Homeward Bound

The Last Leg: Great Falls to Houston

 Total trip miles: 7406

Great Falls is quite a pretty town and loaded with history.

Lewis and Clark sussed this place out. Apparently they saw an eagle land on an island in the Missouri river that runs through this area. They were awestruck by what became known as the Great Falls of the Missouri River. They marked it on their map to return at a future date. They named it Eagle Pass.

In the meantime, mining, trapping, and railroad companies discovered the wealth to be had in the region, and eventually dammed each of the five falls and harnessed hydroelectric power. Today the Nickname,” Electric City” still holds.

We had a superb meal at a local place called Eddie’s Supper Club. Bar none – this has to have been the BEST steak we have eaten anywhere – and I mean anywhere. Plastic table cloths, good-ole-gal waitresses, and a table by the kitchen notwithstanding, this meal topped any 5-star restaurant anywhere. The only way I can describe the steak is velvet.

After a good sleep, we set off early to make Cheyenne, Wyoming by supper time.

I swear there in NOTHING between Great Falls and Billings.

It is beautiful, but there is not a meaningful gas station, town, or road side venue for two-hundred-some-odd miles. That normally would not be a big deal since Paul and I have often pulled 18-hour stints driving this route between Calgary and Houston. But today we made the error of leaving the hotel without breakfast or even coffee thinking we would find it somewhere along the route, even though breakfast was included with the room.

What were we thinking???

Scant roadside services aside, this area is loaded with Native American history, and more specifically, Custer’s Last Stand at Little Big Horn. I qualify that statement of history with “native” because it always chaps me that we remember the Americans who lost their lives in the battles for the conquering of the West and the decimation of the Native populations. I try as much as possible to remember the Natives who fought defending their land, as viciously and as determined as the Patriots sought to throw off the Brits in a land they had taken from Natives. I still don’t know why the American Calvary and the settlers at large were surprised when the Natives fought back.

Again, photo off the internet. We did not go there this time.

We continued on to Cheyenne, snapping a few photos along the way.

My picture turned out lousy, so I got this off the internet.

We landed in Cheyenne about six-thirty in the evening. The temperature read 60 degrees, and there was a cool wind blowing. I actually felt cold when I got out of the car. When we approached the desk, the clerk looked at me with my jacket on and scarf around my neck and smiled,

“You’re not from here, are you?”

When we told her were are from Texas she hooted and said, “Texas!? The snow up here just melted last week!”

I said, “It’s July 1^st for God’s sake.”

She nodded her head, “Yep. It is.”

I remembered back to long, cold winters in Calgary.

She recommended a steakhouse for dinner, and while we had just had the perfect steak last night in Great Falls, we went anyway. I swear I was still full from that meal yesterday.

The local Haunt is T-Joes, and it is local indeed.

The legend goes that back in the sixties, a renowned rodeo rider by the name of Bill Linderman was flying to speak in a convention in Spokane, Washington, via Denver, Colorado. He allegedly stopped and had a drink in a bar in Denver, and when he was done, he paid with a check. The owner asked Linderman for an address, and he wrote down one word on the check: heaven. Later that day, Linderman died in a plane crash near Salt Lake City and forty-one passengers perished. Cowboy legend has it that Linderman escaped the flames but perished when he went back in to help with the rescue.

The steaks looked to die for but we wanted something lighter. We both ended up with chicken strips, no beer, lots of water, and an early night. We know we have a long drive tomorrow – We want to make it to Amarillo via Denver.

We’re going to visit Rita.

I met Rita several years ago. She was my piano teacher. I came to the piano later in life – Paul gave me an electric piano as a graduation gift when I finished my master’s work at Sam Houston State University. I had never played the piano but I wanted to learn.  Rita and I connected immediately but we soon learned that we were better beer-drinkers than we were teacher/student. We ended the tutorials and began a remarkable friendship.

Rita now lives in Colorado teaching piano and drums to younger kids. She is magic with them and I have seen her work miracles with special-needs kids.

We went for lunch at a grill called Chuburger and then back to the studio for a recital her Summer Rock Camp kids performed.

After that we went to see where she lives, a gorgeous apartment complex with a great view of the mountains and the plans. We also wanted to visit with Rita’s rescue dog, Little Bones.

We had to leave early afternoon because we were heading for Amarillo that night, so we said our goodbyes with promises of seeing each other when she comes to Houston this Christmas.

Bye Rita! See you soon….

 We refused to tackle I-25 out of Denver, (we remembered I-5 in Oregon – and this looked worse!)

…so we took an alternate route down highway 385/287 to Lamar and Springfield, to Boise City, Oklahoma, and then Amarillo.

The weather cooperated with us until about an hour out of Denver. Then the clear and sunny skies turned to hell, and around Lamar, we were toast.

You know the area… the one that is west of Kansas, and north of Oklahoma… otherwise recognized as….

I am not saying this was a tornado, but I have never experienced the like of this storm. I call it the Toilet Bowl Storm. As we drove south we noticed some grey clouds off in the distance. We remarked that somebody, somewhere is getting one hell of a rain storm.

So there we were….

… all full of oohs and ahhhs…

…over the rain that somebody, somewhere else was getting….

Little did we know we were headed right for it.

Imagine this: A bowl turned upside down over you. Rain is hammering down so hard that it sounds like hail. It falls so hard that it bounces off the car like little bullets and fills up the sides of the roads and ditches so fast you get the cold ice in your belly that tells you if you stop to wait it out, you’ll be up to your knees in water in no time. And you don’t want to be the ones on the news, clinging to the roof of the car waving your other hand in panic as the choppers swoop by for a good shot, and all the folks at home say, “Why the hell did those fools go out in this weather?!” Except that we didn’t go out in it. We were already out when it happened.

After all the years I’ve lived in Houston, I finally understand the meaning of flash floods.

Water swirls all around you. So much that you cannot see around it or past it. And it’s dark. As night. Like someone turned out the lights.  In between wiper slashes, you can see the edge of the bowl just there, close as fingertips, but by God you can’t get there.

Until it comes down so hard you have zero visibility.

This was our view out our front windshield for far too many miles.

You can’t stop for fear of water filling the car. You can’t move fast because you cannot see. Fear stinks up the car.

We alternated between slips of vision and zero visibility until we reached the edge of that bowl. As the crow flies, it is 214 hours from Lamar to Amarillo. It took almost six hours to make that stretch of highway.

But then, almost as soon as we were in the storm, we were out of it.

Like it never happened.

By the time we got to Amarillo, our nerves were strung, our butts were glued to the seats, and our gas tank was on empty. The storms I can handle, but the empty light on?? We nearly got divorced over that.

We overnighted in strained silence in a very luxurious suite at the Marriott downtown. An early start the next day – we’ll be home by nightfall.

Houston never looked so good!!

You know you’re back in Texas when……

After….

What a weekend. What a week. What a trip!!

On Sunday morning, our cousins from British Columbia came by to visit mom, and although they were at the reunion, it was so nice to have some quiet conversation and to catch up with each other. They stayed for most of the morning and then made way to the airport and points beyond.

This is not a current picture. It from 2014 when we went to visit in Victoria. I didn’t get a picture while they were at mom’s this time.

I grew up with these cousins. They lived for a long time in Calgary and then moved to B.C. when their dad retired. Like most of my aunties and cousins, they have never not been in my life. Funny – just thinking about it now, I don’t have any uncles anymore, and with dad gone, many more cousins no longer have an uncle.

The numbers are dwindling…

After the B.C. bunch left, we had some downtime for a few days. Paul and I went to see our friends in the Cochrane area. They live out on 20 acres, and let me tell you, it was heaven after all the comings and goings. Lots of friendly conversation, walks in the woods, good meals, great whiskey, wonderful cool nights, and friendly pups. We sure miss our canine crew after seeing these two romp and play.

This is Harley waiting for Paul to throw the ball.

This is Harley bringing the ball back to Paul.

My friend Karen, me, her husband Daryl, Harley and Joey.

It was so peaceful – we will have to make that a destination some time and spend more timeout there. I am so grateful that they had us stay over.

In the remaining days, Paul and I just sort of de-compressed. We stayed with mom after we got back from Cochrane. We went out our favorite restaurants with mom, snooped around in her basement for old pictures and other treasures. We watched some bad T.V, snacked, giggled, went to bed late, and slept in.

One thing I like to do every time I go visit mom is take a look at my Arbor Day Tree.  In grade school, we were given a sapling on Arbor day to bring home and plant in our yards. My sapling was a Blue Spruce. Dad and I went to the farthest fence in the back yard. We got down in the dirt and dad showed me how to dig the hole, unwrap the sapling, and place the root base in the hole. The aroma of the earth was damp and sweet. I noticed the dirt under our nails. After we covered the hole, we got the hose and ran water in the fresh earth until the water bubbled from below. Dad told me to watch that tree, protect it, and care for its roots. It was my tree he said, and it would grow big and strong, just like I would. I was seven years old.

This is my Arbor Day tree – 53 years later.

Like dad said, it grew big from strong roots.

Arbour Day was first observed in 1872 in Nebraska, when a new pioneer, Sterling Morton, and his wife beautified their home site with trees. Fellow pioneers realized not only the esthetic value but the practical value of trees for windbreaks out in the plains, and eventually timber for building.  Through this push, over a million trees were planted. Arbor Day is now observed around the world.

This is the canopy the tree provides if you stand under it and look up into the sky. My Beautiful tree!

In Calgary, the first Arbor day was celebrated in 1905. It was such a big deal in the early days, that they declared it a bank holiday and business closed. Folks got the day off work to join with their families and neighbors to beautify their yards and the city. Perhaps the most striking thing about Arbor Day in Calgary was when they planted trees along a road called Memorial Drive, to honor the fallen heroes of World War One.

It was time to go.

We are taking the Gumboot Trail home though. No more sight-seeing. No more roadside stops. No more photo ops. Montana, Wyoming, Colorado,with a stop to see our lovely Rita, Oklahoma, and then Texas.

Twelve-hour-days. Three days to get home. We have done this route before so we know what we are up against.

We stopped in Lethbridge on our way to Great Falls to visit with uncle John and auntie Vickie. John is mom’s oldest and only surviving brother. Out of five siblings, only two remain.

John is 92 and Vickie is 90. He and Vickie have been married for seventy years. Seventy Years. I asked uncle John once what their secret was for staying married that long. . He said, “We act like we are married.” He continued by saying that people get married today but don’t act that way. They still want to be single after they get married. “Marriage,” he said, “is a partnership. Either you are in it or you are not.” Such a simple, yet complete answer.

After we had the tour of their news digs, (they just moved out of their own house this year) we had coffee and cookies with them in the dining hall of their senior’s residence where they now reside. We reminisced about a lot of things, and then caught up on all the news from that side of the family. Then it was time to go. Auntie Vickie, as usual, said she wished we didn’t have to go, couldn’t we stay just another hour?

We know the road we have ahead of us and delaying it any doesn’t make it shorter.

We hugged and kissed good bye and with promises of phone calls soon, and return visits next year, we made off for Great Falls, Montana.

DOT at its best…. long lines of traffic just outside of Lethbridge.

Nobody really working, but lots of cones to make sure we get out of the way

The Canadian leg of the journey is over. We crossed over into Montana about six in the evening.

 

This is mom’s old bike. She used to deliver newspapers on it when she was ten. It sits in her backyard. She hasn’t the heart to get rid of it. For me, it’s a permanent fixture. It has just always been there.

 

 

 

The Reunion

 After the memorial in Calgary we all made our way to Camp Cadicasu  in the Kananaskis mountains, just at the base of the Rocky Mountains.

I went to this camp as a kid in the summer one time. It wasn’t common for us to do things like that when we were growing up. We never had the money for this sort of thing. I won the week pass for the camp at an event in middle school. I missed the first day  of camp though because I wanted to watch the moon landing. My mom was pissed, but dad, well he thought that was just fine.

The scenery around the camp is quite beautiful. Paul and I wandered off a bit and found a river

If you look closely in the center you will see a little pile of purposely-placed rocks. Paul and I made an Inuksuk to point the way. An Inuksuk is a stone or a landmark the Inuit people use to guide travelers to safe port. We have seen them often on our travels, and so when we are in the woods or some other natural setting, we make a point of placing on for the travelers that follow.

Elizabeth and our second-cousin, Annette, arranged all of the details, the emails, the money-collecting, the booking of the camp, and the food. It was quite a feat to get it all together in this still very large family.

When our family was at its peak, meaning when grandma and all twelve siblings were alive, along with their children and all the second and third cousins, and spouses, we counted over five hundred people at a family reunion in the 1970s. When we started to plan the reunion for this year, were hoping for forty, maybe fifty relatives to come.

One hundred and thirty-five showed up. The youngest was three months old, and the oldest was ninety.  We counted six generations from grandma.

This is the family quilt Auntie Estelle started to stitch several years ago. It circulates around the family members so that everyone has the pleasure of having it in their home for a while. There is no set schedule for who has it or when, but it always appears at these functions, and we all admire it.

 

This part in the bottom right stitched in navy blue, is my immediate family spoke of the wheel.

Auntie had to stop  stitching at the 4th generation– it became too much – she is in her mid-eighties, and she is still very active in here ministry with travel, conferences, and study. We all speculate who will be the one to pick up the needle and carry on the tradition

We spent the weekend hugging and laughing, reminiscing and singing. We ate heartily all the foods that Annette and her “reunion crew” gathered from funds collected. Three squares a day, coffee and baked goods and sweet snacks all day long. Casseroles, vats of soup, trays of meats and cheeses, rolls and crackers, hamburgers, hotdogs cole slaw, macaroni salads, pancakes, eggs and sausages, fruit and orange juice magically appeared throughout the day. We were never short on appetites or food, and we all took turns gathering plates and kitchen duty.

The long porch of the main cook-house served as our gathering place for music and sing-alongs.

My cousin Antony and I picked up the guitars, and while I am very rusty I found that I could play chords alongside Antony’s brilliant jazz and blues riffs. Our aunties called out the old ones, like You Are My Sunshine, and Five- Foot Two, while our generation belted out anything from country tunes, to sixties hits and folk ballads.

Those of us that did not try the guitar picked up sets of spoons and thumped out rhythmic clacking as the music moved them. Our eldest attending auntie led us not once, but twice in spirited rounds of the French-Canadian favorite “Allouette.”

The teenagers were bored with our concert and they ran off to explore the woods or play a pick-up game of softball or bocci. We knew they rolled their eyes when we asked them to join us; we did the same thing when we were their age, and it was our parents singing and laughing the hours away. We didn’t quite understand the significance of them gathering and singing old songs but we sure knew they were happy. It was nice to see the generations carry on.

We set out a table with the urn that Paul made, the enormous bouquet of flowers the CPS provided and the picture of dad that was at his memorial for the folks that could not make it could see. We had a short remembrance of dad, but the mood was light and festive. We really did celebrate his life.

The merriment continued until Sunday afternoon when people started to make their way to their homes. Most had traveled very far; us from Houston, an auntie from Philadelphia, many from Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

I know dad would have loved the gathering in his honor.

 

 

The Memorial — June 24th

Miles from Houston: 4413.8

I have lost count of the days at this point of the voyage. They all seemed to run into each other since the burial in Dollard. What sticks out for me now are the events.

Before we arrived in Calgary from the south on Deerfoot Trail,  old feelings of comfort started creeping in, despite having to pass the exit for my dad’s place in Mazeppa. It was odd to think that we had just left him in Dollard, while his home still stands empty.

Driving up 64^th avenue past my old junior high school, I peered just beyond the 14^th street turnoff, I searched for Turtle Rock on Nose Hill Park.

When I was young, it wasn’t a park, it was just the prairie, but as the city encroached on the area, active citizens fought to keep it as a natural grassland area.

Turtle Rock is a glacial erratic, but to me it is my childhood landmark for hiking, tobogganing, campfires, and sleep overs. I always find comfort when I see that rock.

Turtle Rock. Looks like a turtle a bit. It is so large that you can see it from the runway at the airport, or from the highway when you drive into the north end of the city.

Dad’s memorial was on Friday at 11:00 am. Elizabeth, Paul and I were at the Cuff n’ Billy at 9:30. Our friend Ricardo also met us here as he volunteered to film the ceremony. The Cuff as locals call it is social club for the cops – a place for them to unwind without the scrutiny of civilian judgement. Dad was instrumental of the start-up of The Cuff back in the 70s, so this was the perfect place to have the ceremony.

I have to hand it to the Calgary Police Service, (CPS) they did up a fine memorial. It doesn’t matter, they say, if the officer is active or retired, a brother fallen, is a fallen brother and they acknowledge their brothers.

The CPS provided the venue, chaplain, flowers, official police photo, piper, honor guard, and the official flag. I grew up all my life with my dad being a cop, and still, there are many things that I learned about him this week through this service. Dad had several commendations, recognitions, and many people were affected by his work and dedication to his calling. Dad never took pride or credit they said, because his response was, “It’s all in a day’s work.”

The piper opened the ceremony with Sky Boat. The chaplain made some comments about the life of a police officer and read some significant passages from scripture. Some of the words made me cry. Once the chaplain finished his readings, the honor guard came up to Elizabeth and I and presented us with the City of Calgary Police Service flag. All very formal and official. When the guard gave us the final salute and marched back to his post, the piper played Amazing Grace. The ceremony was over.

During the reception, friends and family, and former colleagues of dad toasted him, told some stories, looked at old pictures and reminisced. I felt a sense of relief to know that we had finally laid dad to rest.

More people came than we had expected. Dad’s entire neighborhood of farmer friends from Mazeppa came out.  About a dozen former cops, some who worked with dad, some who had only heard of him, came to pay their respects. And family came. They came from Lethbridge, Vancouver, Victoria, and Philadelphia.

During the gathering afterward, I noticed a man sitting at the bar and he looked suspect with dark sunglasses on. He sat in silence, observing. I walked up to him and introduced myself and asked him who he was. I thought that he was a cop colleague of dad’s although he looked younger than dad’s era. He smiled slightly and asked if I recognized him. I stared. Then I told him to take off his glasses.

Boom! in an instant the Rolodex in my mind flipped back forty-three years to my 7^th grade gym class. The man sitting at the bar was my teacher. I nearly fainted, then I lost my breath and then we embraced. Years melted. He said he read the obit in the paper, and he remembered dad fondly and he wanted to express his condolences. I recovered from that shock only to get another. Elizabeth was leading a man through the guests and up to me at the bar, and she said that there was someone who wanted to say hello.

Again, the Rolodex. This time, it was my 9^th grade gym teacher. This teacher also remembered dad for all his involvement in the school and came to express condolences as well. I still lack the words to express my feelings for their acts of kindness to me, and respect for my father so many years later.

You never know when life is going to surprise you next.

I don’t have pictures of this event. Because Elizabeth, Paul and I were involved in the ceremony, we did not have cameras handy, and I don’t think anybody took pictures during the ceremony, although Ricardo filmed it for us. Maybe people thought it was too solemn an occasion to be snapping pictures.

In the end, the whole event was emotional, moving, celebratory, reminiscent, bittersweet, and raucous all at the same time.

This is not dad’s badge. This came off the internet.

Daddy would have loved his party.

Day 12, Shaunavon and Dollard, Saskatchewan

Miles from Houston:  4000.2  

If anyone asked me to describe Saskatchewan in one word, it would be elevators.  It was comforting to see them again. I don’t know if they are in use anymore. It seems all you see these days are round metal elevators/silos in the fields.

But this is a sight dear to me:

This is such a familiar childhood sight.

By the time we got to Shaunavon, it was 9:30 in the evening. It was a smooth ride, but for some reason, it just seemed very long. Texas is wide open, Nevada was mind-numbing, and Saskatchewan is somewhere in between.

There are a lot more rolling hills than I remembered, and the lush green fields of crops offer a mosaic of colors and shades.

…and the sky truly is endless as their license plate says

When we turned south off the Trans-Canada Highway onto Sask #37 at Gull Lake toward Shaunavon, I was excited, but I felt like I wanted to cry.  I never lived. I only visited in my youth and early teens, but memories came rushing up at me through the prairie grasses.

Riding horses bareback over the Bench, walking down this road to country dances with cousins and area farm kids, running around Auntie Simonne’s basement making as much noise as we cold, eating freshly baked donuts and pies dripping in fresh farm cream. Barn-raising parties, riding the main-street circuit on Friday nights in our cool cousin’s car, sitting curled up on the big living-room rug while grandma told us her stories, tales so sweet and distant that we lulled off to innocent child’s sleep.

How have forty years slipped away?

This is an old picture of my grandmamma – my dad’s mother.

We overnighted in a hotel and made way to Dollard the next day for 10:00. The morning could not have been more beautiful. Wide open blue skies, sixty- five degrees, soft breeze blowing through the prairie grasses. We stopped at Co-op to get some cut flowers to lay on his grave – dad never was big on formality. I picked a colorful bunch of Spider Mums, Elizabeth picked Gerber Daises and Paul had Carnations and purples posies.

We were ready to bring dad home.

After we met with Rick (funeral home), and the priest in Shaunavon, we made our way to the St. Joan of Arc Cemetery in Dollard. The earliest graves there were laid in the late 1800s – the most recent was in 2012. The town is deserted except for a few houses that are surprisingly well-kept no doubt by descendants of the founders of this hamlet.

 

 

 

My grandfather, dad’s dad, built the church to which the cemetery is connected, but sadly, it has fallen into disuse and ragged disrepair. Although I never knew my grandfather, his spirit brushes by me.

The last time I saw that church, some forty-plus years ago, it looked like this. The picture is yellow because I took it with a 110 cartridge film, but that was the rage back then:

This is the church today:

We tried to get in, but there was no entry. I don’t know what we thought we’d find inside, but we felt the need to try.

We rounded the curve at mile thirteen from Shaunavon and as we slowed into our approach to the cemetery, there was a small cluster of people inside, at the entry. From the car, we noticed a small dirt mound covered with green funeral-home tarp, and realized that the small group we saw was hovering around dad’s burial site.

Standing in their small huddle, the group made way as we approached the gravesite. Standing there looking at us were five familiar but long-seen faces of cousins who knew me and my dad since they themselves were children. I had not seen them years. In an instant, time was sealed and through our wrinkles and our tears, we were staring into the familiar faces of our own youth. Word gets around in small-town Saskatchewan. I am glad that it did.

We gathered at the grave site.

All that remained of dad was in a little box and it looked so insignificant next to the gaping hole that was waiting for him. Elizabeth laid him next to the mound. The ceremony began.

As we requested, a shovel was placed beside the mound beforehand. We wanted to bury dad ourselves. As the ceremony drew to a close and the priest uttered the words of final commitment, Rick from the funeral home helped Elizabeth slide dad’s urn into a velvet pouch. As she lowered him down, I approached and watched as she slowly released the gold cords of the pouch. I waited for her to toss the first shovel of earth into the hole. I was next, then Paul. The cousins, some hesitant at first, came on their own merit and as their comfort level allowed, also tossed some dirt into the hole. One cousin at first declined but something must have moved him, for towards the end he took the shovel from another cousin and began to cover dad. He did not stop until the hole was filled. Hs wife laid sprigs of sage, plucked from the prairie, next to the flowers we had placed there earlier.

Dad was home.

 

Retro-Posting

Dear Reader,

I don’t know if “retro-posting” is actually a word, but I think it fits here.

After we left Graham, Washington and crossed into Canada, the days became a bit blurred, and finding reliable and consistent internet service while we were stationary at my mother’s house in Calgary turned into a full-fledged hunt every day. My mother is a true technological dinosaur — she just got a cordless telephone last year, so the expectation of her getting internet in her lifetime is, well, nil. 🙂

For several days we were driving fair distances to get to Saskatchewan and back, checking in and out of hotels. We held the memorial,we were at the reunion in the woods, and generally on the go, or on the road.

At any rate, I did manage to write nearly everyday and decided that I would post whenever internet opportunities presented themselves….

We are now back in Houston where internet abounds, and so dear reader, I am going to post the entries after-the-fact, and I hope that the momentum of the trip is not interrupted by this short hiatus.

Thank you for following!!

Day 6, Eugene, Oregon

Miles from Houston: 2706.5

The trip from Red Bluff to Eugene started out to be a relatively short trip – about five hours except, we diverted again.

Another great decision! This time we found ourselves at Crater Lake National Park…. And yes, another stamp for my passport! I don’t know we could have planned the trip without seeing that gem as one of our stops, but this was probably one of the most unexpectedly glorious sights that we have ever seen… or could have expected to see.

There truly are not any words to describe the incredulous beauty or majesty of this locale. I am frustrated that as a wordsmith of sorts, I am rendered word-less to describe this beauty, and I also think that trying to apply words would do the vista a disservice. I will have to let the pictures do their work and find the words I cannot.

Natives in the area have an oral history about the volcano and the lack its eruption caused, and oddly enough, their version closely resembles contemporary geological details.

I do not attempt to be a geologist or a volcanologist; traveling with my geologist husband through this terrain has been education enough for me. In layman’s terms what I can say about Crater Lake is because the mountain blew its top and what remains in an enormous crater.

Over time, natural water, snowmelt, and rains fill the crater, which in geological terms is caldera. The water is not being fed by any stream or other water sources which keeps it free from sediments. The color is spectacular. An odd scientific fact is that the lake is not filling up – the evaporate equals the fill rate, but nature takes care of it natural evaporation through the water cycle. Because of this exquisite natural balance, the depth of the lake stays constant.

We toured that crater on the west side – the north and east faces were closed because of the snow conditions on the road. It was difficult to imagine that only days before we were sweltering in the desert with temperatures up to 105 degrees, and today, as we ascended the mountain the temperature dropped to 32 degrees and snow flurried around us. 

‘

This was such a beautiful day. Peaceful, humbling, retrospective.

Unfortunately, our hotel experience in Eugene was anything but restful.

I don’t know how people raise their kids anymore, but the noise and slamming, jumping, hollering, running, dogs barking and babies crying in what any other property I have stayed at this chain you would not find, First, it drove us out of our minds and then out of the hotel. At ten o’clock that evening we were hunting for an alternate hotel which we found not too far away from where we were (not) staying.  Finally by 11:00 pm we were reinstalled, and dropped off to quite slumber.

Our next stop tomorrow is with family for two days in Graham, Washington. I think we are both looking forward to sleeping in the same bed more than one night in a row.

Ahhh.

 

Day 5, Red Bluff, California

Miles from Houston: 2460.4

Red Bluff California

We left Reno early enough this morning to make sure that we could spend a good long time in Lassen Volcanic National Park. (another stamp for my passport!!) The park is located sort of northeastern trail California. The story behind this volcanic wonder. It is once o the Cascade volcanoes and Lassen is the southernmost volcano of that chain. Lassen belongs to the same chain of volcanoes as Mount Saint Helena ( Washington). You might remember that it blew in 1980. Two other more well-known volcanoes in that chain are Mount Rainer and Mount Shasta.

Mount Lassen erupted in 1915. Probably not a big deal you are thinking but what was spectacular is B.F Loomis managed to photograph the eruption. His name is all over this park.

One of the effects of the volcanic blast is that there is a huge boulder field that was created after the eruption and the volcano spewed and belched anything in its path down the mountain side. Some of them are glacial erratics.

Another amazing result are the thermal sulphur pots that still gurgle and throw off steam. They stink, I have to say. It is a strong and pungent sulphur that hits your nose hairs almost as soon as you get out of the car. But on approach you see that they are not think like mud, rather very dirty bubbling water. Every now and then they steam up really heavily and cloud your glasses, and vision, blanking everything out on a mist of odoriferous steam.

 

 

It is still early in the season – a lot of northern national parks just opened a couple of weeks ago and so, a lot of the ashes in Lassen were close to the public because of snow another other seasonal dangers. We had our fill however and got back in the car heading for Red Bluff.

We arrived in the early evening and stopped to get gas and found out that a lot of places in California like to charge service fees for using debit cards., The trick they don’t accept credit, only debit cards or cash.  Well I don’t know what set us off more the unexpected service fee or the explanation the clerk gave us as though we were from another planet. We left the gas station and looked for some place to eat.

We discovered a local pizza joint called Luigi’s and had the most amazing pepperoni pizza. I don’t know how tomato sauce, cheese, pepperoni and a thick crust can taste so good, but have to yet to find a pizza in Houston that could match this pie.

Red Bluff looks like a nice small town, vintage type of buildings and this fabulous clock tower. It was early after we ate so we drove around, found a car-wash and then headed to the Holiday Inn Express.

We are glad to be this much closer to Graham, Washington. We will be staying with family there. It will be nice to get off this road for a few days before we make our final trek into Canada.

I sometimes forget that we are on the way to a burial and a memorial service for dad.

 

Day 4 – Reno, Nevada

Miles from Houston: 2170.6

Boulder City was lovely. We stayed in the Historic Boulder Dam Hotel. The folks here were friendly and the beer at the Brew Pub was really good after that 11-hour haul from Tucson.

But this last trip through the desert to Reno was unspeakable. I had no idea that this sort of terrain existed on this planet. It is something you would expect to see in a sci-fi movie about people being stranded on other planets in other galaxies for God’s sake – not here in the good old USA.

I don’t even want to post pictures of the desert anymore because after a while it just all looks like the same hell.

A few words come to mind as I struggle to describe the long, long, long eight hours in the Nevada desert. Some of them are:

Punishing, unforgiving, desolate, castigating, unrelenting, isolated, mind-numbing, mind-altering, spirit-killing, anxiety-producing endless, eternal HELL.

We did not see a bird, an animal, a rat, or a god-blessed lizard in this barren inferno.

We did however come across the US military munitions depot and the bunks that house the personnel that oversee that operation. But even that did not bring comfort. I could not bear the thought of the murderous boredom that those folk have to endure when we had the luxury of being able to eventually drive out of that hell.

It is hard to see the bunkers because we were so far away, but the little white dots off to the right are the bunkers.

When we came around the edge of Walker Lake just past the ammo depot, you would think it would alleviate the horrible isolated anxiety we felt, but that made it worse.

The lake, a remnant of the last ice-age, sits in this barren wilderness as an eerie reminder of an even starker existence.

The lake is drying up, leaving concentrated toxic proportions of the Total Dissolved Solids. (TDS) My geologist husband Paul explains that TDS is like the hard water in our shower, and all the elements that are found in that water. When that water evaporates, all that remains are the solids found in that water.  (Think calcium and lime that we wash off our shower doors with such products as “Lime Away.”)

Well, the proportion of TDS in Walker Lake that are left by its rapid evaporation is so concentrated that it is toxic to the fish that use to survive there, and so the water is dead again.

Seeing the blue rim of that lake peek out of the desert was so inspiring, giving us hope that we would find life again out of this desert, but at the same time it was devastating to know that the lake itself is dying in this already dead landscape.

Hopeless. That’s how we felt.

When we got to Reno later this afternoon, it was almost hideous. The glaring lights, the grotesque commercialism and the bawdy environment grated against the unadulterated desolation that released us just moments ago. It rises up out of the desert like a gleaming oasis.

This is not say we were morose upon arriving in Reno. On the contrary. We checked in, threw our bags in the room, and drank up the essence of what is a gambling town.

And I do mean drink.

These are just a few shots from our hotel window.

Tomorrow we head to California. Just the sound of that word promises greener fields ahead.

Day 3 – Boulder City, Nevada

Miles from Houston:  1658.2

We woke up early feeling rested. It seems like it has been such a l-o-n-g time since we have had a good sleep or have actually felt the benefit of sleep with so much going on in the weeks before we left.  We had an early breakfast at the Country Towne Suites and were on our way before 9:00 am.

We started off on highway I-10 west for Phoenix, which we estimated to take about an hour.

Part way up the road, I was reading the AAA Tour Book and noticed a near-by attraction; Saguaro National Park. We put that into the GPS and found that we had only overshot the turn off by about 5 miles, so we turned back. One of the best last-minute road-trip decision to make.

It was eerie and amazing at the same time. These majesties of the desert stand between forty- and fifty feet tall when fully mature and can live up to 200 years. They are the most incredible sight to see as you approach the visitor center. Roughly about twenty miles of curved blacktop hug the slopes of the Tucson mountains and lead you up to a vista vantage point.

Although we didn’t see any, the desert is home to rabbits javelinas, rats, bats, lizards, and mice. Many of them burrow in tunnels to survive the extreme temperatures of the desert. But the Saguaros stand tall stretching skyward. It takes a mature tree seventy-five years before it will sprout an “arm” and will continue to do so until its demise by ether lightning, natural causes (insect infestation) or, sadly vandalism. The hills are filled with these wonders, and if you didn’t know right away, you would mistake them for trees growing on hillsides – at least that’s what it looked like to me because I have never seen sun an abundance of cacti growing such as this.

This is also a national park and I was fortunate to get another stamp and regional sticker for my passport!! I know – it seems geeky for a sixty-year old, but since we started to explore the national parks as part of our vacation trips, I am hooked on filling up the pages.

We left the park and headed up for what we planned as a six-hour jaunt was not to Boulder City.

Not to be.

We missed the turn off for highway 60 – it was printed as  clear as day on the map and the road signs on the interstate were everywhere. But when it came to where the exit should have been, nothing was there. That threw us quite a bit north and we cut over on highway 74. Turns out it was a 42-mile stretch of yet another desolate desert scene. In silence we gritted our teeth and tried to think of other things.

That’s when the tank empty light comes on and my nerves go out the window.

I try really, really hard not to scratch Paul’s eyes out while I squirm in silent seething frenzy fearing we would be left on this 42-mile stretch of nothing with only our skeletons to appear when they find us years later.

Why didn’t you fill up back in Tucson!!??

Didn’t think we’d get lost.

It was not comforting to know we were riding on a prayer. And really in the middle of nowhere.

We somehow managed to limp into Wickenburg, fill up, and head out again on 93 North…. Until we see a huge sign flashing about 2 miles up the road:  Major Crash – ROAD CLOSED. Both of us are at the very end of our ropes, so we decided to get out to eat, take a few deep breaths, and ponder our new direction.

Four hours later, we are still on the road, but take heart! The GPS says we will arrive at our destination, Boulder City in one hour and twenty-eight minutes.

I think we will both sleep well again tonight.