SUNRISE AT GOOSENECKS

When I was working or going to school, this was my favorite part of the day, when all the world seemed dark and still. I’d make a cup of coffee and take it into my home office, where I could begin writing and thinking without distraction. The first light appearing outside the window seemed to wake up my brain as well. Before the sun rose completely and the dog had to be walked, my work was well underway.

Since retiring I have found it more pleasant to sleep late, knowing that there would be time during the day for whatever I need to do. Today was an exception, though. When we arrived yesterday at Utah’s Goosenecks State Park and saw the stunning sunset, we knew sunrise would be wonderful as well. So, this morning I woke while the sky was still dark, eager to see the sun appear over the hills to the east.

 

 

Goosenecks—what an odd name for a beautiful landscape—gets its name from three loops of the San Juan River. Geologists call this one of the world’s most spectacular examples of a meandering, entrenched river. The campground is perched more than a thousand feet above the river. Sheer drops of layered pink and siena sandstone and limestone form the canyon walls; where some layers slope gradually downward, they have accumulated some soil and are tinted grayish-green by sagebrush. At the top of one wall, erosion has created a form resembling a Mayan pyramid. All these layers have been exposed by upthrusts, so they now illustrate more than three hundred million years of the past. All that time the river has continued its meandering path through the uplifted area.

Though the park is open for day use, only a few campsites are available, and can’t be reserved. However, mid-March is cold enough to discourage many campers, enabling us to get a site directly above one loop of the river.

Sunrise took only a few minutes, illuminating some tall rocks in Monument Valley miles to the southwest as well as the tops of the east-facing riverbanks below us. The sun’s rays were reflected to the west-facing canyon walls as well. And by mid-morning the river itself took on the colors of the sandstone walls. A lone rafter paddled down the river, but all was quiet except for a few noisy crows flying above us. When it was nearly noon and the sun was overhead, the placid, silt-laden river was brightly lighted.

Later in the day, day-use visitors arrived and threatened the silence, but they, too, were awestruck enough to be quiet. It was another calm, beautiful day at Goosenecks.

RV CONTENTENTMENT

When I was in college in the 1950s all the wealthy girls, especially those in sororities, wore cashmere sweaters. Some of the more obnoxious ones would even look at the labels in other girls’ sweaters to see whether the garments were cashmere. The cashmere sweaters were in lovely colors, and had that inimitable soft, buttery texture.  I longed to own one, but they were far beyond my budget. So, I made do with polyester sweaters that soon pilled annoyingly, or with wool sweaters that sometimes were scratchy.

By the 1960s, many things seemed more important than wearing cashmere, and I nearly forgot having once yearned for those sweaters. As the years went on, I have worn various natural fabrics and a bewildering assortment of polyester materials, but never cashmere.

Last autumn, Macy’s had a big sale on cashmere sweaters, and I thought, Why not? I ordered one in a pretty teal green, and finally had the sweater I had wanted sixty years earlier. It seemed about time.

Why do we long for things that others have, or that are too expensive? Seen from my cronish perspective, envy seems ridiculous. If acquiring things brought contentment, perhaps it would make sense, but some of the most dissatisfied expressions I have ever seen were on the faces of obviously wealthy women attending operas or shopping in expensive stores. Where does getting more stuff end for them?

I thought I’d seen everything in this regard. Yesterday, though, we stopped at a Walmart where we were joined by a massive, heavy commercial tractor connected to a long-bed fifth wheel RV puller, using the extra length of the tractor bed to haul a Smart car mounted crosswise! Not only that, but there was a large sleeper cab behind the tractor driver’s seat, and bicycles on the back of the fifth wheel. (We asked the owners how they could remove the car, and they showed us: it easily rolled down a portable ramp. They drove off in it to have lunch at a nearby restaurant.) Only two people were visible; perhaps some pets shared all that space. What a shocking waste of resources! The owners were friendly and informative, but they certainly were oblivious to their enormous carbon footprint.

At this moment I am at an RV rally, sitting in our little Winnebago View and surrounded by humungous RVs that surely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have no idea whether the owners look down on us or envy our maneuverability, and I don’t care. (To their credit, they are friendly and act unconcerned with possessions. Maybe the RVs represent all their assets.)  I am very contented with the View and with this life. My life in general is simple and costs little; though like most people I sometimes worry about medical and other expenses, I certainly do not envy the wealthy one percent.

Oh, and that cashmere sweater? It itches. I should have ordered a good nylon one instead. As the old saying goes, be careful of what you wish for.

 

FUTURE SHOCK

In 1970 futurist Alvin Toffler wrote the blockbuster Future Shock, in which he predicted that the pressures of accelerating change from an industrial to a post-industrial society would lead to stress and even mental illness. Certainly the effects of stress are all around us. In this current election year, many voters are so frightened of terrorism that they not only want to return to the mythical “good old days,” but also will accept simplistic, racist ideas like those proposed by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Whether the stress also results from changes in our social environment is debatable, but it seems likely.

 

Even driving a car has become more stressful in recent years. Driving used to be fun. My first car, a VW Beetle, was easy to drive (once I adapted to the stick shift) and to care for. It was cheap, too; even as an impoverished young editor, I could afford to buy the  car brand new. Gas cost something like 37 cents a gallon, and some gas stations sweetened the deal with free glasses. I bought the car in Colorado, did some fabulous mountain driving, and drove the bug home to Chicago. I even named the car Adalia (the generic name for ladybugs). That may have been a little too cute; however, I really loved that little car. Selling it when I moved to New York was a major mistake.

 

Though I am fond of my current car (a Honda Fit), too, getting on most roads today is no fun at all. I much prefer riding on a train, but passenger trains are becoming rare, and they are often delayed while the more profitable fright trains have priority. Like driving cars, riding on planes was once fun; today, security checks and all the other difficulties of flying make it a horrendous experience.

 

I do not especially enjoy driving the View, either (though handling it is quite easy). Having a high perch from which to see the scenery, and knowing that a galley and bathroom are just a few steps behind the driver’s seat, make it less stressful than the alternatives.

           

Auto-driven cars are already appearing, and the idea scares me. On the other hand, when I consider the idiotic behavior of some human drivers, I think a robotic car may be an improvement.

 

Another major and stressful area of change is medicine. When I was very young, Doc Brown would make house calls, or prescribe pills to patients who sat on the horsehair couch in his office. That was before the polio vaccine and other wonderful medical advances, and I would never willingly return to those days.

 

In some ways, though, I wonder if medical care has declined. Ever since my years as a caregiver, I have carried a spiral notebook in which I record the results of every medical visit. Practitioners tend to smile condescendingly when they see it, but many times I have been able to supply information that has somehow disappeared from their computerized records.

 

I have been fortunate in finding competent doctors wherever I have lived, but am somewhat unnerved by office visits when the doctor or their assistant has sat at a computer asking me questions and presumably Googling for information about my condition. Being touched during an examination has become rare. I hope the myriad lab tests and X-rays are more informative.

 

Modern medicine relies greatly on modern electronics. Electronic devices of all types have changed greatly, even during the past few months. Whatever gizmo I buy is already obsolete. Back in the eighties, I decided to write my PhD dissertation on a PC, and spent $2000 for an Apple IIe computer and dot-matrix printer. That was an enormous expense for a grad student, but I reasoned that I could use them in writing and editing for many years, and it would be a good investment. Of course, they were out of date within a year, and in succeeding years I have bought many computers and learned countless word-processing programs. Sometimes I long for an old electric typewriter with a correctable ribbon.

 

The financial world has also evolved quickly, mainly because of computers. Today even individuals can do our banking online. It’s a great convenience, but we also need to worry that our bank accounts and charge accounts can be hacked. Our very identities can be stolen, endangering Social Security records, investments, and other important assets.

 

Though change tends to come at a glacial pace in education, computers and other factors have affected even that part of our environment. Education seems from a distance to be far superior to what it was back in the forties and fifties when I attended a two-room rural grade school and a small-town high school. Materials for students are beyond the wildest dreams of teachers and students back then. One would think that the entire U.S. population would be extremely well educated, but it is not. The top students still do well, encouraged by parents and schools that can afford to help them. However, it is rare to find clerks in stores who can add up prices without a computer, and rarer still to see letters that contain no misspellings or obvious grammatical errors. There are many reasons for this (such as education being a lower spending priority than defense),  but even I sometimes long for a return to the “three Rs.” Recently I ran across a letter written by my grandfather, who dropped out of school after the eighth grade. It was much more legible and literate than some of the scientists’ manuscripts I have edited.

Even the RV life—once a complete escape from the shocks of modern life—has changed dramatically. Only a few years ago, an RV might have a small TV set, but other technology was sparse. Today few owners seem satisfied with less than remote-controlled cable TV, Wi-Fi, GPS, and a disgusting collection of other electronics. They might as well stay home.

Fortunately, actually using all those gadgets is a matter of choice. We can still drive off into a national forest or park, or a public land, and get away from future-shock stress for a while. We can read, walk, swim, just as people have done throughout history. Any problems of campground life and maintaining an RV are miniscule compared with those of society at large.

 

IRONY

My last post praised the merits of my Nook e-reader--the portability, large memory, and so on. I have been reading a fascinating novel, Red River, by Lalita Tademy, the current selection for my book club. As no hardcover copy of the book was available, I bought the ebook from Barnes & Noble. Two days ago, the Nook became comatose. All the books stored on it are lost to me. I am hoping to get it repaired and to finish the Tademy book before the next book club meeting, but suspect the Nook is done for. Phooey!

READING IN AN RV

A couple of years ago I bought a Nook e-reader from Barnes &Noble. This has opened up a new world of RV reading—partly good, partly bad—for me.

RV space is extremely limited, and that’s a problem for anyone who reads. Even a few paperbacks can take up space that is needed for something else. The Nook is ideal for RV travel. I can load many books on it—a few science books for reference or for bringing my knowledge up to date, a couple of current mysteries, some novels, and a couple of classics I’ve always meant to read.

 Though many ebooks are available for purchase from Barnes &Noble and other sources, that option can get expensive. Fortunately, I can also check out free ebooks and magazines from my local library. Though they must be returned, like any library books, the returns can be done online.

At times the lighted screen of the Nook helps enormously. Even the amount of brightness is adjustable. As a result, while my vision is poor, if we are boondocking and limited to only a low light level I can still read. That isn’t always true for books on paper.

Of course, if I should lose or damage the Nook, I may lose an entire  library. Supposedly Barnes & Noble can easily replace lost ebooks I have bought from them. That’s a bit scary, and I have not yet tested it.

I also have some doubts about just how much I learn or retain from ebooks. Studies of reading retention from ebooks and traditional books have had mixed results, though in the last few years ebooks have seemed more acceptable to students and teachers, as would be expected. (Ten years ago I thought “kindle” was only a verb.  Today nearly everyone knows what a Kindle is.) Nevertheless, some studies have shown greater retention from solid books that demand an interaction with paper, type fonts, and other characteristics. Much research is needed in this field.

My own experience bears this out. I have read many ebooks since retiring, both to fill out my “bucket list” and for casual enjoyment. Though the serious reading (including a lot of Tolstoy) has been pleasurable, and the built-in dictionary has helped with comprehension during reading, I find afterward that I haven’t retained a great deal from it. My impression is that reading the same books in a traditional paper format would have been more productive. I could have underlined portions of the text, written comments in the margins. When I look at books I read many years ago, just seeing my additions to them recalls a great deal. That may be possible with ebooks (it’s possible to highlight passages and add comments, but inconvenient). I haven’t made the effort, though. For me, the technology is too new. Younger readers may find it easy to handle, and won’t care about books on paper. (What a terrible thought! I hope I don’t  live long enough to see that happen.)

Casual reading is another matter. If I don’t remember all the details of a murder mystery, it doesn’t matter. In fact, I may be able to reread a book in a few years when I don’t recall whodunit! It’s an unexpected bonus of aging.

So, which mode of reading is better? As with so many things, it all depends. During travels in the RV, I am grateful for the Nook. During time at home I still tend to accumulate books printed on paper and add them to the library I’ve built since childhood. During many moves around the country over the years, and a major downsizing in 2005, I have ruthlessly cut down on that library, but it grows back as quickly as kudzu. And, many of those books are old friends, treasures that I have simply packed up and taken with me. Perhaps in time I will have a Nook library of favorites also, but it hasn’t happened yet.

 

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THEODORE ROOSEVELT NATIONAL PARK

For us, it was one of those serendipitous finds. Having a serious problem with the RV in Calgary and unable to find a Canadian repair shop that could handle it, we ended up in Minot, North Dakota. In making our way back to the lower states from Minot, we discovered  the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. People tend to drive past this park as they go on to Mount Rushmore or Glacier, but that’s a mistake. Historically and geologically, it’s an interesting place. Oddly shaped buttes, layered by millennia of deposition and compression, rise rather suddenly out of the grassy plains of the Badlands. This is not the breathtaking scenery of Glacier or Yosemite, but the gentler beauty of the Old West. Jackrabbits, vast towns of prairie dogs, and other Plains animals dwell among the sagebrush and cottonwoods.

When young Teddy Roosevelt—already an accomplished writer and legislator—stepped off the train from the East in 1883, he was ill prepared for hunting bison and for the Badlands. Imagine how the local cowboys must have reacted to the nearsighted, scrawny dude whose sterling silver hunting knife had been crafted by Tiffany! With his characteristic enthusiasm, T.R. immediately responded to the West, bought land, and went into the cattle business. A partner managed the ranch when Roosevelt went back to the East.

Only five months later, tragedy struck. Roosevelt’s beloved wife and his mother died on the same day, leaving him with a newborn daughter (who would grow up to be the uncontrollable Alice Roosevelt). Wretched, he returned to the West for the solace that environment provided. In 1884 he bought a second ranch, the Elkhorn. That ranch home is long gone now, but a model of it has been constructed from descriptions.

A model of the Elkhorn ranch house at the visitor's center. This child had grown tired of sightseeing!

T.R. sold it in 1890, after failing spectacularly as a cattle rancher. In Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, one of his numerous books, T.R. vividly described the Elkhorn ranch and its surroundings: "My home ranch-house stands on the river brink. From the low, long veranda, shaded by leafy cotton-woods, one looks across sand bars and shallows to a strip of meadowland, behind which rises a line of sheer cliffs and grassy plateaus. This veranda is a pleasant place in the summer evenings when a cool breeze stirs along the river and blows in the faces of the tired men, who loll back in their rocking-chairs (what true American does not enjoy a rocking-chair?), book in hand--though they do not often read the books, but rock gently to and fro, gazing sleepily out at the weird-looking buttes opposite, until their sharp outlines grow indistinct and purple in the after-glow of the sunset."

In contrast to T.R.’s rough cabin (which is near the visitor's center) at his first ranch, there is a luxurious home near by, the Chateau de Morès. This was owned by T.R.’s neighbors, the Marquis and Marquise de Morès. Luckily for modern tourists, the Chateau has been preserved as a historical site. Its elegant furniture and plumbing, modern for its time, made it stand out in the rough frontier era.

De Morès was almost as fascinating a character as T.R. himself, though an unsavory one in many ways. He was a renowned duelist, a cattle rancher in the Old West, and a railroad pioneer in Vietnam. Unfortunately, he was also an extreme anti-Semite. Famous also as a Dakota Territory gunslinger, he was arrested (but never convicted) for murder several times.

The Marquis built a meat-packing plant and tried to ship refrigerated meat to Chicago via the railroad, in order to avoid the cost of sending cattle to the Chicago stockyards, but the beef trust in Chicago squelched his efforts. Like T.R., he eventually gave up on cattle ranching and left the West. In later years the Marquis became very involved in anti-Jewish politics and was ambushed and killed in Africa, apparently by the French government. No one was ever arrested for his murder.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is only one of the nation’s hundreds of national parks. 2016 is the 100th anniversary of the National Park System; though this may lead to some unwelcome campground crowding and stress on the parks' environments, it also is certainly a cause for great celebration. Everyone should visit some national park this year, and stopping at one of the less familiar parks, such as this one, may make it possible when Yosemite and Yellowstone are crammed full of tents and RVs.

 

A TALE OF THREE CITIES

For the past several years I have happily lived on the forested west slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in northern California. At this time of my life being far away from “civilization” is just fine. For most of my adult life, though, I lived in large cities. From about 1960 to 1980 the city was Chicago (except for a year or so spent in New York), and from 1980 to 2005 it was the San Francisco Bay Area.

CHICAGO

While growing up in rural Michigan, I visited Chicago only a few times. It seemed like the best of all possible cities, with the lake shore, museums of all types, and magnificent buildings.

Buckingham Fountain, near Lake Michigan

Moving there as a bride in 1959, I found much more to explore, and appreciated the city even more. There were theaters, concerts, universities. I fell into a challenging and rewarding job as a biology editor for Rand McNally. When my first marriage ended, other single women and I took classes at Northwestern University, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Field Museum of Natural History. We drank wine and ate delicious meals at little French and German restaurants.

Returning in 1971 after a year in New York and remarriage (to Harold Stone), I also met Chicago’s community of magicians, hung out at the Chicago School of Folk Music, and learned to love the Lyric Opera.

For me, the downside of Chicago is the weather:  hot and muggy in the summer, very cold and snowy in the winter. Usually only short periods in the spring and fall are appealing. Partly to escape the snow and ice that dragged on every winter, Harold and I jumped at the chance to move to San Francisco when he had a job offer there in 1980.

Meeting Sue at the Field Museum of Natural History

I still love Chicago, in spite of its rough politics, crime, and miserable weather.  When my partner (born in California) and I went there a few years ago, it was exciting to show him some of the places he had only heard about. We plan to return soon.

RV Facilities

Driving into the city center in an RV would be a mistake. Anyone intent on taking part in Chicago’s rich night life should simply find a reasonably priced hotel. (This is easy in winter for obvious reasons.) On a recent visit, I stayed at the Ohio House Motel. It was within walking distance of the Art Institute, the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave.), and the Loop.

Taking a commuter train into Chicago is easy.

The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, a national park, has a good campground where we stayed for a couple of days. The park itself is well worth a visit, but we used it also as a convenient base from which we could visit Chicago.  About a mile from the campground, the South Shore train station has a free parking lot with space for our 24’ RV. We left it there while taking the train into the city. After a few hours of seeing museums and walking through parks, we returned to the RV for the night.

Other Rvers have told us of staying in a parking area at the McCormick ConventionCenter, next to Lake Michigan on Chicago’s south side. We have no personal knowledge of this “campground,” but it sounded convenient and reasonably priced.

SAN FRANCISCO

On a business trip in the early 1960s I saw San Francisco for the first time, fell in love with the city immediately, and vowed to live there some day. The same thing happened independently to Harold, whom I met in 1968. Though we settled in Chicago after our 1971 marriage and were happy there, we both hoped to move to The City, as San Franciscans call it. When that became possible in 1980, it was a dream come true.

San Francisco is indeed beautiful. As it is nearly surrounded by water, nearly every hilltop commands a view of the Pacific Ocean or of San Francisco Bay. Some areas have charming Victorian homes, and there are appealing shops. Fog provides a romantic evening atmosphere during much of the year, and the daytime light is like that nowhere else. Wonderful restaurants and coffee shops of every variety tempt gourmets. No other U.S. city is so much like Paris.

Of course there are things to criticize (I found some residents not only happy to live there, but a bit snobbish about their luck; and the financial district has become too much like that in any large city), but for visitors, the enchanting old city is still a place everyone should experience.

RV Facilities

Avoid driving on those hills! Stay in some nearby town and take public transportation in for the day. If all else fails, find a way to drive in to the strip of motels near the entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge. That section is less hilly than others.

If we go there in the RV, we stay or find street parking in Alameda (an island on the east side of the bay), then take the San Francisco Bay ferry across the bay. Incidentally, that’s the best and cheapest way to see the Bay. Staying in an Alameda motel is also less expensive than staying in San Francisco.

There is an RV campground in Pacifica, fifteen  miles south of The City. It has mixed online reviews, but apparently is a convenient place to view the ocean before or after taking a BART train into San Francisco. The BART station is a few miles from the campground.

NEW YORK

Lured to the city in 1970 when I was offered  a job at Random House (which quickly fell apart during a publishing merger bloodbath), I spent more than a year sitting at my desk every day reading The New York Times. Every week end I visited one of the wonderful museums, especially the Museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of Natural History. Thanks to a man I was dating who had numerous mysterious connections resulting in free tickets, two or three times a week I saw Broadway and off-Broadway plays, listened to jazz, and enjoyed other popular culture. It was an exciting life that could happen nowhere else, but after a while I began longing to stay home with a good book. After a year or so I also realized I wanted to return to Chicago and marry Harold. So I did.

For many people, New York is the only possible place to live. I get it, in a way, and for a reason that may be startling. It’s not just the shopping, the museums, the nightlife, and other patent advantages. Most important, the people are fascinating! New Yorkers have a vitality and spirit (and a surprising kindliness) that I have seen nowhere else. The cultural advantages of the city are also great, but they are somewhat shared by other cities.

In spite of my liking for New Yorkers, I found the physical city very oppressive. Perhaps more than today, it was crowded and dirty. The tall buildings blocked almost the entire smoky sky. Because I lived only a few blocks from the East  River, I sometimes walked along the river to see some sky and water; it wasn’t San Francisco Bay or Lake Michigan, but it helped. Central Park, also, gave me some connection with the natural world.

RV Facilities

No one in their right mind would drive an RV into Manhattan (I never tried to drive even a car there), but there are RV campgrounds on Staten Island. From there, campers can take the famous Staten Island Ferry into the city.

 

All in all, staying out of large cities altogether is the least stressful mode of RV travel. However, if you are traveling from one national park to another, or on some other long trip, there may be must-see cities along the way. As these three examples show, with a little ingenuity you can combine RV travel with visiting cities. Googling for campgrounds, staying with friends in the suburbs, and using other strategies can make it possible.

THE LONELIEST HIGHWAY IN AMERICA

Passing through our town, Highway 50 stretches west about fifty miles to Sacramento, and east about three thousand miles to Ocean City, Maryland. It is not the fastest way to drive to the east coast, or even the most interesting, but it is unique. Our neighbors were so fascinated by the sign “Ocean City, MD, 3070 miles” near the Sacramento end that they jumped into their RV and spent a week or so driving to Maryland. We drive in a much more leisurely fashion, and so we have never imitated them.

Originally Highway 50 was part of the Lincoln Highway that ended in Alameda, on the east side of San Francisco Bay. The Alameda end is still shown by a marker on Webster St. (Or at least it was a few years ago, when I was living in Alameda.) From the Alameda end, drivers could take car ferries across the bay to San Francisco. The car ferries were discontinued in the 1939, when impatient drivers could drive across the Bay on the new Oakland–San Francisco Bay Bridge. Highway 80 has replaced the section of the Lincoln Highway from Sacramento to San Francisco, and now there are passenger-only ferries on the bay.

For many travelers Highway 50 is boring, a seemingly endless empty road with no scenery. Their reaction is somewhat justified. Only in some stretches are there mountains or other panoramas suitable for photos like those in RV magazines. For us, however, it is a fascinating highway worthy of inclusion in any RV itinerary. We have not yet committed ourselves to seeing the entire route, but have enjoyed driving across Nevada several times. Long stretches of desert are punctuated by passes through mountains. We have seen petroglyphs and explored fossil beds .

Driving from our part of California to Nevada (which takes only a little more than an hour) is an adventure in itself, because we climb up the west slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and pass above the south branch of the American River. The mountain scenery is so spectacular that it almost makes us wonder why we are leaving home. But we forge on.

South Lake Tahoe is the first city we reach in Nevada; it borders beautiful Lake Tahoe, straddles the state line between California and Nevada, and provides a striking contrast between the two states. In California, the town is fairly rustic (though becoming more and more upscale). One of our favorite public libraries is there—it has huge windows facing the lake, and there is space for our 24’ RV in the free parking lot.

On the Nevada side, South Lake Tahoe is lined with flashy casinos and looks a lot like Reno or Las Vegas. Not being gamblers, we usually drive through it quickly, but we did once spend the night in a casino parking lot. Highway 50 curves to the right here, and goes on to Carson City.

Nevada’s capital, Carson City, is about 30 miles south of Reno. It was developed during the nineteenth-century silver strike in the Comstock Lode and named for mountain man Kit Carson. The nineteenth-century architecture and period-piece stores make it a good place to visit. My partner, a train buff, especially enjoys the Nevada Railroad Museum. At one time the Virginia and Truckee Railroad ran to Virginia City, and some day we surely will visit that city. (I have seen all too many railroad museums in the past few years, and hope there is something else for me to do there.)

 

The next city along eastbound Highway 50 is Silver Springs. We have never happened to stop there, but Googling indicates that some spots of possible interest to RVers are near by: the Lahontan Reservoir and State Recreation Area, and historic Fort Churchill State Historic Park.

Fallon is a frankly ugly city with many casinos and old motels, but it has a good library. (We rely heavily on libraries as we travel, for local information and Wi-Fi.) After Fallon, Highway 50 truly begins to justify its nickname of “the loneliest highway in America.” We enjoyed the Shoshone gas station, where the roof over the gas pumps is supported by huge concrete “tree trunks.” Buying gas in Fallon can be critical, for the next town (Austin) is 110 miles to the east.

That 110 miles can seem much longer. The apparently endless sagebrush-bordered road stretches off to the east, and is usually spookily empty. City dwellers may find Highway 50 very unsettling along here. Hamilton and other towns that thrived here after the silver rush are all gone now. We find the scenery enthralling, with the vast skies making nighttime stargazing easy.

Just west of Austin, we have noted signs to Big Creek campground and to Berlin–Ichthyosaur State Park (which is 56 miles to the south of Highway 50). We plan to stop at both of them in the future.

Nevada’s silver rush began in 1862 and lasted only about twenty years. In the 1950s uranium mining had a short run, as have gold and silver throughout the years. Turquoise mining is still popular, with turquoise jewelry being widely available here. Austin is still preserved as a sort of frontier “ghost town,” with many spots on the National Register of Historic Places.

East of Austin, we once stayed at the USFS Bob Scott campground. It had not been well cared for (the toilets were very messy!), but was free and in a pleasant location. When you travel by RV on a low budget, you aren’t terribly fussy. By now I can hope the water and toilets are operating, even though the campground is probably not free any more. Across the highway from the campground, a historical plaque, “The Surveyors,” honors the U.S. surveyors who mapped vast areas from Nevada to the Pacific in 1859 and 1860.

Looking down on Austin from the mountains to the east, you see an attractive little town, with only the western mountains providing relief from the cold-desert plant life where a few cattle graze.

Because Highway 50 passes along much of the old Pony Express mail route, several old station ruins can be seen along the road east of Austin. (Back near our home in California, one of the original stations has been preserved and is still used as the Sportsman’s Hall restaurant.)

One of our favorite stops along Highway 50 is the Hickison Petroglyphs Recreation Area, a BLM area 24 miles east of Austin. Hickison has free campsites and nice toilets. There is no water available, but with a little planning that isn’t a problem for RVers. There are ancient petroglyphs and hiking trails that we enjoyed.

Eureka lived up to its “friendliest city” motto for us on a return trip from Utah. I was planning to take Amtrak home from Reno (while my partner drove the View back alone), but needed to print out a train ticket ahead of time. In Eureka, the public library—our usual stopping place when we need help—was closed that day, so we went to the local senior center and asked if they had an Internet connection we could use. Not only did they allow us to do so, but they printed out the train ticket, which was a fairly complicated transaction. And then they recommended a local mechanic who could do a minor repair on our RV!

The senior center was not the only attraction in Eureka, of course. An old city founded by silver prospectors in the 1800s, and the county seat of Eureka County, it boasts the restored Eureka Opera House, the Jackson House Hotel, and the Eureka Sentinel newspaper building, all built in the nineteenth century The Eureka Sentinel Museum is housed in the newspaper building. We strolled along the main street while waiting to take the RV to the mechanic. All in all, we have very fond memories of Eureka and the helpful workers at the senior center.

About 20 miles east of Eureka, a rather odd tall tree rises out of the sand and rock along the north side of the road. Strange leaves or cones appear to dangle from its branches. Closer inspection shows that these objects are shoes: thousands of old shoes that have been thrown (or perhaps catapulted in some cases) onto the high branches. Apparently bored travelers have been disposing of worn-out shoes there for many years. On one recent trip we added a pair of our own.

Here in the Great Basin, the climate is cold and dry in winter, hot and dry in summer. In spite of the dryness, snow may accumulate to several feet annually.

The Illipah Reservoir has a good free campground with fourteen large, fenced (!) sites. Like most reservoirs in the West, this one has fallen in size in recent years, but is still popular with fishers.

Ely was founded as a station along the Pony Express route, and grew large when copper was discovered near by in 1906. The railroad to Ely, a relic of railroads connecting the First Transcontinental Railroad to mines, has been preserved as a heritage railway. Signs along the highway implied that we could ride an old steam train from the Nevada Northern Railway Museum, so of course we had to stop. As it turned out, the only train available at the time had a diesel engine, which was disappointing. We did reluctantly ride the train anyway, for a pleasant journey that included a staged holdup by masked gunmen.

The Kennecott copper mining company flourished here until the 1970s, when there was a crash in the copper market and Kennecott shut down.. Now copper has regained value, and mining has resumed, with copper concentrate being shipped to Seattle, then sent to Japan for smelting.

Great Basin National Park, near the eastern edge of Nevada, is apparently less popular than many of the other national parks, but we greatly enjoyed a quick visit there. One of the major attractions in the park is the Lehman caves. I am not particularly fond of caves, but even I was captivated by these. They are far less touristy than better-known caves, with little damage to the stalactites and stalagmites. You can see the opening where a pony stumbled, leading to the caves’ discovery.

Elk, black bears, and other wildlife are found here. The excellent Visitors’ Center is a good place to start exploring the park. Both the upper and lower campgrounds in Great Basin are fine places to stay, but only the lower one is accessible for RVs.

Highway 50 continues far to the east of Nevada, and that’s a story for another blog. . .

All photos (c) 2015 by Thane Puissegur

SUICIDES IN PALO ALTO

Last week my book club read the debut novel Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng. Ng recounts the story of Lydia, a Chinese-American teenager who dies in mysterious circumstances. Lydia is the daughter of a mother who was unable to reach her own goal of becoming a doctor, and of a father who struggled unsuccessfully to be accepted by others. Predictably, both parents try to relive their own lives through Lydia.

 I reacted to the book less favorably than many reviewers have, finding it maudlin and overdramatizing some unimportant parts of the story. In thinking about the book later, though, I saw it as being a perfect example of a tragic current problem, the enormous pressure put on high school students to compete for admission to the best colleges and to excel in other aspects of life. In the current Atlantic, writer Hanna Rosin describes the pressure in “The Silicon Valley Suicides.” In particular, she writes about the high rate of suicide at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. 

That article struck home with me. In the early 1980s I was a research assistant in the Stanford and the Schools study (published as What High Schools Are Like: Views from the Inside). We grad students spent many hours “shadowing” high school students in Palo Alto, talking with them and their teachers, and sitting in on their classes. Though we never met their parents, we easily inferred what they were like.

My own results showed a sharp contrast between the education of college-bound and other students. Those who were not considered college material were tracked into appealing classes with warm, caring teachers. Foreign languages and other subjects were taught with entertaining curricula that did not appear to be "dumbed down." Classrooms for this group were colorful, and the students seemed to be enjoying themselves.

In contrast, the college-bound students were tracked into very challenging classes that seemed boring to me. The students themselves seemed only mildly interested in the science or math; they were totally focused on getting high grades that would lead to admission to Stanford or other top schools, and eventually to high-paying jobs. Many of them took classes that began before 8 A.M., so they could end the school day early and take part in extracurricular activities to be added to their portfolios. One student I followed, a personable, very intelligent boy, swam in the school swimming pool at 7 every morning, then put in a long day of classes. When I asked him about his long-term goals, he seemed surprised; he shrugged and answered that he studied hard so he could go to a good college, and then to graduate school. However, he had no special career goal or other interests.

That research took place before the Silicon Valley dot-com revolution, but in the years since, pressure on students to achieve at any price has gotten even higher. Rosin writes of anxious, depressed boys and girls who attempt suicide by swallowing toxic doses of pills or throwing themselves onto train tracks. If achievement is this overvalued, both parents and schools have much to answer for. Learning should be rewarding in itself, not just a route to more learning.

BEING A CAREGIVER

I am reposting this blog, which I wrote in 2012, because of the importance of the topic. I think my conclusion about reaching out for help is essential.

How did this happen to me? I never planned to take care of anyone else. After years of working in editorial offices, I earned a PhD from Stanford and set up my own business. The Stone Cottage was a writing and editing service for educational publishers; I specialized in biology, but worked on nearly any program for science education. My chemical engineer husband was self-sufficient, and we had no children. We seemed to be doing everything right.

In the mid-eighties my husband, who already had type 2 diabetes, had a heart attack. I stopped working for a few weeks to help him recover. Around the same time, my widowed mother decided to move from Florida to California to be near us. Again, I stopped working for a while to drive her and some of her belongings across the country and get her settled in a house she bought. Eventually, our lives settled down and I returned to my writing and editing.

 

As it turned out, my husband’s health worsened greatly over the years. Though he was well for long periods, every year or so he would have a medical crisis and enter the hospital for a while. By the time he died in 2003, he had had a sextuple bypass and several other cardiac surgeries, a cervical laminectomy, and amputations of a leg and some toes; and was on dialysis. His medical bills came to more than a million dollars, so even though he was well insured, we had to use our retirement savings to pay our portion. I cut down greatly on working to care for him, adding to our financial difficulties.

 

During the same period, my mother became unable to live alone, so we bought a larger home with an in-law apartment where she could live. I was the only caregiver for both her and my husband, doing the cooking, laundry, and other household chores.

 

After my husband died, my attention focused on my mother, who was in her nineties. More and more, she needed my help with bathing and other routine daily activities. In 2005 she entered an assisted living facility, and though I visited her almost daily, my life became much easier. When she died at the age of 101, my role as a caregiver ended.

 

My slide into caregiving was gradual, as it is for many caregivers. At first it was a matter of taking my mother shopping, occasionally rushing my husband to the hospital, and generally being available when they needed my help. Over the years, though, caregiving took over my life. I had little time for building a network of women friends or pursuing my individual interests.

 

Of course, in a sense I was lucky. Having a home office, I could combine working and caregiving when the projects were small enough and the deadlines were reasonable. (Any freelance editor will find that amusing.) If I could do it again, perhaps I would hire more help, so I could stay active professionally. As it was, I lost touch with what was happening both in science and in publishing, and failed to learn the new techniques that are needed for editors today. Though I have continued to write, I have done so only sporadically. Geriatrics  will probably be my last full-length book.

 

Would I do it again, given the cost to my own life? Yes! Though professional caregivers can be excellent, only a family member can provide the ill or aging with all the loving help and shared memories they need. Caring for my husband and mother gave me a sense of fulfillment I have never felt otherwise; during those years I became much closer to them, and found myself becoming less self-centered. We all benefited from our situation.

 

However, I would reach out more for help. Like many caregivers, I was naïve about the financial aid that is available. I might have been paid at least a small amount for my time, as my staying home made it possible for my husband to remain out of a nursing home. We probably could have received Medi-Cal benefits, but assumed that because we had a nice home and car, we would be turned down. Instead, we struggled to stay afloat. A social worker asked me once whether we needed financial help; why was I too proud to say yes? Caregivers’ support groups were available, and I should have made time to join one. The Unitarian women’s circle I found after my husband’s death was a wonderful source of friendship and support, but I could have found it years earlier. If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes one to care for those near the end of life and for their caregivers.