"Middle of Nowhere, Nevada", which is "Everywhere Nevada". The rain lasted 45 seconds, at most....now, dust billows into the air casting a haze over the mountains in the distance. (Battle Mountain...three hours NE of Reno.)
One of the three trains we've seen in as many hours, traversing the country. I've read that settlers and Native People could see and hear the trains for 10s of miles.
I'm munching organic baby carrots, a few that I picked up off the floor 2 SECONDS after they'd fallen. Actually, they didn't hit the floor, but rather landed on my Keen boots stuffed and intertwined with white, size 13 (girls), Wal Mart sneakers... I've kicked off my Chacos and shoved them under the front seat in hopes they don't fall out at the next stop in 3 hours.
The kids, Ben included, sing "Jar of Hearts" behind me....quite out of tune, and perhaps on purpose he keeps croaking, "catch a cold", "who do you think you areeeeeee...". Grace, chirps no echos, a second behind the speakers, "catching hearts, storing them in your jar of hearts..." Now come the ABCs belted out while some nameless College boy's nameless tune intones...it's not obnoxious. Just vanilla.
....only 290 miles to Elko, then 150 more, TODAY, and it's only 1:02...and I've eaten two day's worth of calories! John decides NOW is lunch time. He eats the turkey, salami, and provolone sandwich I made an hour ago, and searches for his Camelbak (while driving 80mph on Cruise control) He could look awhile since I passed it back to Ben earlier. He never drank it, preferring to hurl it forward, well, he actually batted it back at Kirsten: 65 mph. (For the sake of accuracy, and so that you never think I'm writing fiction, I stand corrected on the previous Camelbak story. Apparently Ben not only didn't hurl or bat it back, but sucked it dry. It must've been another object: say the blueberry muffin, that went flying, probably faster, but it wouldn't hurt as bad when it landed on your cheek.....now I'm told the metal baseball bat, meant to protect us from bears and cougars, became a projectile in his hands. The javelin now sits at Kirsten's feet.)
Kirsten returned the now-empty water bottle to her father, via a convoy of hands, from the back of the car to the front. I refilled it with water from a sterilized milk jug so that John could take 4 Motrin for HIS headache: from the glare, the altitude, too many peanut m and m's? The spare water source reminds me of ED, the Lassen Parks Cafe owner?/manager? who kindly offered, not only to refill it, but to sterilize it, from the milk residue remaining after we chugged it minutes after returning from our snowy
"swunter" (summer/winter) hike down to sulphur pits. Pits that continue to boil for centuries, consuming the surrounding dry-scape daily. (A boardwalk collapsed into the cauldron last year.) The lukewarm milk hit the "dry spot" generated after several hours on the trail, under an altitude intensified sun.
Very soon, however, we needed water! The gracious German immigrant, Ed, willingly accommodated. He loved Rebekah's "Raised Right!" tee shirt with the elephant on it! He admired our family, and after a few minutes of conversation, where I told him I was giving my children "America", he reached out, asking, if he could shake my hand! He then asked to take our picture to put on the Lassen Facebook page! These integral "people-to-people" encounters, act as a liaison connecting me to the place and the experience. I believe we graft a bit of their goodness, borne of life experiences, onto ourselves, slowing become one people, connected across time and space. He will live in more than my blog, and I know our family gave him hope and brought a smile to his face as he shared a bit of himself over the serving of swirl, soft-serve ice-cream to weary,sunburned hikers.
A dust storm swirls around the dessert to my right/south. Dry mountains stand guard, against what or whom I can't imagine: Kit Carson? (about an hour NE of Reno, at this point)
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In the pictures below I tried to capture an Oasis, just a tad North-east of Reno. Very few water sources exist here, which isn't a bad thing if you're a rattlesnake. However, I noticed a lush line of grass and trees skirting the base of a small mountain. At some vistas I saw a fairly quick-flowing brook bringing the green Midas touch to the desert. All of this could become a spiritual meditation, so let your heart turn to those Bible stories if you're so moved. I think of Jonah sitting in the desert, and God causing a tree to grow up over him, shading him, reinvigorating his wearied, fearful soul. What river has God allowed to run through my life?...that musing is for another blog......but I do perceive the sacred out here. I do understand America's aboriginal people's unity with themselves, and each other, as an extension of their unity with nature's own life-nurturing harmony.
The natural world, fires and floods included, serve to create, and recreate God's Garden. Each event serves a good, over time; and, even a rock cannot cling to its past, for given a cataclysmic event, a volcano eruption, or, over time, the forces of pressure and the heat it generates, must succumb to a newness: igneous, metamorphic rocks. But this progression is God's will. The "progressives" of today, fail to understand that progress in the natural world makes sense, for instance wild flowers bloom in the ashes left from a lightening-hit sparked wild fire.
For post-modern progressives, "progress" leads to regression...
life literally dies: eg abortion kills;
fails to thrive: through divorce, which is also a death.
withers away: through enmity, petty grievances left unchecked or unaddressed. suffocates: through the busyness of life, which allows no time to sit and appreciate the stark contrast of a smooth, azure sky, juxtaposed with barren mountain crags. The oasis mediates between the two, allowing hope to flow between the worlds.
The first Americans understood this innately. So did a German man I met along the road in Lassen as we prepared to hike down to Bumpass Hell sulphur pits. He had worked hard, saved his money, quit his job and has been traveling America for over a month on his functional, slender wheeled motorcycle. I noticed spartan belongings folded into the metal cases suspended from his bike, as his sole companions. He hunched alone,securing the thick straps of his boots, his lanky frame covered in an over-all of dusty, element-proof material. In this way, he shielded himself from harsher weather, keeping his own counsel, while not detached from his world. For, while my family scoured, first our van and then the trail head for water, he silently listened, letting our situation: a three mile hike with limited water, unfold. I finally spoke to him, "Where ya headed today?" Reply, "On my way to Alaska." "Oh, very neat! We're headed over to Yellowstone tomorrow..." After a few minutes, and a few revelations (he needed to live, not work), he offered us a gallon of water for the trail! He had a substantial stash apparently. I declined, saying we'd make do...and we did...remember the Coke Zero? I shook his gravelly hand, telling him, "It makes me feel good to know that you're out there! Thanks!!" And off he zoomed. And down the trail we trooped, Ben swaying on John's unbalanced frame in his backpack intended for a baby. Not MY baby who is almost three!!
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I believe the stream below must be fed by winter snow melt. There's no other source! Also, as you can tell, the barren surrounding bares witness to a harsh, dry climate. No wonder Nevada tourism relies on gambling and prostitution as licit revenue sources, a point which calls to mind the axiom: you may ever do evil to achieve a licit end!
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