’t ask me what it means; I’m just telling you what I’ve seen.

Parker, Arizona

We stopped in Parker, Arizona, on the drive home from Phoenix.

We visited the Colorado River Indian Tribes Museum, which has artifacts from the Mojave, Chemehuevi, Hopi, and Navajo peoples. Carol and I have been reading The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman, a book about a White girl who was adopted into the Mojave tribe in the 1850s, so I was particularly interested to see a Mojave bark skirt on display, presumably similar to the one Olive Oatman would have worn. In the gift shop, they were selling a Red Sox blanket, and I asked why. “Jacoby Ellsbury plays for the Red Sox,” said the pleasant young man at the cash register. “He’s enrolled in the Colorado River Indian tribes.”

Carol went to a thrift store. I stopped to admire the engine facility of the Arizona and California Railroad, a shortline railroad that runs from Phoenix to Cadiz, California, and owns a bridge across the Colorado River.

Carol hugged a saguaro in a public park in Parker.

We drove across the Colorado River, and on the other side we stopped at the tiny U.S. Post Office for Wyatt Earp, CA 92242. Of course we mailed some postcards, making sure they were hand-cancelled with that distinctive name.

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We were walking down by the Comerica Theatre in Phoenix when we saw two middle-aged men, both white, riding bikes in circles on the sidewalk. One of them was riding a Dahon folding bike with 20 inch wheels. Carol has been looking at Dahons on Craigslist, so she asked the man how he liked the bike. The other man rode towards some people walking towards the theatre and asked if they wanted tickets, and then I noticed the man we were talking to had tickets in his hand. He knew a lot about bikes, and, like Carol, he regularly checks Craigslist for used bikes. The two of them compared notes on bikes they had seen for sale recently. He advised Carol not to get a Dahon, because they’re poorly made.

We got to talking about Phoenix, and the man on the bike said there just wasn’t much going on in downtown Phoenix. Restaurants, for example — he grew up in Portland, Oregon, where within a few blocks he had an unbelievable number of choices of restaurants, but in Phoenix there aren’t so many choices, and many of them are chain stores. I asked if there was any kind of bike culture, and he said there was not. not only that, but he said cars had no respect for bicyclists, and he had had more than a few close calls. What about jobs? we asked. His friend rode up at that point, and said most of the jobs in Phoenix were service jobs, paying seven-fifty or eleven dollars an hour.

Someone walked up looking for tickets, and the other man turned away to talk with them. The first man said he had come to Phoenix in the late 1990s, and he gave the impression that he wished he had never left Portland. One thing about Phoenix, he said, was that even though wages are low it was cheap to live here. But that meant it was hard to move anywhere else, hard to save up enough money to move away. You could feel stuck here, he said.

But he did like monsoon season. We asked what that was like. He said that it came in July and August, and you’d look up at the sky and see dark clouds moving in, and soon they’d cover the sky, and then there would be thunder and lightning everywhere, heavy rain, water running a half inch deep on the streets, then in thirty minutes it would all be over. He said it was worth seeing, and it was something he’d never seen in Portland.

Then some more people walked up looking for tickets, so we said good bye, nice talking to you, and went on our way.

Downtown Phoenix

Once it got cool enough to go out for a walk, Carol and I strolled over to find Lawn Gnome bookstore on 3rd St. between Roosevelt and Garfield. Along the way, we stopped at Bodega 420, a neighborhood store that carries a little bit of everything: locally produced food, canned food, ice cream, loose tobacco, condoms, playing cards, etc. We chatted with the owner, Adrian Fontes, a lawyer who runs the store in his spare time.

Adrian on the front porch of Bodega 420.

Adrian told us about the art fair that takes place on first Fridays next to his shop: artists, music, food trucks. He took us to the front porch of Bodega 420 and pointed out JoBot Coffee, some art galleries near by, the new apartment complex going up down the street, and Lawn Gnome Books. Adrian, whose family dates back over three hundred years in Arizona, said he lived for many years in Denver, and told us it was hard to leave there to return to Arizona. But now he’s excited to be in Phoenix: everyone’s from somewhere else, the city isn’t set in its ways, there’s room to innovate.

We wandered down the block to Lawn Gnome Books. I found a used copy of short stories by Joanna Russ, and Carol found The Hobo Diet, a book by someone who lived as a homeless man for five weeks in Las Vegas. Carol started talking with Billie Speece, one of the people who worked at the bookstore.

Billie in Lawn Gnome Books.

Among many other projects, Billie runs letter writing workshops at the bookstore. Years ago, Carol had been part of the Letter Exchange, and she and Billie talked about rubber stamps and mail art. Billie showed us some of the envelopes she makes from recycled paper, stitching the seams with embroidery thread. She said she is part of the Letter Writers Alliance; she added that recently AARP contacted her about her workshops.

I bought one of the handmade journals Billie sews together, using paper taken from damaged books, paper that has one side blank. One of the pages in the handmade journal I bought reads in part: “I wish Gertrude were here…. I wish she could see the man God is building on her foundation.” Another page reads: “Foods high in vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.” Carol just said, “What are you going to do with your journal?” I said I didn’t know; maybe I’ll just keep it.

Photo credits: Carol Steinfeld