Introduction
By the summer of 2021 Covid19 had been a cloud over America for a year and a half. All our lives and plans were turned upside-down one way or another. Some of us lost loved ones, my wife’s father among the them, taken in the first few months of Covid’s spread across the land. Despite the absence of a vaccine and hard-to-come-by M95 masks we ventured through empty airports and shared half filled planes with other masked strangers during that apprehensive time to travel from California to Boston for his funeral. Even then only sixteen family members were allowed to attend. We neither fraternized or spoke to anyone else during that sad trip, which was the only travel Donna and I were to do for another year. Now it was July 2021 and with shots in arms and confidence in our hearts it was time to step out. We had no desire to repeat the feeling of claustrophobic virus paranoia on a plane however. We also learned something important in that year of isolation. One can not experience the country from 30,000 feet at 500 miles an hour. So we bought ourselves a truck, packed it up for the long haul and hit the road. Here are the stories from that trip.
Ready, Get set…..
Ready, Get Set…..
Time to step out. Our doors have been locked and the windows rolled up for too long a time. Regardless of our individual social perspectives, that is one thing we all agree upon.
So I told the person on the National Park Service help line that I wanted them to send me a pass to see the geysers, but they sent me this geezer pass instead. Seriously though, it is a pretty good deal as we will be visiting over 10 National Parks and Monuments this year.
Some how, the dogs sniffed out they were not on the travel plans. I will miss those guys. Lucky for me those guys can’t read. Otherwise they would have have reminded me about another guy who did bring his best friend.
Let’s see now. We got your delta variant, the highest recorded temperatures since man invented the thermometer, raging wild fires, random gas shortages to compliment the rising prices and, oh yes, random acts of road rage. Maybe a little political discontent going on as well? At least that is the landscape painted by an apocalyptic perspective of the news. Either that or someone let Steven King loose to write the news headlines this past year. Yep, time for a road trip. I decided to bring along John Steinbeck and his dog Charley. There is room for all of us in the truck. I haven’t read his book yet, but now is the perfect time. We can explore the new America together. I know he loved his country even when it was hurting in his time. He couldn’t turn away. I will let you know along the way how both stories turn out.
Always Take a Closer Look
There is much to write about our two month travel across the country, but as I learned from Steinbeck in the opening chapter of his book, thoughts need time to ferment before they can be properly distilled. It is like glancing out the side window of a speeding car, America is just a blur unless you slow down and take a closer look. With that in mind, I tried to take to heart his mission of reconnecting with America and separate the nostalgia from the new reality while having a little fun along the way.
It was one hundred and twenty degrees in the sun when we met Marcos, a date farmer living on the outskirts of Palm Springs. No, we are not visiting that Palm Springs, the one with its gated retro seventies community enclaves and tourist havens, but the other one way out beyond on the wind blown scrub land. We were in search of a date farm. Why do you ask? Because someone told us that if we were going to visit Palm Springs, we must not miss the opportunity get a date shake. You know, an ice cream shake, but made with dates. Turns out there is a renown ice cream shop in Palm Springs that offers just that. The shakes were absolutely delicious. Maybe it was the oppressive heat or an icy brain freeze, or a combination of both, but we got it into our heads, “let’s go visit a date farm”. A little web searching on my phone’s browser picked out a farm not too far from town. A phone call followed, “Ya we are still open, come on down, don’t have too many dates left though” the man said on the phone. So off we went to take a closer look how the dates made it into our shakes.
We hopped into the truck and headed out. It didn’t take long for neatly ordered streets and homes to give way to a dusty wind blown empty road. Our wheels surfing over rivulets of built up sand crossing our path. A turn to the right took us on to a simple two lane road, sparsely populated with trailer homes, odd collections of abandoned vehicles and withering range fences. Another turn took us onto a simple graveled single lane road, The crunching sound of the gravel under our wheels announced our presence as we pulled up to the date farm.
It was past the date season, but Marcos kindly gave us a tour of his humble operation. A chain link fence enclosed just thirty or so palm trees, a few chickens and other assorted fowl, a wary dog suspicious of our intentions and a humble prefab home way out at the end of that dusty lane at the edge of the All-American Canal. He didn’t have any dates worth selling, but he did have plenty of time on his hands. I think he was glad to see us, or anybody for that matter. We learned about female and male trees and how hard it was for even a palm tree to get a little action. With the land too harsh for bees to do the job, palm tree family planning was left to Marcos to get the job done, bagging the vitality of the single male tree and visiting each of the female trees one ladder climb at a time. Really, who knew? We learned about persistence, patience and perseverance as well. For twenty one years, starting with his father, his family had been scratching a living from the dry sandy ground. The same length of time we had lived in our overly comfortable Silicon Valley home with its overly priced value. Humbling. We walked with him as he tended to the drip system. His drip system kept everything, including his family, alive while mine just keeps a few non native ornamentals green.
He said many of the date farmers had similar operations, but they were rapidly disappearing. The bigger farms were down south were there was more water and open land. The concrete version of Palm Springs is getting closer all the time. On the way back we came across an accident on the dusty and windy road. A rare and random chance given the otherwise expanse of its emptiness. Kind of like our encounter with Marcos, but in our case a good collision.
Get your own date shake here
You can virtually visit Marco’s date farm by clicking on the link below.
From Here to There
One cannot get lost anymore. In his day, John Steinbeck reveled in the experience of losing his way in order to find his inspiration. Yes he would complain that his friends possessed an inferior capacity to provide him accurate directions, lament about the volume of maps required to cross the country and prior to his departure intricately prepared a proscribed route. Secretly though I believed he enjoyed getting lost, finding some unexpected turn in his journey, which is the essence of discovery. Our trip was planned with similar preciseness and advice but with the added overseer of GPS and the ominous “Cloud”. The ubiquitous cloud covers everything, even on a clear day. Honestly speaking it has a seductive assurance. I can cruise clear across the country knowing each exact turn and precise time of arrival. Boring. Let’s go off road, take that turn that makes the GPS lady scold you, demand you U-turn and recalculate your destiny. Then just turn her off. So, while in Joshua Tree National Park that is what we did. An old mining road spurring off the main road was just too inviting to pass by. Best of all, it had no pavement, no lanes to stay in. The GPS although silenced continued its visual dismay with a roving triangle in a screen of nothing. It zoomed out in a widening circle in search of certainty, Well, let me clue you in my little A.I. buddy, there is no certainty. So let your silicon hair down, roll down the window and feel the hot desert air on your face. No, we are not going to get to our destination on time, but we will have a bit fun before we do.
Every Mile Tells a Story
This story was bouncing around in my head all the way to Chicago and although Chicago is about 1800 air miles from our home, we actually travelled over 3000 miles as we step stoned through jewels of the southwest; Joshua Tree, the Mojave desert, Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Petrified Forest, Mesa Verde, Chimney Rock, Taos and up the entire length of of Santa Fe trail through the New Mexico-Okalahoma-Texas convergence all the way to the Missouri border. Even that list doesn’t cover it all. There are also the diamonds in the rough, little towns like Oatman Arizona, an old mountaintop gold mine town where the donkeys out number the people. If you ever head out that way, stop in for a cowboy steak at the Dambar Steak house in nearby Kingman, where the people you meet have stories to tell as stark as the landscape they live in. However like gold, you have to pan for their thoughts. Across the country, restaurants are just reopening and the few staff they have are overworked and tired. Being patient and considerate customer are as important as a good tip. We could tell our waitress was barely getting by on adrenaline and muscle memory at this point in her shift, her movement mechanical, but also I could tell smart and precise. So after a smile, good eye contact and a compliment on the service there was an opportunity for real contact. With a little more banter, we learned our waitress’s name was Jackie and after hearing of our cross country trek-in-progress, Jackie confessed her story. She had left tropical Maui after a bad breakup to come to Kingman, a desert railroad town, to both live with and take care of her elderly parents, only to come down with a serious cancer herself, which she had just beaten back a few months ago. Her words confirmed what I was already guessing as I could not but notice when I first walked in; a rail-thin figure and striking facial features with haunting eyes that draw you in, which often come from such life experiences. Despite all of her travails, something about Kingman she said grew on her, she thinks she will stay awhile, she likes it. I questioned to myself; what sort of fool of a man could have been so bad to this attractive person that he drove her out of paradise and into the desert? I wondered also if the echoing whistles of all the trains that pass through these towns are the constant reminder to her of the world beyond the broken rock hillsides and would she stay?
Then there are the other signposts along the old Rt 66. Places like Winslow, where the girl in the flatbed ford is still waiting for her lover to climb in. Or better still, don’t pass by Holbrook. Take the Rt. 66 spur to drive by the old Wigwam hotel where time stopped in 1955. If you go there, stop in for lunch at the old multi-generation owned “Antiques Restaurant”. I had barely walked through the door before confronted in conversation with the elderly family matriarch sitting at a table nearby and closely watching the comings and goings. She had to let me know the family once owned over nine lively businesses in town, but sadly now down to just three. She was proud tell me of the plethora of grandchildren and great-grandchildren still around, several of which who were working the place. With her was her in-attendance niece silently standing by and smiling at her aunt’s happiness in talking to someone new in this nearly abandoned town. The food was simple and great. Make sure to order the Navajo taco. It is a local favorite her grand daughter waitress told us. Take the time to look at all the memories and mementos on the walls. I Eavesdroped on the conversation from the locals at another table. “Hey, I see the auto dealership across the street closed”, said a customer, “is it going to reopen?” “I don’t think so” said the grand daughter waitress, “ they went bankrupt.” Really though, overheard conversations are not necessary, the broad empty main streets with the for-lease signs in the windows tell the story of a changing America. In his day, Steinbeck sadly noted in his travels through Maine the forests were slowly reclaiming abandoned farm fields and caved-in homesteads. Now in our day superhighways and a constant stream of eighteen-wheeler trucks with Amazon smile logos flying past these towns are doing the same. These towns are like strong women abandoned by their lovers and there is no one waiting on the corner for them anymore.
After Holbrook, we spent the night in Gallup NM, a cultural center for the Navajo, Hopi and Ute tribes. From Gallup we legged it up north through Navajo and Ute land to the Mesa Verde, where 1000 year old pueblo cliff dwellings remind you just how long Native Americans had settled this land. This is an arid land, and always had been for over a 1000 years. Countless generations of native Americans scratched an existence from the dusty soil. But one day they too had depleted the land to the point they had to move away. Perhaps a lesson they left for us to remember.
We spent the night up on the mesa, the dark sky providing for a brilliant display of the milky-way and marveled at the vast horizon. The next day we traveled east through story legend named towns like Durango with the goal of spending the night in Taos. Along the way we drove up the steep graveled slope of Chiminey Rock National Monument, another incredible Ancient Peoples dwelling site. Every seventeen years the moon aligns between the mountain’s two peaks and the rooms of the dwelling are like an American West Stonehenge. Going there was another of our “let’s go off the plan” decisions and we didn’t mind one bit arriving late to Taos. From Taos we legged it back south back to Santa Fe and on to the Santa Fe Trail. Yes, the trail still exists in modern form. The original wagon trail was replaced by the railroad and the railroad was replaced by the highway, but all three follow the same route through the Pecos up to Wagon Mound through to Dodge City, Boise City and on to Kansas City. Along the way we passed through the Oklahoma pan handle exactly where New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma meet at one of the last remnants of the open prairie. The triple border marks the eastern boundary of the southwestern desert. The rest of way is serious farm land. While traveling along the two lane road at 70+ miles an hour we came upon a combine harvester chugging along in the opposite direction. The only problem was that its winged blades reached from roadside to roadside. Hard braking and running up the shoulder just in time made all the difference. A familiar pattern emerges in between the endless acres of green. Every 15 miles or so a cluster of silos appears surrounded by train stop, maybe a gas station a few streets, and always a church. Again, it was hard not to notice too many boarded up store fronts. Historically this area was the epicenter of the 1930s dust bowl where Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” chronicled how our nation’s first man made ecological disaster up-ended the lives of thousands. Donna had noticed something else about this time, the countless reciprocating wells scattered among the fields of green. “Are those oil wells?” she asked. “No, they are water well pumps.” I replied. In fact the only reason this area was green at all was because of the Ogallala aquifer, a vast underground water table stretching from Nebraska to Texas. It is slowly being emptied. The drought in the west is highly visible though the numerous fires. The drought here is invisible, happening underground. But some fear what will happen when the water runs out. The same farming technics used now were used that cause the first dust bowl. Will a second dust bowl emerge?
All of these visions were stirring around in my head as we crossed into Missouri and onto Illinois. Here there is too much water, the Mississippi was running high as all the rivers were all the way to Chicago. The western drought was just a 5 minute story on the 6 o’clock news. Here the stories are about flooded homes and highways. These stirred up visions and thoughts brought me back to Oatman Arizona. I was originally going to write a tongue-in-cheek humorous story about irony of the place where the people there wear their politics on their sleeves and will gladly sell you both sleeves along with whole red tee shirt that goes with it complete with in-your-face political logos for fifteen bucks, all while the political symbolic animal of their imagined enemy defalcates on their streets. The irony is that these people need the nemisis mules to attract the tourists to buy those shirts and the mules need the angry people to feed them. National politics in minuture up on the mountain. But the reality is not very funny. Everywhere we went we found hard working people trying to scratch an existence from a hard land. From a 1000 years ago to now, all races of people share the same common goal of making a living. Maybe it is date farmer in Palm Springs, a waitress in Kingman, a blurry eyed truck driver driving through the night on Rt. 40, a train engineer in Gallup, a farmer on the Great Plains or just two Californians passing through. We are all on the same road in life.
Every Story Begins with an Ending
Every story begins with an ending or so it seems as I look out at the sun’s early morning rays glistening across the rippling waves of Lake Michigan and glance back at the rescinding Chicago skyline in my rearview mirror. The past seven days seem as fleeting as the road signs we are now zipping by. No one aside from the GPS lady is talking and the only thing on her mind is the six hundred miles ahead of us before the day is done. We have come across the country to Chicago not only to experience the excitement of travel and the beauty of this country, but to see our daughter, Nicole, who we had not embraced in well over a year. We have always been proud of our family’s wide reach; a son in NYC, a daughter on the west coast and our third child bridging the wide gap in between. The highway ahead lay mostly straight east, repetitive and uniform. Steinbeck said he preferred to avoid interstates for this reason as it lead his thoughts to wander into the darker and self doubting corners of his mind. The monotany is like a type of hypnosis. My thoughts drifted back to the past seven days.
Seven days prior we finally arrived in Chicago after leaving the American southwest expanse and a two day stretch from Dodge City through Hannibal Missouri, and Springfield Illinois. Wyatt Earp and Mark Twain must have skipped town because they were no where to be found. Towns are living and breathing things, they change because they are for the living. Still, the shadows of these legends remain and it was fun to walk the streets they walked. In Springfield, Abraham Lincoln is still the President. If only it were so. His museum is as non audacious as the man himself and carefully separates myths from reality. Some of the misguided say we should pull him down from his pedestal. I disagree. I see a man although enveloped in the context of his time and constrained by the flaws of that context still able to tear a hole in its fabric to show a path forward. An imperfect man? Of course. However a man whose life choices prove we can rise above our own imperfections and limitations.
After Springfield and feeling renewed we closed in on Chicago. Open fields of green rapidly yielded to the industrial muscle of our nation. The muscles may be bruised, but they still flex. Our truck becomes just one corpuscle in the multitude of vehicles on the arteries feeding into the heart of the city. It is one of the reasons I have an affinity for a city. I don’t mind being part of something bigger. It seems too many of us have forgotten what that means. Yet one more symptom of the “me first” culture, I suppose.
Nicole and Matt were waiting outside as the truck pulled up. Smiles and embraces all round as we laughed at the absurdness of piloting such a beast three thousand miles into these busy city streets. Long warm embraces after a long separation are exhilarating, but better yet are the soft quiet moments that followed later. In their small apartment I just listened from afar to mother and daughter get reacquainted over a preparation for dinner, the banter on how to prepare the meal, the clatter of dish ware, the dicing of vegetables and the giggling over some small amusement. These are the moments worth traveling three thousand miles. I do not think I am too far from Steinbeck’s thinking on this point, he had his wife fly out to meet him in Chicago during his travels. He perfectly understood that independence is an illusion, we all need a human tether to keep ourselves from drifting away into a void.
Nicole is an artist and a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago is her home. We tell ourselves as parents that when our kids go off to college, or service or whatever their first adventure might be, it is only temporary, there will be a return. That is not the truth of course. Not even for myself. As beautiful and nourishing my Hudson Valley home may have been, my escape was welcoming and permanent. The original starting point of this road trip I am writing about now. Towing a growing family from the east coast to the west the road trip continued. They were also looking out that car window, learning what life travel was about. So it was no surprised all of kids are now on road trips of their own.
Matt is a native Chicagoan and a pleasure to have as a member of our family. He showed us the real Chicago. To truly appreciate Chicago, one has to venture beyond the inner loop towers of bloated egos. If you come, take the time to explore the sprawling neighborhoods. They number in the hundreds. Andersonville, Austin, Cicero, Lincoln Park, Ravenwood, Logan Square to name just a few. Here you will find a plethora of restaurants and watering holes that are the urban goldmines waiting to be personally discovered. Go early, because Freddy’s Pizzeria in Cicero will have a line around the corner even before lunch. Once inside close your eyes, the smells will take you Tuscany and Naples. Walk down North Clark in Andersonville, a former Swedish enclave on a Saturday afternoon. Stop in at Simon’s Tavern for a Glogg, served cold in summer and piping hot in winter. Just up the street you can drop into Svea restaurant and have a Smorgasar, a type of open-faced sandwich. Care to venture out a bit further still? Drive out a little past O’hare for a real Polish meal at U’Gazdy, Try the pierogi for starters and follow up with the red borsch, veal sznycel and stuff cabbage. In all of these places the main course was conversation. Conversation with Nicole and Matt, not just catching up with their lives, but listening to their thoughts on life.
On the way back to the city, you might find yourself driving through the westside, though towns like Austin. It is the westside that is often mentioned in the news, the senseless random violence and murders. You may even have a vision of what such places look like. Well, it looks like your neighborhood and mine. Tree lined streets, rows of neatly kept homes, kids on bikes. It is unfathomable to understand. The only thing you begin to understand is that the violence is a virus that can spread anywhere.
And this is the reflection point that brings me out of the mind-movie and back behind the wheel of my truck that is leaving Chicago behind. A year of lock-down and separation with only the tunnel vision of news stories had left our perspective of Nicole and Matt frozen. This visit has been where the parent is introduced to the adult child long separated by the broken bond between them. The child is now the adult. The establishment of a new bond is a mutual reawakening. A pleasant discovery. A parent may wish for many things for a child; good fortune and prosperity for sure. However wisdom and vision are even better, that is what we discovered with Nicole. The old has ended, the new is beginning. It is a nice story.
Niagara Falls
There are names of places bigger than the places themselves. Nostalgia, shameless promotion and time itself can paint a larger than life image of a place in our minds. Sometimes even the original reason for visiting a place, all together disappears. It is slowly erased and replaced by the plethora of commercialism that inevitably grow on it like barnacles on a whale.
Steinbeck headed west after leaving Chicago, while we headed east. I would have waved to him on Rt 41, but I was sixty years too late. When he got to Wisconsin, of course he wrote about its fame for cheese, he knew his readers. That bit in his book was a set up for what he really wanted to talk about. He was looking for something else, a place called the Wisconsin Dells. I never heard of it. He wrote of its natural beauty; glacier carved and river sculptured sandstone monoliths that seem to float in the river itself. Then vented poetic disappointment at the commercial leaches sapping away the beauty. I wonder if he had a clue what sixty more years would do to the Dells? I did a little research on the place. Today, they might as well not have a river at all. The Wisconsin Dells is now home to the one of the highest concentration of water parks in the world, ten at last count. Who knew? Well, apparently a lot of people know. “It gets too cold up there for a water park”, you say? No problem. The river may freeze, but they moved the water parks indoors. No one wants to play in muddy cold water anyway. Oh, don’t forget the gambling. No American vacation spot can be complete without a casino or two. Actually the casino is a bit of sweet irony in my opinion. The Ho-Chunk Native American Nation owns the casino. In the 1800’s their people were runoff the Dells and scattered through out the surrounding lands. Undaunted, small groups quietly kept coming back, buying small plots of land through the Homestead act. The Ho-Chunk have no sacntioned reservation land, but they do have power and influence. So in some small amount of justice, the Ho-Chunk are now the largest employer in the area. They are the ones calling the shots now.
Why did I tell you all of this? Because I am heading towards my own iconic waterway, Niagara Falls. Everyone knows of Niagara Falls, the subject of millions of postcards, movie locations and even jokes. The most famous joke being the “The Slowly I Turned” skit done by “Abbott and Costello” and “The Three Stooges”. If you haven’t seen it done, “Niagara Falls” is the trigger phrase that sends a love-jilted maniac into a rage against the hapless comedians. Not funny? I guess you have be there. Although originally from New York, I never been to Niagara Falls and I intended to remedy the oversight.
From more than a hundred miles away bill boards began to shout out to us “Niagara Falls Visitor Center ONE MILE AHEAD”. Huh? We were still a two hour drive away according to the GPS lady and she is never wrong about stuff like that. Ten miles further down the road another bill board, “Niagara Falls Visitor Center, NEXT EXIT”. This would continue on until we actually got to the falls, we came to learn. Little no-name intersections that have no watery attractions themselves; so why not shimmy up to the real thing, pick the real thing’s pocket. I love it, good old New York street hustle at its best. Set up a stand, offer some brochures, sell the customer some discount coupons, some gas, maybe they will sell you a map if you don’t have a GPS lady to keep you company.
We left the drought behind once we crossed the Mississippi. From Hannibal MO onward prodigious amounts of rain had been falling, rivers swelled and banks overflowed. Even the Great Lakes were brimming. It seems as if all the water in the entire southwest had the same idea as us, to follow Route 66 back east. And you know what? A lot of that water flows into the Great Lakes, flowing from lake to lake and finally from Lake Erie down the Niagara River and over that one single place, Niagara Falls.
As bad as places as the Wisconsin Dells were abused, nothing compares to what has been done to the Niagara Falls; canals divert huge volumes of water for electric power, its face has been shifted and sculptured to mans’ eye, its escarpments pock marked with tunnels and of course the similar barnacle-ing of hotels, shopping centers, parking lots, viewing towers, roads and bridges. But you know what? None of that matters. Niagara Falls is bigger and stronger than anything man can throw at her. Mother Nature is pissed off. Literally. She is dumping all of that climate changed mountain of water over the falls. She is the love-jilted maniac showing us her full power and it is no joke. Water roils down the Niagara River building momentum as it speeds towards the falls. As we approached, the distant roar grows louder, a cloud of mist towers overhead. One can walk right up to the edge. It is deceptive and seductive. At the edge the water flows slowly, it wants you to come closer. Smooth and clear it flows like a snake up to the rim. Then explodes in a white rush, thrusts itself down the canyon hundreds of feet below. No amount of human abuse can diminish its beauty, its awesome raw power. Niagara Falls is the voice of Mother Nature shouting at us to listen to her.
Something else is happening as well. Nature is slowly reclaiming the city of Niagara Falls. In Steinbeck’s time over one hundred thousand people lived here. Cheap hydroelectricity powered heavy industry along the Niagara River, much of it involving the chemical processing industry. However the industry was aging and cheap electricity along with cheap labor started to draw the jobs away. The death blow was the Love Canal. At the time the worst environmental disaster in America. People were mysteriously becoming ill with a variety of cancers. Some were dying. The cause as it turned out was decades of chemical byproduct dumping. After the factories were closed and torn down, the land above the dumps was repurposed for schools and homes. The rest is history, Love Canal became the nation’s first Federal Superfund site. Now less than fifty thousand people live in the city. Homes slowly disappearing, replaced by tall grassy lots nourished by the frequent rain, some protected by chain link fences for those places still too toxic for humans. Shrubs and trees are reclaiming whole neighborhoods. I even snapped a picture of a groundhog moseying along the banks of the river. Maybe tourism will finally stem the tide. Our hotel is a converted chocolate factory with high ceilings, artistic murals in large rooms that would cost much more to stay in any other city. For the time being though it seems the pandemic is making a resurgence like low clouds of rain itself. People are still staying away. Let’s hope for better times down the road.
New York Transit
During his travels, John Steinbeck brought his dog Charley along to keep him company. We didn’t bring our buddy Aneko, but we do have the sultry voice of our GPS to keep us company. And just as how Steinbeck engaged in futile disputes with his dog Charley, I and the GPS lady sometimes had a difference of opinion. She prefers the interstates, where most often her instructions are direct and unencumbered, with the possible exception of tolls to pay. I didn’t mind driving on the interstates out West. There is an unspoken decorum between the interstate truckers, who often out numbered the passenger vehicles. The truckers always clear a lane if there is another vehicle broken down on the shoulder. They pass each other assertively, but not aggressively and never “bogart” the passing lane. Don’t know what bogart means? Don’t feel bad, much of Steinbeck’s slang seemed dated to me as well. So, do what I did and look it up. Out West every driver is on the road for the long haul. Over the course of the long day, we would pass and be passed by trucks and cars we would recognize and even give names. It was a rolling community. Sadly all of that changed by the time we got to New York.
With Niagara Falls behind us, we set our sites on New York City. One more long haul day for us, but now rubbing shoulders, and hopefully not bumpers, with short hoppers in a blind rush who apparently consider others on the road just obstacles in their way. I get it, how can there be a feeling of community when the only thing people care about is their nearest next exit. The GPS lady is smart, but she can’t calculate the minds of others in her decisions. Just like Charley, who could only see the world from the perspective of a dog, the GPS lady sees it only from he perspective of mathematically calculated, shortest times. Hence my current disagreement with her. She keeps directing me on to the thruway, while I am trying to head south through New York’s southern back country. Just like Steinbeck eventually realized that rational conversation with a dog was fruitless, so was the same with me and the GPS lady, so I just turned down the volume of her badgering and headed south into Finger Lake country. We quickly find ourselves passing though dairy farms interspaced with faded mill towns. This is Genesee country, a Seneca Indian name for “the beautiful valley.” The name is well placed. Maybe it was all the rain; the hills and valleys are a living “Hudson River School” painting. Everywhere there are glows of green that hurt the eyes and dairy farms with ordered white fences and bright red barns. From a distance all looks in place, settled, at peace. At least until you get up close.
For me, stopping for coffee is as important as for gas and as a former New Yorker preferably at a Dunkin’ Donut shop. I have no need for concoctions that require seven or more adjectives to order and a twenty minute wait to be made — just black and hot will do, with a donut on the side if you don’t mind. So we rolled the truck up to a shop we found at one little town north of the iconic glass manufacturing city of Corning. Wishing to avoid the long drive through lines, we donned our masks and walked in. We were the only ones to have them. Even the service people were without, which was an unusual observation from our cross country travel. But this was still July and the Delta variant was a distant headlight in everyone’s review mirror. Clustered in the corner were about eight or so obviously well acquainted old friends, our age or older. We could feel their eyes upon us. While Donna ordered, I have to confess hanging back to eavesdrop on what they might be talking about. In snippets of exchange I could hear one tell the other “I just don’t trust it. They made it too fast, I am not going to get it”. There were responses of concurrence all around. The conversation seemed to jump rapidly though other topics. In another moment I overheard, “I hear the reason they are having a drought out there in California is because they let all the water out of the dams to give to the fish, the environmentalist are the problem.” All this before I even got the donut. The way they spoke parroted familar televised sound bites. I questioned to myself if any of them had ever ventured beyond their beautiful valley. I suspect also some of that conversation was just for my benefit, but couldn’t be sure. Later though, while sitting in the driver’s seat of my truck, mask off, door open, sipping that black coffee I saw one of the gentlemen driving out in the same model truck as mine. He must of noticed the California plates. His truck paused, our eyes briefly met and now both unmasked, we saw each other for real. His expression was almost friendly. Maybe he was thinking I wasn’t so different after all. Then he pulled out into traffic and was gone. Too bad. Had we had the opportunity to talk, I wouldn’t have argued his points. I would have told him of my trip-in-progress and merely said, “You should drive your truck across country as well and go see for yourself”.
As we came down from the Poconos and approached NYC from Jersey I was eager to cross over the George Washington Bridge. I crossed it many times before, but the sense of soaring high above the broad Hudson River with the NYC skyline stretching far to the south and the bay beyond never gets old, bringing back the memories of wonder as a kid looking out the window from the back seat of my parents car. Traveling makes one a kid again for sure. Or so seemed until feeling the first jolt of reality from my momentary nostalgia. The GW is said to be the world’s busiest bridge, its 1931 rust-splotched bones carrying up to 300,000 vehicles a day. Not just family cars mind you, but bone-jarring behemoths of very sort of truck. Driving on the GW isn’t like your San Francisco Golden Gate postcard moment. The eight lane upper deck of the bridge, the GW has a total of fifteen lanes by the way, has been asphalted over countless times but even that wasn’t enough. There are huge dips where the surface has given way and surface replaced by bolted-on steel plates. Our off-road jaunt across the Joshua Tree’s Mohave desert provided for a smoother ride. There is no mercy quartered for the timid not going fast enough either. There are plenty of other lanes for a graffiti tagged box truck to slide around and introduce the slow offender to its fluid-dripping tailgate once passed. No sense trying to avoid the steel plated landmines. There is too many of them. Better to keep a jaw clenched pace with the herd and let the timid ones fall prey to the snarling diesel gulping carnovores. The roller coaster ride only gets better once you bounce off the bridge into the confluence of Manhattan. Our goal is to make it to Queens through a gnarly rats’ maze of overpasses, under passes, unannounced closed lanes, bridges that lead you to bridges, all shared with taxis, questionably registered vehicles, Uber drivers, and of course more trucks. I love it. It is like shooting class 5 rapids in a F150 instead of a rubber raft. Now it was my teenage nostalgia creeping back; summer days working construction in the Bronx with my dad and his carpenter cohorts. To the outsider driving through NYC it may seem to be an unruly and rude state of chaos. That would be wrong. Is it brusque? Absolutely. The City only works if everyone is in the pulse of the moment. We navigated these same streets twice a day to get to and from wherever new building was going up, as was everyone else going to or from their livelyhood. It is different kind of traveling community than wide open interstates out West, but similar in common purpose with a rodeo attitude to match.
We were thrilled to see Joe, our son, again after over a year of pandemic separation. Too many family moments missed; an engagement to Allie, a beautiful daughter-in-law-to-be, the first meeting of her family, the purchase of their first home. In fact our truck was filled with tools and new home welcoming gifts — one of the luxuries of not having to be confined to an airplane seat mode of travel. It was good to be back in the City itself as well. Forest Hills Queens was a whole new area to explore as I have spent most of my time in the East Village and lower Manhattan; worlds apart. Unlike the rural NY people I previously encountered, people in Queens new well the pain of a full blown pandemic. At the start of the Pandemic, in March of 2020 the hospital in nearby Elmhurst was on the brink of functional collapse with a growing overflow of bodies warehoused in refrigerator trucks in the parking lot. The televised scenes on the nightly news programs shocked the nation. A year and half later, people in Queens have no issues with masks and for the most part, glad to talk about their vaccination status. I guess the difference is, here they experienced the pandemic up close. Almost everyone was affected or personally knew someone who was affected. It is a community membership that no one wanted to join, but are forever bonded. Now in summer of ’21 normalcy was returning. Restaurants thrive with outdoor dining, families stroll along the streets, neighbors recognizing neighbors. Even the subway coming is back to life. And speaking of the subway, I never seen it so clean. Would it seem strange to compare a ride through the City’s arteries with my earlier drive through the rain cleansed valleys of western New York? Through a rain of will power the City workers wash away the beast everyday. In the subway it is unavoidable to be in close contact and a relief to see masks are ubiquitous among people of all walks of life. These people I am riding with in the subway car are not that different from the those in that rural Dunkin’ Donut shop. Many of these riders have never been more than a few miles from where they grew up either. Sadly the two groups can only virtually view each other through fogged lenses of their separate social media, I doubt they appreciate their similarities the absence of a shared personal experience. Too bad the subway isn’t long enough to connect them. Even the horrible images on the news couldn’t bring them to together. People remember what they feel, not what the see.
Although we made it from Niagara to NYC, the trip through New York is not yet complete. Montauk, a small village on the tip of Long Island still lay ahead and is the state’s most eastern. Again a bit of nostalgia perhaps as this was where my dad and his cronies rode fishing boats out to Block Island; the blues and cod were always big and most times hungry. But really, Donna, the kids and I went because it is fun day-trip from the City to enjoy clean sandy beaches, fresh seafood and cold beer. There is a lighthouse at the very end, commissioned by George Washington and the second Congressional Congress in 1792; it was the new Nation’s first ever public works project. Symbolic perhaps of what all presidents and legislators have been asked to do; protect the country from danger. Once standing many hundred yards from the sea, two hundred years of erosion has brought the sea to just a couple hundred feet away. Work is underway to restore stability, I just hope our leaders’ divisiveness can be put aside to do the same for our nation’s welfare as a whole.
I wish we could have spent more time in Montauk. The long drive and limited time cheated our kids out of quality beach time. On the way back however it suddenly dawned on me exactly where we about pass by, Sag Harbor, the hometown Steinbeck departed from at the beginning of his cross country trip. Well, I just had to drop in and say hello. Yes, I have ghosted him through these stories, but there was no intended homage in seeing his house, but what the hell, we are here anyway. Turns out his home was for sale, a mere $18 million at the time! I wonder what Steinbeck would have thought. Some of the homes in the area have been razed and the land homesteaded into oversized tribute mansions for over inflated egos, but most of the neighborhood seems unchanged, a quaint and narrow warren of streets that lead to the final graveled road to his home by the cove. Outwardly, his home blends seamlessly into a serene view of the bay just like his words eloquently illumiated in his first chapter. My family reluctantly obliged my curiosity to walk down the final graveled road that lead to his former home. My wife and Allie insisted my son accompany the crazy old guy, just to make sure he didn’t stray too far. Funny thing was, there didn’t seem to be anyone around. It was a time bubble of tranquilty. Steinbeck often grovelled and specifically wrote on the state of constant change. He quoted Thomas Wolf’s lament that you can not go home again. Maybe I happened upon a frozen moment in time that John would have thought a respite from change. However time is ever so fleeting and it was getting late, I let the thought time suspension go, got back into the truck and dove into the stream of traffic heading home to the City.
Let me take you back on the subway. We are heading to tip of lower Manhattan this evening, where amongst the towers of finance and the shimmering new Freedom Tower stand lasting foundations of our country; Trinity Church, Federal Hall, cobble stoned Stone St. and Pearl street with 19th century tenements long since converted into taverns and restaurants, My most favorite monument however is Fraunces Tavern. Frances Tavern was built in 1719 and a tavern since 1762. It was here at the end of the American Revolution in 1783 General George Washington bade thanks and farewell to his officers as he set forth to his future role in history. It is not just a museum but a living and breathing member of the City. It is a colonial tavern at its heart. Upstairs the rooms still echo with the boot steps of the officers as you walk across the wood plank floors. A faded oil painted panorama reflects an 18th century New York harbor. On winter days I would come here to sit down in a leather chair next to a still working fireplace and sip on single malt scotch imagining the conversations of revolution and intrigue that took place in the warren of rooms. Much like the political strife of today, revolutionaries and loyalists argued their points. During the war, the British came here to drink and revolutionaries to spy upon them. Afterwards, it was in here the debates of how to build the guts of our country took place. I introduced my son this place and he to his future wife. On this particular visit the manager walked Allie through the upstairs meeting rooms. Hopefully there soon will be celebratory party as Allie and Joe start building their new union.
There is one more story to tell. It happened the first day after we arrived. I had come out early that following morning to unload the truck. I encountered a woman with a small dog standing by the truck and looking up toward a third floor fire escape where a second woman was exhibiting distress and threats of self harm. I asked the woman with the dog if she knew the woman on the edge. “No not really” she said. “We only walk our dogs together. I am trying to calm her down”. I offered to call 911 which she agreed was a good idea. It took a while, but the police did eventually arrive. First, two young officers arrived, but were confused how to proceed. A third senior officer soon pulled up, followed by two paramedics with an ambulance. The five huddled to develop their strategy with the senior officer as their quarterback. While all this was going on, the building’s elderly superintendent stepped out the front door with broom in hand and looked around at the confusing scene then up at the fire escape. That old superintendent had game. He feigned hard of hearing of all things. Calling up to her, he claimed he could not hear her. He told her that she needed to go to a lower floor for him to hear what she was saying. She came down one flight. “I still can’t hear you. Can you go over to that open window, let’s try from there.” The ruse worked. She did go over to the window and soon after a few more words with the superintendent, she stepped back into the building. She did not want to kill herself, she wanted to be heard. Finally the police had formed their strategy. The two young ones had gone back to their patrol car, returning with pexiglass riot shields. I kid you not. While absurd in appearance, Covid19 concerns were on their minds. I looked at it from their point of view. Who knows how many times they have been spit upon, scratched, bit, even unintentionally by a distressed person. Never the less the formation of the five filing into the building added humor to the drama. In the end though she got the help she needed. How do we know? Donna and I actually met the woman with the dog again several days later. She and her husband were coming out of a neighborhood restaurant as we were walking by. She told us she also went into the building, spoke with the distressed young lady’s parents. Why is that remarkable? It isn’t. Even a city as big as NYC is just a neighborhood of neighborhoods. This lady cared enough to want to help a stranger whose only connection was they both liked to walk their dogs in the morning. Again, it has been the sense of community, or sadly some cases the lack of community is what I am reminded about repeatedly through my travels.
Look for Me in the Bar
If I die and go to hell, look for me in the bar. I will be standing there with all the lost souls whom I met along the way. You don’t have to die to go to hell. Bad luck and circumstance will gladly hold your hand and take you there. In all the towns across America where fortune said “so long, I am out of here” the Main Streets shuttered, both figuratively and literally. Some towns reinvented themselves as tourist destinations; mining towns are now living museums, factories towns became art centers, river fronts are bedazzled lit boardwalks. Not all towns have second acts. In the town I am standing in tonight the cracked pavement fractures the faded JC Penny name in the concrete in front of a second hand clothing store. The only other stores still open are the smoke shops, the tattoo parlors and the bars. I am sure the bars will be the last to go if the end finally comes. There was no particular reason to stay in the roadside hotel I choose tonight other than it was eight hours from where we were last night and eight hours from where we will be tomorrow on our trek back home. When I asked the hotel clerk, “where is a good place to grab some take out?”, she directed me to a tavern downtown, way past the row of chain restaurants lining the highway. She promised it had the best. Undoubtably it was also her refuge from the stream of strangers passing through her life night after night. Sending business to this tavern is her contribution to keep her sanctuary alive. I want to protect the name of this town, because it deserves that respect, but I will tell you this much. The name of the tavern is “The Foundry”, because it was just that. A place that once made the gears and shafts that went into the engine blocks that went into cars that propelled America for decades. Then the day came when the relentless engine of corporate efficiency improvement wrote this town off its books. You have heard the story before. They call the vast landscape from the Alleghenies to Indiana the rust belt. Yet one more insult to a legacy of people who prided themselves on hard work and a belief in the American Promise that hard work is always rewarded. The Foundry is a testament to that legacy. A pulled-up-by-your-own-bootstraps creation with a vision for a locally sourced farm to table menu and support for local microbrew products offered in a steeled ambience that resonates the muscled spirit of a previous generation.
In every tavern there is both a dining area and a bar. People who go to heaven sit at tables, get seated by a host, served by a waiter or waitress who’s name they know and enjoy their diner in private conversation with just their family or friends. And there is always room for dessert. Not for me. I prefer to be at the bar. No long waits for a free table, just an empty stool and an attentive bar tender will do. There is always the company of strangers as well. I relish the potential of conversation. Yes, sometimes one can spend an entire evening alone on a bar stool, but that has not been my experience. People at a bar want to talk as a rule and those at the Foundry were no exception. With the concerns of Covid on our minds however, Donna and I walked in with the intention of just ordering a takeout meal and be quickly on our way. The hostess at the door said we needed to place our takeout order at the bar however. Donna wanted to wait outside, but I convinced her to bide a little time with a round of drinks while we waited for the order. I would have agreed with her but there was something about this place, I felt compelled to let down my guard. Maybe I was getting a little tired of a virus preys upon the human desire to share time with each other.
There was just one open space in the corner of the crowded bar. A 50s something couple to the right, 40s something couple to the left, a single chair in between. Donna still had apprehensions. I had apprehension too, but of a different sort. In a local place such as this strangers stand out like neon signs. “Will this be a repeat of our previous stop in rural NY?”, I worried to myself. Unlike in a coffee shop, political talk and alcohol definitely don’t go together. I ushered Donna to sit at the single stool while I stood behind her. The man to the right, while engaged in conversation with his lady friend, was looking about, keeping an eye on the activities in the room. I could tell it had already been a long afternoon stay for him. There was a bit of a sway to his posture and he was talking just a little bit too loud. We immediately became the focus of his attention. “Hey there, come on up. There is plenty of room. That is John over there. He is my friend, take the other chair”. He was referring to the 40s something man to our left. John’s companion had stepped away, her stool now empty, but I could see her purse and drink were still on the bar top. I glanced up to see what expression John may have revealed. I only saw composure and a slight slim smile. He said nothing. I suspect the status of their friendship may have been one sided.
“That’s OK” I said, “I am glad to stand” and motioned to get the attention of the overly busy young lady behind the bar.
“Oh, that’s my niece back there. She will take good care of you”, my new found friend persisted in his attentiveness to our needs. I tried to read her face as well. There was a brief moment of exasperation, but quickly the mask of a smile returned.
“What can I get for you guys?” She asked. We asked to see a menu for the takeout. “Anything to drink while you wait? Donna ordered a glass of wine, her usual, but I always like to sample something made locally as I travel across the country.
“What local beers do have on tap” I asked. She pointed out several on the draft menu up on the wall. “What do you think of that Amber?” I further inquired.
“They are all good”, John interjected to my surprise. Just so you know, I have an established preference for the darker and richer tasting beers, but held back in picking the one I already had my eye on. Instead I thought I would press the opening with John further.
“What is your favorite?”, I asked John.
“I like the Haus” John cheerfully replied. I confess my question was purposeful conflict deflection. John had pointed me toward a beer called Haus Malt. It is a Helles Lager, light in both color and taste, crisp and easy to drink, opposite of where I had been leaning. In fact, as I was to learn later, the malt used to make this beer is the creation of a local father and son team in nearby Cleveland. The same can-do spirit of hard work and commitment to skill that once forged steel is now brewed into the beer. By the way; “Helles” is the old German word for “bright or clear”, but can also actually mean “hell”, irony as only the Germany language can conjure. I didn’t know any of that at the time, but I didn’t hesitate to let the bar tender know which one to bring.
“I will have that one”, I told her.
“Are you sure?”, she replied. Her question confirmed my opinion she was skilled at reading the thoughts behind faces, as all good bartenders have to be.
“Yes, that one sounds perfect” I said in confirmation.The disarmament was complete. John’s smile broadened.
“You won’t regret it” he encouraged. At that same moment his lady friend had return. Introductions ensued. John insisted on shifting over stools to make more room, but that turned out to be unnecessary. My friend to the right was getting up to leave. He pulled out a wad of loose bills from his pocket and tossed them across the bar.
“Here honey, take what you need, we’re head’n out”. He looked over at us and elaborated. “I trust her, she is my niece”. No one said a word, not even his niece. She silently counted out the tab and slid the remaining wad back over the bar. Before she turned away to help yet another customer I thought I saw an apologetic smile towards us. We just gave a nods and the raising of palms in goodbye. The awkward moment however caused for a mental reflection then and a reminder to myself as I write this words. The recognition that alcohol is a precipice, a fall into the latter definition of the German word “Helles”. Any one of us could be that guy at the bar, walking too close to the edge. It would be neglectful to celebrate in story, in these traveling encounters, without equally recognizing the darker nature of drinking. It is certainly not bright or clear.
Our friend’s departure left more room for the four of us, John, his partner Nancy, whose name we came to learn, Donna and I to get more acquainted. The question of why we were in their little town came up and the mere mention of our cross country travel further encouraged conversation. Everywhere we went, telling people we were on a cross country trip, I came to learn, is an elixir more powerful than alcohol in lowering defenses. I have no intent to plagiarize Steinbeck in saying this. It was a truth of American culture in his time and still a truth now. At the end of his novel “Travels with Charley” he lamented on what he saw as the impeding demise of American morality. Something he would expound upon further in his last novel before his death, “Winter of our Discontent”. Steinbeck would be happy to know however that the urge to explore and experience still burns bright in American culture.
John and Nancy were more than happy to tell us about each of their own travels to California and other parts of the country. Both were born and raised in this heartland town and heart strings to this place are too strong to break. After years trying to put down roots in other states they separately drifted back only to discover each other here in this town. It was a familiar story from people we met in the taverns across the country; tales of busted up marriages, derailed relationships, searches for work, rediscovery and blended families.
If you would like to know more about the Foundry and where it is located, just send me a message.
No tale of standing at the threshold of hell, can be complete without a ghost. So either by manner of coincidence or transcendental intervention we found ourselves on the doorstep of a haunted hotel. It was a week later and two thousand miles from our visit to the Foundry. This last evening of our cross country trip was supposed to be our first visit to our daughter’s new Sierra mountain home in Groveland CA.. Instead she was delayed in joining and still many miles away, so we booked a room at the nearby 1849-built Groveland Hotel. Groveland is one of the California gold rush towns. As one of its original buildings, the hotel has lived through numerous reincarnations, surviving booms and busts, but remarkably unchanged in character and appearance. We arrived at dusk to learn the electric grid had failed all the way from Yosemite and down to the valley below. Mountain nights are dark but without any lights whatsoever the dark is especially enveloping.
As was the style of 1800s architecture the entrance to the hotel is through the tavern. Other guests were also entering and we all wandered about like refuges making tepid introductions and small conversation with our fellow travelers. The remaining daylight streamed through the windows casting interloping shadows across far wall. We walked up to the registration in the small foyer beyond the tavern room. No big marble podium here. Just a ledger desk from the last century and darkened computer from the last decade. The two twenty-something ladies were adeptly triaging the chaos, handing out little LED lanterns with each room key. Power failures are an often occurrence in mountain country, they have seen this all before. “We have you up on the second floor”, one of them said. “You can’t miss your room, it is right next to Lyle’s room.” Lyle you ask? No, Lyle isn’t one of the guests we met in the tavern. Lyle is the resident ghost. He physically checked out of the earthly world in 1927, but his spirit never left his room. The story goes he was a miner, still trying to scratch out a fortune from gold fields where the easy pickings were long since gone. Hence he often had to work the big corporate mines, blasting the deep veins hundreds of feet below the town. Maybe that is why after he died they found a crate of dynamite under his bed. They say he was a stickler for neatness, keeping everything in order. A good personal trait if your business involves explosives. This predilection for neatness is how his spirit manifests. It is said his favorite subject of taunting are female guests who leave out cosmetics on the bureau. He likes to rearrange them or toss them about in the middle of the night. Apparently he can also make locks not work and make a hot shower turn cold, but so can the guest in the next room flushing their toilet, I would think. This is a very old building after all. Speaking of locks, no electronic card key entry here. Just an old fashion brass skeleton key that clanks and rattles as you fiddle to get it to open the door to your room. I didn’t need to worry about that right now though. Since all power was out, the staff opened the doors to all of the rooms in order to let light into the interior of the building. Walk past the registration desk down to your room and you will come upon a narrow rickety wooden railed staircase that leads you to the second floor. It lands on a long windowless hallway with doors to the rooms on both sides. The only light was that which spilled in from the open doors. I walked down the hall scanning the numbers until I came to ours. All the rooms have numbered plaques save for one. The one that simply said LYLE’S ROOM. I couldn’t resist. I walked past my room and peeked in.
Lyle’s room, like all the rooms, retains a turn-of-the-century sensibility in decor; flower print wall paper, ballooned stripe colored curtains, faux gas lighting fixtures, an oversized bed. A pedestal sink stood by the closed bathroom door. I was tempted to go in further, but thought better of it. Maybe it was because I did not want to tempt his temper, but really it wasn’t my room and a real living guest would be coming along shortly. Anyway, my room was much the same with the bathroom wall backing up to his. I hope he doesn’t mess with my shower tonight.
It took several trips up and down those rickety stairs to haul our bags the room. We were eager to grab a bite to eat and for something to drink. Back in the tavern, behind the small counter, the owner and his sole cook were fathoming how to carry on with no power. Tavern might be an overstatement. Behind the counter, just a few beer taps and and a small selection of wines and bourbons in a row. The rest of the room centered around a long high top bench encircled by stools and the non windowed parts of the far walls framed with shelves of wines and Yosemite themed products for sale. There were a few other smaller tables around by the reception door as well. Light was provided by a few battery powered lanterns scattered about. Outside there was a courtyard where more guests were listening to a guy strumming on an acoustic guitar. We sat down by one corner of the long bench to observe the going-ons. It didn’t take long to start learning names.
Pancho, the owner, offered a round of free drinks to the hotel guests as compensation for their inconvenience. Dave the cook announced he triaged a two item menu that only required his still working gas stove. In the opposite corner of the bench sat Corrie. A tall and lanky fit young man in his 30’s with smartly cropped short blond hair. Dressed in a faded orange tee shirt, blue jeans and worn leather boots, he could have posed for rodeo poster, which in fact was his actual occupation. Corrie seemed eager to tell us his story. By the second round of beers we learned Corrie is seventh generation Groveland born, his family among the very first to come to gold country. Even today much of the surrounding ranch land all the way Yosemite is extended family owned. He shared with us his personal travails; separation, custody disputes, the constant search for steady work, longings for the next rodeo, disappointment in people he cared about who had fallen into the abyss of drug use. Drugs are burning through these foothills as much as fire and equally as hard to put out. Yes you can read about in the news, but Corrie’s story drove it home.
Then there was Jason and James, brothers up from LA. Jason with an exuberant and effeminate personality was a whirlwind about the room. James, self proclaimed designated driver, was more reserved and insisting they still had time to get through Yosemite and make it over to Bishop on the other side of the Sierras. I had my doubts. Bishop was where we had left from that morning. It is not a drive you want to do at night. The patio crowd was getting livelier too, cycling in to try one and subsequently more of Pancho’s bourbon cocktails. Jason and Corrie struck up a conversation I could see, despite being as much polar opposites as two people could possibly be. Maybe a good time to walk back to the room for a moment.
I walked alone along the outside wood planked porch. The stairs to our room was on the far side of the hotel. Even with the approaching dusk, it was impossible not to make eye contact with the couple sitting in a wicker bench past the stairway entrance. Just for a moment I thought….. but no, it wasn’t Lyle and his ghostly lover Charlotte from across the street. They were a young couple that had just checked into their room and were enjoying the evening light before going back into the dimly lit tavern.
“Hey, I like your hair”, the young lady said. I will confess, I do love being told that. It is always an easy opening for my favorite joke.
“You know, my dad didn’t leave me any money when he passed, but he left me his hair. I thank them each and every day”, I smiled to insure the delivery was in jest. And indeed, my longtime-traveling-on-the-road hair was increasingly becoming a subject of conversation. A few days before we were standing in a stunning national park, but some other tourist just had to come up to say, “Hey man you look just like Mark Twain”. Apparently too much a distraction from towering stone arches and the endless kaleidoscope vista of red and orange.
The young lady continued, “Hey, we saw you and your wife in the bar. You seem to be having a lot of fun talking to people, your wife is a lot quieter though. You guys seem like opposites.” Dang! This girl was ghosting us. Lyle had competition.
“Yep, sometimes opposites work.” was the only retort I could muster in the moment. We chatted a bit more. Names were exchanged. Rachael and her boyfriend Mark were driving cross country in a rented recreation van. Mark may have been doing the driving, but clearly Rachael does the talking. I told them I was heading up to my room, but let’s meet up in the bar and continue the conversation. The top of the stairs were even darker now. All the doors had been closed. I pulled out the toothy brass key slid it into the lock. Still was working. So much for Lyle mischief. Swung the door open and looked in before stepping in. Nothing was moved, not even Donna’s cosmetics. It is a pretty heavy bag anyway. I don’t like lifting it, so maybe Lyle felt the same. I came to retrieve the flashlight the clerk had given us. Darkness was coming.
Back in the tavern word spread the restoration of power was further delayed. Even cell service was off line, not that it is ever that great up here on the mountain. Pancho was doing his best to maintain a semblance of decorum. He just bought the hotel and was trying to pulling it out of the Covid rut it had been stuck. But sometimes one has to go with the flow. The courtyard crowd had drifted in, a group of New Zealanders in full kiwi party mode. Yet another round of drinks dispensed. Pancho’s grip was slipping. Even his dog, a big black lab, was slipped off his leash and joined in. The dog had the good sense to fall asleep under the large bench, by my feed, ignoring the fray ensuing above. I knew the point of no return arrived when Pancho caved and broke out some of his special reserve wines. I also noticed his oversight for how his co-server was measuring the pours had ceased. Rachael, Mark, Donna and I were engrossed in conversation. Superficial stuff perhaps; recounting our travel adventures, the advantages of sleeping in a van verses a hotel (the romance of van life had definitely worn off as far as Rachael was concerned), what were our plans for the following week, At some point Mark wandered over to the other side of the bench where a conversation taking place between Jason, James and the crazy New Zealanders. The room got louder and Rachael more personal. She and Mark were getting serious and she wanted to know about our relationship. I will leave out the details not just because it was personal but also a bridge of trust both tender and generous. I will share this much. Her questions revealed I reached a point in life’s travels where a mantle of responsibility is assumed, even if you think you are not ready for it. Perhaps because Donna and I were clearly the oldest couple in room, perhaps because my silver hair is a beacon for such conversation. Donna and I gave her our impressions, our thoughts on imperfections, the passage of time and our advice however meager in wisdom. Those words will be for her ears only.
Rachael soon rejoined Mark so Donna and I were able to play like ghosts and silently watch chaos in amusement. The impromptu rave was now in full force. One last pair of guests, an older couple like us, arrived and were navigating their colorful oversized luggage through crowd. They looked about in confusion, probably wondering what sort of mayhem they stumbled into. They quickly hurried along to registration desk. We never saw them again for the rest of the night. All of a sudden the lights flickered on, machines beeped to life and the crowd roared in approval. Jason and James declared it was time for them head out to Bishop, still a long risky drive over the Tioga pass. Just a few hours ago we were total strangers, but now in unison we were voicing our objections. “No, stay here guys” said many. “Get a room, go in the morning” said another. Even Donna and I joined the chorus. Sad to say though, the restoration of light was dampening the energy of the evening. Everyone embraced the other, Covid be damn and wished each other well. Slowly people began to drift away to their rooms or back to their cars.
Our room seemed less eerie with the lights back on. No shadows to whisper suggestions of the supernatural. We got dressed for bed, brushed our teeth, turned out the lights and slipped under the covers. The street light was back on casting a soft yellow glow across the floor. The head lights of the occasional car on the road sent shadows racing across the walls. All was quiet, no footsteps from the hallway, no muffled voices from the other rooms, no midnight lovers. Even Lyle’s room was silent. Sometime just before dawn though something seem to happen. I was in that transience between sleep and wakefulness, between having a dream and forgetting what it was about. Eyes still shut, I felt something touching my toes. Or so I thought. It is probably just Donna being a little restless in her sleep, kicking me. At least that is what I chose to believe in the moment. I felt it twice, the second time maybe a bit more pronounced. I decided though, I wasn’t going to bother to find out exactly what. If Lyle wanted to have a little fun, let him. I drifted back to sleep.
I am always up early. The sun was barely peeking between the tall pines outside of town when I dressed and walked down the empty street to next door coffee shop. I thought back to toe touch. “Ahhh, it had to be Donna I thought”. Nothing in the room seemed displaced. I got two coffees and went back to the hotel. Donna was only beginning to stir, so I sat alone outside on the porch to watch the morning begin. The late arriving couple with the ponderous luggage were awake and moving however. The poor guy was in the process of dragging the unwieldy beasts back down the rickety stairs. He did not look the least bit pleased. They seemed to be in a hurry to leave for some reason I mused to myself. Did Lyle visited his room last night or were the poltergeist antics of the other hotel guests too much? I didn’t dare smile least he redirect his displeasure with his luggage in my direction.
I went back to sipping my coffee and watched the rest of Groveland waking up. The sun had cleared the treetops and shining its golden rays down Main Street. Hmmm, I wonder if heaven has a bar.
Let Me Tell You a Story 