Jackson Hole - Horse Thieves and Celebrities; Cheap Beer and Overpriced Pretzels

We’d pulled into Jackson late on a Saturday night a bit disoriented, very hungry and too dog tired to worry about food.  Well the wife didn’t worry about food but I opted for some overpriced room service; but I repeat myself because room service is culinary grand larceny.  What we found in the morning when we headed into town was not the Jackson that I remembered from childhood when we visited on a family vacation.  Understand that I don’t have the faintest recollection of my childhood Jackson but I can state with positive certainty that my childhood Jackson was not this Jackson. I couldn't imagine that the Jackson that my parents brought me to was a haven for the 1 percent. 

The Little Cabin in the Woods

“My God, this place is at the end of the world,” worried the wife.  It did seem like a long ride up the mountain from the main highway.  It was unpaved and pocked with ruts and holes but it wasn’t horrible.  Hell, highway 880 in Oakland has worse stretches and deeper holes with the added hazards of drivers texting, putting on makeup and fussing about the morning coffee that just sloshed onto the console.  The rain was a bit worrisome.  How bad would this thing be if this light shower turned into a gully washer? 

Dropping Benjamins in Jackson

It was a 14 hour pull from Nevada to Jackson, Wyoming.  We limped into Jackson at about 9 on a Saturday night.  The grand plan had been to leave Fernley early and drive as far as we could and get a room for the night.  As far as we could drive turned out to be Jackson and Jackson apparently had no room to spare.  We drove past hotel after motel after inn and every one displayed that increasingly depressing NO VACANCY sign.  Uh, this was a problem.  My Jackson reservation was for the next day; at 3 PM to be exact.  I frankly had expected that we would end up spending the night in Pocatello or American Falls in Idaho but the allure of Wyoming and the Grand Tetons provided the adrenaline to keep me going.  Well, that and a river of Dr. Pepper. 

Goin to Jackson (Wyoming)

I'm goin' to Jackson, I'm gonna mess around,

Yeah, I'm goin' to Jackson,

Look out Jackson town. – Song “Jackson” ; Billy Ed Wheeler and Jerry Leiber. 

Okay, the song that Johnny Cash made famous wasn’t referring to Jackson, Wyoming but the tune rambled through my head as we made our drive.

It was a long pull getting to Jackson, Wyoming from Fernley, Nevada where we spent our first night.  Fourteen hours on the road but not all of it driving.  We stopped for photos, for food, for coffee, water or soda.  We stopped to stretch and we stopped to relieve ourselves of the coffee, water and soda.  We left Fernley in the black of the morning and arrived in Jackson in what seemed a blacker night. 

Getting Away: Fernley Nevada

On the road from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Yellowstone area.  The adventure begins. 

Fernley Nevada; established 1905.  We’re on the road trip, headed for the mountain states.  Fernley wasn’t exactly where I’d expected to land on the first day out.  I’d hoped to reach Winnemucca on the first night but “civilization” (and I use that term loosely) wouldn’t let go of its nasty, relentless grip. 

Teasing Tatanka and Other Travel Plans

Tatanka – Lakota Sioux word for American Bison (buffalo)

If a bear charges you after a surprise encounter, stay still and stand your ground.  National Park Service Advisory

The plans are pretty much in place.  The accommodations are all booked, the basic itinerary is set and in less than two weeks it’ll be time for us to over pack, throw fishing and camera gear and mountains of other stuff and junk into the car that we won’t need and will never touch and head out on vacation.  I’ll leave the boilerplate “out of office” email message that says I’ll have no cell phone or internet service while I’m gone.  You see this is all part of the new American work protocol in which your employer expects you drop everything, leisure, kids's birthdays, sex and death (a family member's or yours), if and when duty calls.  By saying that you don't have any service you're trying to sound like you're saying, "Gosh I'd really like to but I'm in the wilderness."  But what you're really saying is "Fuck off:" Everyone leaves the same basic message, “Hi, I’m sorry I missed your email but I’m at Silicon Valley and there’s no internet or phone service here.”  I mean really how many places are left where you have no phone or internet service?  Actually I know of one.  That will be the cabin in Montana we’re renting for 5 nights out of the two weeks we'll be gone.  It’s about 20 miles from the nearest town and there really is no phone or internet. 

On The Civil War Trail

“The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.”

~ Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative

Unharmed he reached the nearest sufferer. He knelt beside him, tenderly raised the drooping head, rested it gently upon his own noble breast, and poured the precious life-giving fluid down the fever scorched throat.

This done, he laid him tenderly down, placed his knapsack under his head, straightened out his broken limb, spread his overcoat over him, replaced his empty canteen with a full one, and turned to another sufferer. 

~ Excerpt of Confederate Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw’s account of the Angel of Marye’s Heights.

“And let the perpetual light shine upon them.”

~ My wife Cora.

We left Washington DC for a driving tour of Virginia.  Our drive crisscrossed Virginia's Civil War trails.  You can't hardly drive for a few hours in Virginia without coming across a site related to the Civil War.  If it isn't a building or a battlefield it might simply be a sign describing a particular spot as being some general's headquarters or a place where a skirmish took place.  The white signs are along highways, on country roads, near schools and on the fringes of shopping malls. 

Confederate cannons on the hills above Fredericksburg

Song of Appalachia

On Google Maps Hiltons, Virginia looks to be only a short jog from Abingdon where our hotel was.  In fact the directions will tell you that it’s only 27 miles away.  The directions will also tell you though that it’s about a 50 minute drive.  Well that didn't look at all right when we started out until a few minutes into the drive when we left the the town limits of Abingdon for a narrow, winding road through the woods and farms of that little corner of Appalachia. This section of Virginia is about a tobacco spit away from the border with Tennessee.

A familiar Baptist Church in Appalachia

Reporting From Washington

Reporting from Washington.  You hear that at least once every evening on the nightly news.  That’s because DC is, as Reggie Jackson once said of himself, “the straw that stirs the drink.”  Or is that Wall Street?

DC isn't a Budweiser or a white wine town; it’s a Scotch rocks town. 

DC oozes power.  It radiates from the buildings, flows down the Potomac, and jostles it’s way along the busy sidewalks.  You feel it in the streets, in restaurants and in bars.  There seems to be more business than tourism in the marble lobby of The Willard Hotel (known to locals as “The W”).  Folks in business suits greet each other with firm handshakes and then retire to a corner to discuss - what?  A peace initiative?  An appropriations bill?  What legislator to lobby (read: buy off)?  Possibly an obfuscation strategy, or for those old enough to remember, the old Ralph Kramden "Hamana hamana, hamana."  

The Willard Hotel's Marble Lobby

We’d planned an al fresco dinner at Bobby Van’s Grill and before leaving I mulled over the jeans I was wearing.  C'mon, a pair of jeans is the everyday ensemble in California.  I glanced down at my jeans and running shoes; nah; shit’s not gonna work.  Went to slacks and loafers.  Good move; I’d have stuck out like Old MacDonald – or Surfer Joe.  Either way it would've been a bad look.  You don’t see baggy shorts, jeans and a t-shirt in a DC restaurant - not unless the wearer is from California.

Strolling near The White House you know what you see; uniformed Secret Service, Park Police, DC cops, bomb sniffing German Shepherds and those fellows in gray suits and shades.  You also don’t know what you don’t see.  A tour bus operator pointed to a sniper at the top of a nearby building.  Chilling. 

If you come to DC you need to visit The Newseum; no you really NEED to visit it.  Dedicated to the fourth estate and the ideals of the First Amendment it sits on Pennsylvania Avenue, ironically between two infamous manure factories; The Capitol Building and The White House.  The Newseum is a big building of steel and glass, making it highly transparent, unlike the government buildings that flank it. Why do you NEED to visit it?  Because the press has become a popular whipping boy; it’s biased, its left wing, its right wing, it’s a corporate tool, it’s this, it’s that, but whatever it is it can’t be any good.  Right?  Everyone seems to have his own bias about the press, whether it came honestly or it came from Limbaugh, but the fact is that very often the press is the only check when the so called checks and balances of our government become unchecked and out of balance.  Lest we forget Watergate, Iran-Contra, and countless investigative reports that have uncovered government, waste, abuse, excess of power and assorted skullduggery.

Why do you NEED to see the Newseum?  Because in a powerful section about the former East Germany you see what happens when we don’t have a free press or a first amendment or we the citizens fall asleep at the switch and buy the government line, or the corporate line. You see in the East Germans the lengths to which people will go, when they yearn for basic freedoms; you know, kinda like that 1776 thing.  But what the hell, a lot of us are already asleep; night-night democracy.

There is also a film presentation that relives the press coverage of 9/11 through the words of the reporters that were there.  Just outside of the theater is a well used satin metal tissue holder.

At The Newseum there is a display of the 9/11 press coverage. 

There is also a permanent tissue dispenser

As we strolled Pennsylvania Avenue, I noticed a building that houses, figuratively at least, a butt load of my hard earned money; IRS headquarters.  Sigh. 

There might be better ways to sight see than going for a run in the early hours but I can’t think of one right now.  Forget that health stuff, the lighting is spectacular and if you aren't alone with the sights you’re about as close to alone as you’re going to be.  Two early morning runs through the National Mall and past the monuments yielded breathtaking sights in the dramatic light of sunrise.  What I missed out on were Homer and Marge in Bermuda shorts and all the other gazillion touristas. 

I was told by someone who claimed to be in the know that DC is empty now.  “Huh?”  I asked.  “Seems awfully full to me.”  She pointed out that a lot of folks leave town this time of year because Congress isn't in session.  I suppose that the dearth of crowds is the only thing that would tip you off that the blackguards have skipped town.  When they're on recess nothing gets done.  And when they're in town?  Nothing from nothing is nothing.

One of those morning runs and I happen on to the Vietnam Memorial.  I’m the only one there and the rising sun is shining on that long bright ebony wall.  The lawn and trees and the Washington Monument are all reflected as clearly as if that black surface were a mirror.  The reflection makes the thousands of names blend with the idyll of that park; the trees, the emerald lawn and Washington’s monument looking down on it all.  I get emotional at that monument.  It brings on a palpable wave of sorrow.

Some yards from the wall is a statue of three grunts.  You stand in front of them and you look at them but they don't look at you.  They look over and past you as if you’re not there; as if you weren't there. To me they seem to know that I wasn't there.  They're dismissive of me as they should be. Unquestionably those who were there see those men differently; more intimately.  To me the one on the left, with the machine gun appears bitter, the one in the middle, resolute, and the one on the right, just sad and weary.  All three wear a look of resignation.  They wear the emotions that pulled on each other, on each of us and on the nation as a whole during those years.  If you didn't serve you can't get it. I didn't serve and I don’t think I even know anyone who perished in that swamp.  The memory of those times still brings tears.  As I look up at those young men I want to ask their forgiveness for not helping with all the heavy lifting that a misguided government heaped on their young shoulders.  

Served or not, if you didn't live through that era, you can't get it either. To say that the country was divided is an understatement.  Americans squared off in nose to nose confrontations at demonstrations, in the office, at school and in the home.  If you believed in the war you saw your local recruiter. If you had the financial horsepower or enough grease and you didn't believe; or even if you did but lacked the testicular fortitude to enlist then you got a deferment.  If you were just a plebian you might just head for Canada.  Failing that you counted on lady luck in the draft lottery and if you lost; well as Country Joe put it, "Put down your books and pick up your gun, we're gonna have a whole lot of fun."  And add to that the racial unrest, and you had a cauldron of unrest and a big fucking mess.

Some will never get it; they’ll never get anything.  Like the fool that mocked the nurses portrayed in the Vietnam Women’s Memorial.  He had a jolly good time and his female companion laughed like a braying mule.  I wanted to call out to him to shut the fuck up but for some there’s just no remedy.  You can’t shame someone who has no shame.

And yes that Women’s Memorial is as moving as the Vietnam Memorial – maybe more so.  A nurse with an expression of sorrow cradles a fallen soldier while one behind her hopefully, desperately scans the skies for that dust off.

If you’re visiting DC, the National Mall is where it’s at.  Monuments and museums so numerous you would need more than a week to see them all.  The museums are enormous and you can’t dally at any single display in a museum and hope to get through it all.  You breeze along the displays and soak in what you can.  At the Smithsonian Museum of American History the wife got so engrossed in a display about the original flag that flew over Fort McHenry that it took her nearly a half hour to finish.  I finally had to drag her out, “You do realize that we only have two more days in DC.”  “What do you mean?” she asked. “I mean at the rate you’re going we’re going to spend both days here in this museum.”  I really hated to rush her along.  You couldn't pay that woman enough to actually read a history book but plop her into a museum or a historical site and she’s riveted. 

Constitution Avenue runs the length of the mall and along much of that boulevard a cottage industry has sprouted.  Trailers line the curbside hawking food and trashy souvenirs.  As you walk along the line you pass a food vendor and then a souvenir vendor and then another food vendor identical to the first food vendor and then a souvenir vendor identical to the first souvenir vendor.  Every shopkeeper in every trailer looks to be Southeast Asian.  And so you walk along Constitution Avenue with the green grass of the mall on one side and a line of cloned schlock traders on the other. 

Food and provisions on Constitution Ave. 

The original impetus to take this trip was, believe it or not; baseball.  The plan was originally to go to Yellowstone but when I looked on the San Francisco Giants website way back in January, I saw that they were offering a vacation to DC with lodging and tickets to three games.  Given the choice the little woman jumped on DC.  We took in two night games and bagged the third; a day game on Sunday.  I like baseball as much as the next guy but this is Washington DC.  And so as it turned out we went for three baseball games, took in two and then decided to drive through Virginia for a week.

We've left DC now.  I’m writing this sitting in a cottage tucked in Virginia’s Piedmont, in the shade of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  There’s no traffic, no commotion, no horns; no impatience that business demands and none of the pressure and urgency that embraces that most powerful city on Earth.  Out here the night sky is full of the stars that are made invisible by the lights of DC.  The city sounds have been replaced by a million crickets.  It’s almost as if we’d never been to DC.  Hell, almost as if it doesn't exist. 

                                              

Getting Motel 6'ed

We do the same sort of thing every damn time we leave for vacation.  It’s a nod towards budgeting on an otherwise expensive expedition.  And so every trip starts by taking it south no matter the actual compass direction.  It’s become a sorry vacation tradition to use Motel 6 as a sort of staging area, and every time we do it we swear it will be our last.

Reno Rambling - Too.

Reno's Peppermill; a mile or so from what’s left of The Strip's glory years.  In the sixties the strip was a glittering string of casinos and hotels; Fitzgerald’s, The Sahara (which would become the Flamingo Hilton), Mapes, The Nevada Club, Cal Neva, Harold’s Club and a full deck of smaller players. The strip has since been stripped. 

Reno: Rambling

Alright so it was less rambling and more gambling but I felt as if before we even got to Reno; before I’d finished booking a room, that I’d gambled and been snookered by our hotel/casino – The Peppermill.  The Tuesday and Wednesday before the 4^th of July were advertised at $59 and $69 respectively.  A good deal I announced to the wife and she said, “Book it,” and so I clicked BOOK IT.  The next page showed me that my grand total was over $180.  What the hell?  And there was the $15 dollar per day compulsory resort fee telling me that if I wanted to use wi-fi, the fitness center and pool, have a bed and get toilet paper in my room I would have to pony up.  Okay the last was an exaggeration but if the fee is compulsory why not put it up front in the cost of the room?  Oh but I know the answer to that question.  Because at first blush $59 looks a lot more inviting than $74 and so you rush to click the BOOK IT icon before anyone else gets YOUR room.  And now you’re at the page where it’s time to pay up and excitement has taken charge and you say “screw it” and you tap in your credit card number.  Oh I had second thoughts but in the end I reasoned that, hell its only 30 bucks.  Of course that’s how things get expensive.  You keep tacking on the “its onlys” until you've racked up the national debt – it’s the American way.  And so before even leaving the house it was Peppermill -1, American Boomer – 0.  

Roughing It (With apologies to Mark Twain)

The Family Camping Chronicles: Part III

"On the seventeenth day we passed the highest mountain peak that we had yet seen, and although the day was very warm the night that followed upon its heels was wintry cold and blankets were next to useless."  From Roughing It  by Mark Twain

“It would be distressing to a feeling person to See our Situation at this time all wet and cold and with our bedding &c also wet, in a cove scarcely large enough to contain us…canoes at the mercy of the waves and driftwood…robes and leather clothes are rotten.”   William Clark describing being stranded at Point Ellice, Washington (1808).  (For those who slept through the day they taught about the Lewis and Clark expedition in history class, Clark was Meriwether Lewis’ expedition partner)

“We’re really roughing it,” Dad would say as he loaded our camping gear into the station wagon.  The words were served with sides of arched eyebrow, a wry smile and a large helping of sarcasm.  Dad was alluding to Roughing It, Mark Twain’s chronicle of his adventures in the Wild West of the 1860’s.  Looking back it seems like a magic trick that dad was able to get a big canvas tent, two bulky cots, lantern, fishing gear, stove, clothes, some pre-cooked meals that mom packed for us and an assorted pile of “possibles” into that wagon.

Bags and Baggage

The Family Camping Chronicles: Part II

I relegated myself to sleeping in a sleeping bag the other night.  No, it’s not like that.  I wasn’t in the wife’s doghouse.  There’s a perfectly good queen sized bed in one of the extra rooms that comes in very handy for when the kids visit or when the domestic seas get choppy.  My purpose this night was to test the bedding for the upcoming family camping trip. 

On Dirt, Beans and Wild West Whimsy

“Camping is nature’s way of promoting the motel business.”  ~ Dave Barry.

There’s a family camping trip looming on the horizon and I’ve spent the last few weekends gearing up.  I’ve made lists, rummaged through the big plastic bin in the backyard and a couple of garage cabinets; pulled plastic tubs from an attic storage area and crawled around some closets in the house.

To B & B or not to B & B?

It seemed the appropriate question as we surveyed our room at Anne Hathaway’s Bed and Breakfast in Ashland, Oregon.  Maybe survey isn't the right word.  Surveying conjures visions of a large expanse.  This room was tiny.  I suppose I should mention that this B & B, located in the home of The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is named after The Bard's better half and not the American actress.  Did I mention that it was small?The room was small enough that sitting on any edge of the bed I could reach out and touch a wall.  It wasn't big enough to swing the proverbial cat in.  I’m certain that at some point as I put our suitcase in the only place it would fit, under the bathroom sink and pondered the nightly rate that Lady Macbeth’s words came to mind; “What’s done cannot be undone.”

The American Adventure - The Open Road

It's July, 2013 and my wife Cora and I are taking a driving trip through Northern California and into Oregon. 

The wife and I have embarked on that great American summer adventure; that annual migration of the dog days; that paean to the interstate, the motorcar and fuel consumption; the modern day version of the pioneers’ tale – the road trip.  We've headed north from the San Francisco Bay to a distant, uncharted and exotic land – Oregon.  Okay, it’s not distant; it’s only 300 miles or so.  And it’s hardly uncharted.  After all I went out recently and bought a GPS so Oregon, the rest of this land and all of hell’s half acre are all pretty well charted.

Seaside Repose

"But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean."
H.P. Lovecraft

Late of a July afternoon.  Lolling on a wooden bench, hand hewn, sun bleached and weather beaten.  Near the edge of a coastside bluff overlooking an azure Pacific Ocean scattered with diamonds of shimmering sunlight.