Thursday, December 29, 2005
Good ol' fashioned family holiday - Part V
Death Valley Suite, finale
Movement 4: 12/29/00 - Moderato con brio a la notte
Lynnie and I ate our first truly hearty breakfast of the trip the morning we checked out of the Phoenix. At the Exchange Club, Travis had been replaced by a bony old okie guy with nearly the same hyper-friendly and efficient affect as our red-headed boylet. I had an Ortega and Swiss omelette that made me belch like mad all day long. We said goodbye to Beatty with long, thoughtful browses through the antique shop and the general store, then passed the thousand-mile point on my trip odometer as we headed toward the Wildrose Charchoal Kilns at the south end of the park. They were on the way to our top secret New Year's eve destination, so even though we'd almost overdosed on sightseeing, we thought we'd give 'em an ol' look-see.
The kilns were up another of those “gravel” roads. Instead of bumping along in my little hatchback with its wimpy tires, we parked at the mouth and hiked up: three and-a-half miles, straight uphill. “High profile” vehicles whizzed by at seemingly regularized intervals, dusting us with layer upon layer of desert soot. The kilns themselves were immense stone hives that were used to turn lumber into coal for a nearby mine a hundred years ago. They now serve as tourist attractions and intense echo chambers. The walk back was a breeze, of course, relaxing enough so that we could forget about the chore of going up the hill and simply pat ourselves on the back for getting so much good exercise. Yay for us, we have firm buns!
At sunset, we stopped at Panamint Springs, Death Valley’s third and most remote resort, thirty-five miles from the nearest gas, as we found out when a group of French tourists arrived in their rented Hyundai, its fuel gauge already on empty. Just before making our final pit stops in anticipation of hitting the road for a couple more hours, a huge family group of Indians arrived, about twenty of whom were women in colorful saris, and they all got in line to use the one bathroom out ‘round the back of the diner. My sister followed behind and almost hopelessly waited her turn. I, on the other hand, scrambled up a miniature mesa behind the motel and peed against a willow tree. Ah, the delights of vertical urination.
On the two-lane road through Trona to Ridgecrest, people kept flashing their brights at me even though I had my low-beams on. That was truly annoying, and another theme running through my life. I don’t care what level you think you’re existing on, but you’re too loud, too wild, too bright for the rest of us. Just knock it off, would you!? I hate it when, even reigned-in, I prove too unruly for general consumption, but of course I secretly relish it, too. Then again, we are just talking about headlights here, aren’t we?
Ridgecrest provided us with our first ethnic food in a few days–some soggy chile rellenos and gray refried beans, along with margaritas that tasted like pineapple candy. We stayed at the Budget Inn, where our friendly East Indian proprietor took our thirty-eight bucks and provided us with the “special” room because we were a “special” couple: two queen-sized beds in a large kitchenette suite that was decorated in true Indian “the in-laws-are-coming” finery, with color-coordinated scalloping on the pearlescent wallpaper, matching the paisleyed bedspreads, matching the handpainted tiles in the bathroom and the kitchen area. Oh, and LOTS of sparkles in the acoustic ceiling. I was sure that this was where mother-in-law-sahib stayed when she visited from San Diego, or New Delhi, or Ft. Lauderdale.
When I went out on the balcony to have a cigarette, I watched our friendly, bobbing-headed proprietor follow his chattering wife around, going in and out of rooms and checking license plates on the cars in their lot. The place was spotless and well-maintained, and I was sure that she was the cause of this. Though they were speaking whatever Hindi or Bengali dialect they spoke, I could hear him going, “Yes, Dear. No, Dear. All Right, Dear. Whatever you say, dear,” just as plain as if they’d been speaking English. But for all the careful attention this couple obviously lavished on their roadside moneymaker, they still could not avoid the curse of the lumpy pillows. Oh, did I forget to tell you that all of our pillows were lumpy on this trip? By this point, I had decided it was something about the desert air that rendered polyfill rocky. Usually, something like that would bother me, but the desert had lulled me into its vast, unworried rhymes and rhythms. By the time I fell asleep, I was feeling as smooth as a well-tumbled stone.
Categories: backstory, family, holidays, travel
Movement 4: 12/29/00 - Moderato con brio a la notte
Lynnie and I ate our first truly hearty breakfast of the trip the morning we checked out of the Phoenix. At the Exchange Club, Travis had been replaced by a bony old okie guy with nearly the same hyper-friendly and efficient affect as our red-headed boylet. I had an Ortega and Swiss omelette that made me belch like mad all day long. We said goodbye to Beatty with long, thoughtful browses through the antique shop and the general store, then passed the thousand-mile point on my trip odometer as we headed toward the Wildrose Charchoal Kilns at the south end of the park. They were on the way to our top secret New Year's eve destination, so even though we'd almost overdosed on sightseeing, we thought we'd give 'em an ol' look-see.
The kilns were up another of those “gravel” roads. Instead of bumping along in my little hatchback with its wimpy tires, we parked at the mouth and hiked up: three and-a-half miles, straight uphill. “High profile” vehicles whizzed by at seemingly regularized intervals, dusting us with layer upon layer of desert soot. The kilns themselves were immense stone hives that were used to turn lumber into coal for a nearby mine a hundred years ago. They now serve as tourist attractions and intense echo chambers. The walk back was a breeze, of course, relaxing enough so that we could forget about the chore of going up the hill and simply pat ourselves on the back for getting so much good exercise. Yay for us, we have firm buns!
At sunset, we stopped at Panamint Springs, Death Valley’s third and most remote resort, thirty-five miles from the nearest gas, as we found out when a group of French tourists arrived in their rented Hyundai, its fuel gauge already on empty. Just before making our final pit stops in anticipation of hitting the road for a couple more hours, a huge family group of Indians arrived, about twenty of whom were women in colorful saris, and they all got in line to use the one bathroom out ‘round the back of the diner. My sister followed behind and almost hopelessly waited her turn. I, on the other hand, scrambled up a miniature mesa behind the motel and peed against a willow tree. Ah, the delights of vertical urination.
On the two-lane road through Trona to Ridgecrest, people kept flashing their brights at me even though I had my low-beams on. That was truly annoying, and another theme running through my life. I don’t care what level you think you’re existing on, but you’re too loud, too wild, too bright for the rest of us. Just knock it off, would you!? I hate it when, even reigned-in, I prove too unruly for general consumption, but of course I secretly relish it, too. Then again, we are just talking about headlights here, aren’t we?
Ridgecrest provided us with our first ethnic food in a few days–some soggy chile rellenos and gray refried beans, along with margaritas that tasted like pineapple candy. We stayed at the Budget Inn, where our friendly East Indian proprietor took our thirty-eight bucks and provided us with the “special” room because we were a “special” couple: two queen-sized beds in a large kitchenette suite that was decorated in true Indian “the in-laws-are-coming” finery, with color-coordinated scalloping on the pearlescent wallpaper, matching the paisleyed bedspreads, matching the handpainted tiles in the bathroom and the kitchen area. Oh, and LOTS of sparkles in the acoustic ceiling. I was sure that this was where mother-in-law-sahib stayed when she visited from San Diego, or New Delhi, or Ft. Lauderdale.
When I went out on the balcony to have a cigarette, I watched our friendly, bobbing-headed proprietor follow his chattering wife around, going in and out of rooms and checking license plates on the cars in their lot. The place was spotless and well-maintained, and I was sure that she was the cause of this. Though they were speaking whatever Hindi or Bengali dialect they spoke, I could hear him going, “Yes, Dear. No, Dear. All Right, Dear. Whatever you say, dear,” just as plain as if they’d been speaking English. But for all the careful attention this couple obviously lavished on their roadside moneymaker, they still could not avoid the curse of the lumpy pillows. Oh, did I forget to tell you that all of our pillows were lumpy on this trip? By this point, I had decided it was something about the desert air that rendered polyfill rocky. Usually, something like that would bother me, but the desert had lulled me into its vast, unworried rhymes and rhythms. By the time I fell asleep, I was feeling as smooth as a well-tumbled stone.
Categories: backstory, family, holidays, travel
