From the Loneliest Road in America

I spent the last week traversing "The Loneliest Road in America," a title bestowed on Hwy 50 by Life Magazine in 1986. Today the State of Nevada and the Chambers of the small towns that exist along its route, love to advertise it as such and will even give you a survival certificate.

It is exactly my kind of road. Once I left Fallon, there were just three towns, and one little crossroad's community. I could stand in the middle of the highway and photograph the big open spaces with no traffic. It's not quite no traffic. About every 15-20 minutes I would meet a vehicle or one would come up behindme, wanting to rush by. I don't know why they were in a hurry. The vistas span out ahead of you, there is an occasional pronghorn or coyote sighting, and this time of year there is still snow on the mountain peaks.

This is an area of old mining communities. The buildings of Austin, Eureka and Ely look like mining communities from the late 1800's.

Fallon is becoming a bedroom suburb of Reno-Sparks. But once you leave there, the road stretches out in old west style. There are a few ranches. Austin, 110 miles east of Fallon, has no grocery store, although the convenience store in the gas station carries a few necessities. Eureka is only slightly larger, but does have an independent grocery store which had a notice posted that they are now getting fresh deliveries of produce a couple times a week. Ely is good sized at 9,000 people. It is the crossroads for travel north and south along I-93 from Vegas and Hwy 50 western Nevada and Great Basin National Park, which I visited two years ago. There is still active mining in nearby.

One of my favorite stops along Hwy 50 is Spencer Hot Springs. I soaked twice this trip. I might have soaked more but one day I got out early as an electrical storm approached. The next day I stayed home, in my cozy motorhome, while it rain and blew. I had some photo organizing work to do so an inclement day was a good thing. I have no problems soaking in a light rain, but heavy winds are no fun. The next day I had another soak.

I camped at a quiet, free, little U.S.F.S. campground a couple miles before the turn off to Spencer. It's another 5.5 miles on well graded dirt to the springs turnoff and then less than a mile to the first of the soaking tubs.

Unfortunately three RVs were parked practically on top of the large cattle tank. It made it uncomfortable for anyone else to use it; you felt you were in the middle of their campsite. I don't understand why they couldn't have left a little space. But I had the upper pool to myself. It is more natural with large flat rocks lining a dirt pool and a small wooden deck built by volunteers. Nice distance view of the mountains still with snow. The source is 165 degrees F. By the time it comes through a pipe into the pool it is okay for short soaks.

The last time I was at Spencer, it was a long "weekend" outing from Bodie State Park where I worked. My housemate Rebecca,and I made the trip. In one of those small world stories, there was only one other person at the springs and he is from Ajo, Arizona where I spend part of each winter. I see Tim whenever I am in Ajo. In honor of that experience, I played his CD (he writes folks songs and sings) and sent an email to Rebecca.

I've gone through Ely, NV in the past but never spent any time. This year I parked in a casino lot right in downtown for a couple of days and explored. The steam train is only running on weekends this time of year so I missed that, but I visited the station and museum. As the only one visiting, I was told to wander anywhere I wanted. Men were working on trains in the engine house.

I got a private one-hour tour of the upstairs of the depot where the State of Nevada has a museum. All the old office equipment from the days of the Nevada Northern Railway and Anaconda Mining company are still in place. Although the railroad hauled people and general freight, its major purpose was to serve the copper mine. Despite some modernization before closing down, Kennecott Copper left things like the old roll top desks, safes, wooden filing cabinets upstairs. Getting them inside in the first place must have been a major undertaking and so they never removed them.

..........From the second floor window I watched a Great Horned Owl in her nest in the old coal shute across the tracks. The museum staff has been watching the family and report there are two chicks which I didn't see nor the father bird.

.........On Wednesday morning I drove south in the car to Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park. It was built to create charcoal to smelting ore. They were a great photo op and a chance to work more with the new camera I bought a few weeks ago. Nearby is the town site of Ward and the cemetery. There are a few headstones, a couple of wooden grave enclosures that look like they have been rebuilt fairly recently, and one ornate metal fence around a stone. The town site is little more that a few rock lined basements and old tin cans, glass and broken pottery. But with my Bodie experience, I can't pass up old mining towns.

And the new camera bought a few weeks ago brings up what I was doing at the time. I was in Petaluma CA for my annual visit. I completed all my routine medical and got another two year certificate to accompany my CDL. I saw my Aunt Aloha, Lin's older daughter and her offspring, my cousin Bonnie and her son, Caddy, daughter-in-law Corinne and 2 year old Maxfield, who is a delight. I know, two-years- olds are not noted for delightful, but he was.

I saw a number of old friends. and two new babies. I won't list them all, but its always good to get caught up and keep some of those ties to childhood, high school, summer camp counseling, early career, and Lin's old friends. I didn't see everyone. It is never possible.

I attended the 50th birthday party of Redwood High School. No, I wasn't there when it opened. I saw about a half-dozen people from my class, a few of my teachers, and a couple people from classes before and after me. Most fun was a gathering of the BARK, the newspaper. Three staff journalists, not from my time, have gone on the win Pulitzer prizes. It was fun looking through old editions which they have had bound. The only sadness was that one set was missing and that was my year.

I must soon make a decision about my route. I can go north into Idaho and into the west entrance of Yellowstone or I can go thru Salt Lake City. Confronting urban traffic after the quiet, slow pace of The Loneliest Highway is a dreadful thought but there are some places I would enjoy exploring south of the park. Decisions, decisions.

I expect my next post to be from Yellowstone where I will work for the summer...well, at least May 23 to October 1. The weather may look more like the winter to some of you.

If you wonder why some paragraphs are separated by double spacing and two of them simply have dotted lines, it is because this program refused to recognize double spacing in those instances. I am not sure why. I also don't understand why the first photo is more pixilated than the other two. I used the same downsizing (required for the blog) method for each. My poor Luddite brain does not understand.

blog glitches

I am discovering that the layout I give the blog is not necessarily how it looks once posted; not even on my own computer. But at least mine is close. I am getting some reports, and have now viewed it twice on other people's computers, that sometimes the photos overlap or have text on top of the photos.

I am not sure how to correct this as the compostion looks great as I do it. And while some of the photos get bounced about a little, my version has no lettering on photos nor overlapping photos.

I'd love to hear from folks. So far the three people I know who have overlaps use mozilla. Is that just coincidence? How about you folks who are using Google? And what about those of you with similar blog sites. How does my layout look and have you ever had reports of issues with your layout?

Big news is that I just bought myself a digital SLR. I've enjoyd the Sony Cybershot I bought a couple years ago and it was easy to travel with. But I think my new Nikon D-90 is going to be a joy. The view finder/screen are so bright and easy to see, I have a great depth of field button again, and greater control over depth of field, speed etc and a much quicker focusing system. BUT, its going to take a while to learn it. In just a bit over a month I will be taking folks out on photo safaris in Yellowstone.

Reflections on southern Morocco and the Sahara

The Sahara--palm trees in an oasis, camels, men in blue turbans, blowing sand, nomadic people living in tents. Those are images of Morocco. And they are true. But so are the souks and medinas of the northern cities, fishing boats along the Mediterranean and Atlantic Coasts, minarets, mosques, tanneries, rug weaving, high snow covered mountains, the fertile rift valley, goats climbing trees, saffron harvesting, henna, and food. Always the food.

Here is Mohamad Elbahri, our leader for our trip through southern Morocco. He was warm, funny, caring, concsientious. In all, a delightful person to travel with on our adventures through high mountains, to the end of the road, where pavement ends and sand begins, and on to the coast.

The second half of the Moroccan adventure began in Marrakech, climbed into the High Atlas Mountains where there was snow, crossed the spectacular Tizi n'Tichka Pass, passed through small village of adobe structures, palmeries where date palms fed on oasis waters, a weekly market, a camel ride and sleeping in a tent in the sanddunes, a 4 wheel ride that left us all bruised but laughing, and onto to the west coast of this magnificent country.

The High Atlas Mountains. North Africa's highest peak, Mount Toubkal was visible from the terrace of our small mountain gite, a guest house. It was cold. Even me, who feels the cold less than most people, found it cold. But our host built a fire and plied us with mint tea and, later, a hot, delicious meal. While the younger members of my party hiked, scaled ice fields and scrambled up to the pilgramage shrine of Sidi Chamoarouch while I played "jacks" with rocks with girls in the village.

Below, Mohamad pours our tea. The scene is the rooftop of our guesthouse.

On our way south and at a lower elevation, we stopped at ai weekly market. In the big cities there are markets all the time. The villages have weekly markets and we were there for one. You could buy plastic wash buckets, plucked and ready to cook chickens, produce, or a live donkey or goat. Treadle sewing machines , shoe repair for people or your donkey or mule, a haircut and shave, or a tooth pulled; it was all there.

You know you have reached the Sahara at the town of Zagora where the sign reads "52 days to Timbouctou." A one hour camel ride the next day satisfied my desire to ride one. I can now say I've ridden on both a bactrian and a dromedary camel.

Ait Benaddou, below, is an old casbah. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A fortified village with castle, it served for centuries as a caravan stop. Camel caravans carried goods across the Sahara. The site is also known around the world as it is the setting for many movies including Lawrence of Arabia, Jewel of the Nile, Gladiator, Alexander, Babel and others.

Yeah, that's me getting across the river, high at that time, to explore the old casbah. There are several kinds of 4X4 in the Sahara. There is Berber 4X4 which is camel, mule or donkey. and then there is automotive 4X4, often Japanese.

A camel ride:

Mohamad teaches me how to wrap my turban. It is protection from the sun with a ready flap should the sand start to blow. our tent camp in the desert.

From the desert we took mechanical 4X4 to a place where our minivan could pick us up. Unlike the first part of the trip where we used trains and buses, taxis , the second half the trip is all in areas with less pubic transportation. We had our own mini van to carry us.

As we traveled through Agadir, Mohamad told us he had gone to University there. We asked if we could drive by and see. After a conversation with Hassan, our driver, we wound about in narrow streets. Instead of the University, Mohamad had a treat for us. He took us to the flat where he had lived. He asked us to wait in the car, bounded up the stairs and came back a bit later with a young man. This young man was from Mohamad's mountain village and had taken on the flat when Mohamad left. It is a large room, shared with 6 young men, mattresses on the floor and studying done sitting on the bed. There is a kitchen, a toilet and shower, and a small outside terrace where food can be cooked and clothes dried. We were invited in. On Friday afternoon all of the inhabitants were home. I think I would have been appalled at having a group of foreign visitors drop in on me at their age, but they were charming. Jeff was soon playing checkers on a homemade board with rocks for pieces. In no time, tea and cookies were served. Someone had run to a local market for the cookies. All of them spoke English, some more the others, and we sat around conversing until we really had to get going. In our next stop we discovered a beautiful checker, chess, backgammon board and bought it for them. Mohamad would deliver it next time he went through town. Mohamad had never taken people to the apartment before. But with only 4 of us, a good comraderie, and our expressed interest in his schooling, home life, future, he decided to share it with us. Now that the blog is almost done, my next chore is to make prints of photos along the trip to be delivered to people. Each of the young men will get a print of this and I will do an enlargement for the wall.

Our final 2-night stop before returning to Marrakech for a night and flights out, was the seaside town of Essaouira. Again we stayed in a Riad, a home once belonging to a wealthy person and now used as a small hotel. This one was charming, and close to both the harbor and the medina. From the roof we could see the ocean.

left: looking up thru the inner courtyard -atrium of our riad. right: street scene of child with bread. It was stormy and most boats were in the harbor and not out fishing.