11/29/2010

Adventures in Camping

I have loved camping since I was little and can remember camping trips from the time I was three or four years old. I can tell lots of great stories about these adventures.  Camping (for me) has nothing to do whatsoever with trailers or "campers."  I am a tenter -- or I sleep totally exposed under the broad, clear western skies.  There is nothing in my mind that is dangerous about this -- but I am not defenseless either.

One of my very first camping memories was a trip to Flagstaff back in the 50s for the All-Indian Pow-Wow. The interstate highway did not exist then and the road to Flagstaff (partially) was the present day route of 89A from Cottonwood through Sedona. The campground where we stayed was along that stretch of 89A that runs straight to Flagstaff from the top of the Oak Creek Canyon switchbacks through those tall old growth Ponderosa pines; it was on the east side of that highway. I can sometimes still pick out the spot where that camp was today, given the opportunity to watch the scenery. What was memorable about that night was I saw a porcupine! I think I have only ever seen two of them in my entire life – on that camping trip and then one in Juneau, Alaska in summer 2009 at the top of the aerial tramway. Porcupines must be fairly reclusive (that, or there just aren’t that many around here).

In the 60s, as Tina and I got older, Mom would take us on camping trips around Arizona. One summer, we went over to Mt. Graham and camped up on the mountain. We had bears in camp and heard mountain lions screaming in the night. We cowered in our borrowed tent until morning and then fled north to Luna Lake where there wasn’t so much excitement. Of course mountain lions are still scary critters, but I have become woods-wise enough to know that a black bear really isn’t much of a threat – no more so really than a coon and for the same reason – they’re usually just foraging and if you don’t provide them a source of food, they avoid you. I’m more likely to sit up and watch a black bear, than I am to run, as we shall later discuss. I like bears. ‘Course, there ain’t no Grizzlies ‘round here… anymore.

Motorcycle camping… when I was about 16 or 17, David Beaver and I undertook a back country camping trip on our motorcycles. David had a Kawasaki 175 and I had a little Honda twin (125cc). We rode up north past Cave Creek and slept on the picnic tables at the Seven Springs campground. I had bought a little “pocket warmer” at the Yellow Front store – it was like an over-sized cigarette lighter (Zippo variety) and it had some kind of long burning wick inside. Once lit, you kept it in your pocket in a little flannel sack to warm your hands, etc. As I slept on the picnic bench, every so often the danged thing would get uncomfortable in whichever pocket I had placed it – so I would move it to a different pocket, a different part of my body. In the morning, nearly frozen despite all the effort, I discovered I had little “pocket warmer” shaped burns all over – wherever there was a pocket the thing had resided in.

Later that day, covered with uncomfortable little pocket warmer burns and riding west through the rugged wilderness toward I-17 on Table Mesa Road, the nut fell off my rear axle on the side of a steep mountain – on a 4WD road and 20 miles from West Bumfuzzle. We sat there trying to figure out what to do next. David is one of those people who has an ability to think things through and come up with practical solutions – and as we waited there on the mountainside, we saw far below us on the road a Toyota Land-cruiser that was working its way up the hill. When it got to us, we could see the lone occupant trying to figure out how to get around us without stopping. Oh, he tried... but there was no possible way. David checked with him to see if he had anything we could use to get my motorcycle rolling again. He had a wire clothes hanger. David took the front axle nut off my bike, reassembled the rear axle with it, and then wired the front axle in with that clothes hanger. His impromptu repair lasted long enough to get me home and I’ve always considered him somewhat of a genius.

When Jannie and I got married in 1972, we couldn’t afford a real honeymoon. So we went camping. We drove up toward Flagstaff and pitched a little rented tent under some trees off the road – next morning we discovered we had camped in a neighborhood, with houses all around. We hadn’t seen them in the dark the night before – and we were practically on someone’s doorstep! Three years later, in May 1975, we took a two-week trip up through the national park country, then over to the Pacific coast and south to San Diego, one end of the country to the other. The first night out, at Zion National Park, the wind came up and blew our tent down around us. Who needs tent stakes anyway, right? The next night at Bear Lake, Utah, we almost froze to death – I think it may even have snowed. I know there was still existing snow on the ground. The campground where we stayed wasn’t even open, but we pitched the tent anyway.  This time WITH the tent stakes.

The next night, we were ready for a break, so we got a room at Jackson Lake at Grand Tetons National Park. The lake was still frozen solidly enough that the locals were driving pick-up trucks on it. Then we went on up through Yellowstone – and had one of the strangest camping experiences of all – there was 5 feet of snow on the ground – but we stayed warm and comfortable camping at Mammoth Hot Springs.  The temperatures around the hot springs and geysers were probably 40 degrees warmer than the rest of the park; the difference between that area and the surrounding park, which was still gripped in winter’s cold, was nothing less than amazing.  Later on that trip, at Manchester, California on the Pacific Coast highway, we slept outside the tent on the ground in our sleeping bags. I think that was the first time Jannie had ever done that – she was a little scared about the idea at first, but soon was enjoying herself as we lay in our bags staring up at the stars. We were on a bluff high above the Pacific surf and we could hear the waves crashing onto the beach far below.

On one of our first camping trips together, we rented a little tent and of course we weren’t very good at setting it up (even though I’m sure it was pretty simple). We camped at Christopher Creek, and in those days, the camp sites were right on the creek. Unfortunately, it began to rain in the late afternoon as it often does on summer afternoons along the Mogollón Rim. But unlike most days, the rain didn’t stop… it was still raining at 9 o'clock that night. So we burrowed into the tent for the duration, ate our dinner in there and played cards until we figured it was time to sleep. About midnight, we woke up and looked out and the sky was clear – so I decided to raise the tent’s flap outside the entry, so the inside could start to dry out.

Not being familiar with the tent, this took quite a number of minutes. I had a very weak flashlight. After I finished the job, I flashed that very weak light around the campsite, and was greeted by two enormous yellow eyes staring back from about five or ten feet away. I jumped back in the tent and sniveled until I fell asleep... In the morning, we discovered bobcat tracks in the wet dirt outside! He probably stood there the whole time I worked on that flap, trying to decide if I was “worth” killing and eating.

When my kids were small, we often went camping in the summers. Once, all four of us went up to Valentine Ridge – John was only four or five at the time. Sleeping in the tent, I sensed that something was amiss, and I looked around – John was standing over Mandy and… uh… relieving himself “in her direction.” I guess he thought he was outside the tent… but he was only half-awake. I’m not sure that Mandy or Rod slept too much after that; they probably both kept one eye open. John, on the other hand, slept pretty well.

Another time, at Oak Creek Canyon, we were all four sitting around the picnic table and eating our supper – one kid says to another kid – “stop touching me” – so I looked under the table to see if I could apprehend the most-guilty culprit. It wasn’t kid touching kid at all – but skunks touching kids. There was an entire family of skunks under the table hoping for scraps to fall. I very quietly told the children not to look, and not to move. We sat there stock-still until those polecats got tired of waiting and ambled away, leaving us unmolested, “unfragranced” and extremely relieved.

In the late 80s, the whole family took a camping trip to Vallecito Lake, near Durango, Colorado. Most of us anyway. On the trip home, Mom and Dad got a head start on me and the kids by about 20 minutes. We were to meet at a highway junction near Four Corners to regroup. I thought I’d have a good joke on them by taking a short cut (which I saw on my map) and which would cut off about 30 or 40 miles from the distance to the meeting point -- I would still get there before them -- or so I thought. Halfway into that shortcut, I found the road completely blocked off and closed. So I had to go all the way back around and then cover the original miles as well.

Meanwhile, Mom and Dad were waiting at the aforementioned highway junction – and they finally thought maybe they had the wrong one. So they drove south to Shiprock, and then east toward Farmington to another junction they thought might be the one. While they were doing their little eastward leg, I arrived at the original junction, and not finding them there, went on south toward home as I thought they must have done. This is in the days before any of us had cell phones. When they got to the new junction, and of course we weren’t there, they drove back to Shiprock, and then north again to Cortez, Colorado to look for us there.

Meanwhile, 20 miles or so south of Shiprock, I broke down. With three kids in the car, I am stranded 20 miles in the middle of northwest New Mexico. A Navajo fellow on his way home to Dulce stopped and offered us a ride back to town – once in his truck I realized he was fairly well lit by spirituous liquors… but we were already in there and we made it to Shiprock thanks to him. I got a tow truck to take us back out to get the car. The tow and repair took most of the afternoon (just fan belts), and it took almost every penny I had. I was a starving college student at the time and had no credit cards.

From Cortez, Mom and Dad had the forest rangers and the county sheriff looking for us. I figured out by this time they were probably wondering where we were, so I called Ruth at home to see if they had called there. They hadn’t yet, but they eventually did, and the kids and I headed for home with about $5 left in my pocket for supper (McDonalds) and just enough gasoline. We beat Mom and Dad home by several hours. Dad was disgruntled, Mom was still laughing.

Then there was the time...  Some friends and I went up to the White Mountains, and we camped near Big Lake.  John and I were hanging out in the morning, after a good rain, and we were making breakfast for us and for Ms. Minette, who was camping with us.  We had everything set up for cooking underneath a vinyl-plastic canopy -- and with the rain that canopy trapped water and filled up just like a lake. It was four poles, topped by a big flexible lake of icy cold water. As the rain continued lightly, the pool of water trapped on the top got larger and larger and eventually tripped (or more correctly, tipped) past the point where the canopy shuddered and shifted so that the 35 degree water could drain off right down the back of my neck as I prepared the breakfast bacon. 

On one of my last camping trips, a few years back, Mandy and I went to one of my favorite places. She and I both know where it was, but I won’t mention it here as it is our family’s secret place. Keeping it to ourselves ensures we will never find a crowd there. We were sleeping in the tent and I woke up about 5:30 AM – it was starting to get light, but still very dim outside. I heard something. What I heard was the biggest black bear… brown actually…. that I have ever seen in Arizona. Bears hereabouts are usually the size of large raccoons, but this boy was huge. He was trying to see if anything was in the back of my truck that he might want to eat – and when I sat up on my cot, he backed down, turned around and started ambling away, looking at me out of the corner of his eye as if to say, “hey, I ain’t doing nothing, I’m just passing through…” He was just a big doofus brown black bear. Well, I wanted Mandy to see him – so I touched her arm and whispered her name. When I did, the bear bolted off up the hillside. I think all Mandy got to see of him was his big brown butt scrambling up the hill.

Despite all of this mayhem, I still enjoy camping. I don’t know why. But there are no bad memories in camping, not for me. Except maybe that one time I fried up a fresh trout inside the tent because it was raining outside up at Hawley Lake… took ten years or so to air that tent out. But I’d go again tomorrow if the weather was warmer, smelly fish, cold rain and all.

11/24/2010

Thanksgiving 2010

I am smoking the turkey for the first time this year – I have done breasts before but not a whole bird. I got a smaller one, about eleven pounds and have it in the smoker with some apple wood at 325 degrees and steady. It should be ready in about two or three more hours at the most. My part of Thanksgiving dinner will be the turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy. I will make a pumpkin pie; Mom is doing the rest – a fruit salad and green beans. We will eat well.

Things for which I am thankful… I am thankful for being born in this, the free-est country in the world. There are others like us in the free world, but my nation started the movement 250 years ago. I am especially thankful for the men and women who came before us, struggled and made this possible. When I think of those in other parts of the world, even civilized parts of the world, like China, who cannot even speak their thoughts without risk of retribution, persecution, even death, then I think that I am most fortunate.

We acknowledge that things are not perfect, but we can grouse and complain without fear. And we truly can change some of the things we don’t like. Oh yes, it is a struggle and sometimes we fail when we find there are overwhelming powers that are arrayed against us, but there is unresistable power in our citizenry when we unite.  May we never forget that.  And someday, our rights and freedoms will be universal for ALL Americans; we will make that happen.

I am thankful for my health as good as it is, and for the medical care and science that helps me maintain it. I should take better care of myself! I could make better choices sometimes, but Nurse Teel is a goddess!

I am thankful for my lovely dottir, who is finding her way in the world and making a success of herself as a human being. I am glad that all my children are healthy; I love them all.

I am especially thankful for the extracurricular privileges I have been afforded; so many others struggle just to survive, but I have an easy existence and in particular, I have been able to travel and learn beyond my equitable share, beyond what was even imaginable for an average human being just 150 years ago.

I am grateful for many simple things; sitting outside in the evening to watch the sunset or the stars, campfires, rich coffee with chocolate, or just chocolate… hearing waves crash onto a shore, a good book…my warm and snug bed in the early morning – or the LATE morning as the case may be. I am so fortunate to have the few good friends that bless me… Dave, Gloria and Jim, Dick and Susie, Minette, Chad and Lisa, and some others.  I am also fortunate to have such a simple, uncomplicated life.  I treasure the warmth of the Arizona sunshine on my face and am most thankful for warm, home-made apple pie.

I am lucky beyond measure to have a profession that I love; one that can have a positive impact on others’ lives, if they would just LISTEN to me!

I am thankful for my family, especially those that came just before me, many of whom I knew and loved but are no longer present in this particular world. Life is short, fast and by no means certain. The older I get, the more I realize that each moment is essentially stolen time. I am thankful for all those stolen moments and for those still to come should there be more.  I am thankful to be living in this exciting time.

I am thankful for all of these things.

Rex admirabilis
et triumphator nobilis,
dulcedo ineffabilis,
totus desiderabilis, totus desiderabilis.

11/13/2010

In Search of William Swain


In the spring of 1849, William Swain rode away from his family’s farm in Youngstown, New York and joined in one of the seminal adventures of American history. He caught a lake steamer to Chicago, another boat to St Louis, and a third to Independence, Missouri, where he bought into a “joint-stock company” of Michigan men who then set off on foot, horseback and wagon to the California goldfields. Narrowly avoiding disaster, they barely made it before winter snows froze the California mountains.

He waited out the winter of ’49-‘50, then labored for little gain along some California rivers through the summer and fall before his family convinced him to give up his golden dream and return home to New York. He left California, traveled by packet ship to Central America, and there trekked through the isthmus jungles from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. He boarded a steamer to New York City via Havana, arrived ill, but his ever-steadfast brother George found him there and brought him home to Youngstown. He lived out a long life and died an old man as he worked in his garden.

William was “everyman,” participating in a national adventure that changed America and that shapes our lives and thoughts about ourselves even today. It is difficult to overstate the impact the California gold rush had on the history and development of the United States and its people. What made Swain even more significant to history is that he wrote a literate, complete and coherent account, a diary, of his journey to California. He also communicated by letter from along the California Trail. He continued writing letters while he waited through the winter and then worked in the California gold “diggings” the following summer. These documents were treasured by his children and grandchildren and finally were offered to historian and professor J. S. Holliday who used them to complete a book; that book is one of the most engrossing and interesting accounts of the Gold Rush migration available today. (J.S. Holliday; The World Rushed In)


What I found most fascinating about William Swain was that he didn’t disappear as many of his gold rush contemporaries did. Even the ones who wrote about their experiences tended to be a part of that one national moment and then nothing else; there were a few exceptions of course. In general though, where did they go? How did the Gold Rush experience shape their subsequent lives? Like few others, you can easily find the answers to those questions for William Swain. History is a composite of all the little stories that made up our ancestor’s lives – and here is one of them, laid out in detail for us to enjoy. Forget how the study of history “helps us not to repeat the mistakes of the past,” and “if you want to see where we’re going, you have to look where we’ve been.” With Swain’s diary and letters, presented in Holliday’s book in concert with the larger history of the 1849 gold rush as a background, we can see how one extraordinary citizen, along with his friends and family, participated in one of the greatest mass migrations in any nation’s history. This is exciting stuff!

I have stood on the ground where Washington accepted the British surrender at Yorktown and touched the seam of his tent (on display there). I have walked in Travis' footsteps at the Alamo. I've seen the track of the Wright Brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk. I know at ground level the place where Crazy Horse was murdered at Fort Robinson, NE; where Custer surveyed the Little Bighorn Valley in Montana from a mountaintop just before his last fight, and the exact spot where Geronimo stood to have his photograph taken at Fort Bowie, AZ one September day in 1886. I can pick out and match the foundation stones in now-ruined frontier Army post homes as I compare them against historical photographs. I have read the inscribed signatures of 49ers and others on the Register Cliffs, along the dry-desert route of the California-Oregon Trail. And I have stood where William Swain stood, both on the trail, and at home in Youngstown. Being in these places, on the ground where our ancestors stood and knowing the history that took place there is moving – and exhilarating.

After re-reading Swain’s diary in The World Rushed In for about the third time, I thought that if I was ever able to visit Youngstown, NY, I would see if I could find William and his family. He lived in a “cobblestone farmhouse” on the “River Road.” On his return to Youngstown in 1851, he became a prosperous farmer, a peach-grower, one of the largest in western New York in his day. His brother and best friend George, also in Youngstown, was a public servant for most of his lifetime. Would there not still be some traces of them around their life-long home?

Looking at maps of the Youngstown area, I found Swain Road. Given the description of the farm in the book, I could almost guess where the Swain farmhouse was built (in 1836). I made plans to go there, look for the house and see if I could find the graves of William, George and their families.

I drove to the corner of Swain Road and Main Street in Youngstown in October 2008, and from there to the place where I thought the cobblestone house would be. There was nothing there but a very small pump-house. Disappointed that my satellite photo and map-sleuthing were errant (how can one mistake a six-foot tall pump house for a farmhouse!), I headed back out toward the highway – but stopped when I saw a resident and asked him if he knew anything about the Swains. He did. He directed me to the nearby home of Betty Van Zandt – and said I should speak with her about her home – which I found had been built by William for his daughter Lila (or Eliza). I was in the right neighborhood after all. Betty Van Zandt referred me to Margery Stratton, who, she said, could help me with further information about the local area, she having sold most of the houses in the area, some more than once.
Swain's home
It turned out the “cobblestone farmhouse” so often mentioned by William in his writings was immediately next door. I took photos, walked around, and looked for any peach trees that might have descended from those that William and his brother had planted. I didn’t find any -- but peach trees aren’t known for being long-lived.

I read the monument near the house about the battle that took place in pre-Revolutionary War times on that very spot. I took photos of the foundation stones in the bridge across the drainage in front of the house – figuring they were most likely original to the time the farm was built. I wondered which upper-story window Sabrina Swain might have sat behind as she wrote letters to her absent and sorely-missed husband, and where in the yard William’s garden and grape vines might have been. Then I went to meet Margery Stratton.

I spent an hour or so with Ms Stratton at the local historical society’s library, reading some of the letters and information written about the Swains, who were prominent local citizens. Armed with information provided by the helpful members of the society, I set off to the Oakland Rural Cemetery to find the Swains.
It took some time, but I found all the last resting places of the family – except for father Isaac, and his 2nd wife, Patience. Perhaps they are in a different part of the cemetery – or in an older cemetery somewhere close by. William and Sabrina’s youngest son is also not with the rest of the family

After reading so much about them, I feel almost as if they are friends. Seeing their home in Youngstown and the places that were familiar to them, when I read the passages they wrote I can imagine more vividly what their lives were like; what they saw, almost what they felt at certain times.

As William returned home from the California gold fields in 1851, he and George topped the hill south of Youngstown in their wagon, probably about where Ridge Road above Lewiston is today. They stopped, and William stood up to survey the valley he had not seen for almost two years. He pronounced it the most beautiful of all the scenes he had witnessed. Don’t we all feel that way about our homes? You can see that same view today – just as he did when he returned from his long gold-rush quest. When I last saw it, it was cloaked in the beautiful autumn colors of northern New York State. And based on the description in J.S. Holliday’s book, I knew exactly what I was looking at; William had seen and vividly described the same view in 1851.

Now that I've seen William and Sabrina's New York home, perhaps I can see his diggings on the other side of the country. I think I just might be able to find the spot where William and his partners built their cabin and dug for gold on the beautiful Feather River above Sacramento, California. Today, the exact site is under lake water, but I might be able to get close.

11/01/2010

Las aventuras en México: Gen y Bob fue a la playa...

Gen on Los Algodones Playa, San Carlos, Sonora
A few years ago, my friend Gen and I went to the beach… in Mexico. We both like the beach; we both like Mexico. It seemed a natural thing to do. Now, it was a great trip and we both have many wonderful memories from it I’m certain. But Gen has made dark allusions to our adventure on this blog and I must set the record straight and clear my good name.

There are many things to tell about this journey… all about getting through customs without getting arrested for faulty paperwork, how we drove into town and walked around after dark without getting kidnapped or killed, how we ate the fruit and drank the water… how we survived a federale roadblock and drove on a narrow mountain highway with Mexican truck and autobus drivers and actually lived to tell about it. How we negotiated the rush hour downtown traffic of Hermosillo with calmness and tranquility… Not least, I could tell how U.S. Customs was so hungry and deprived of ripe red apples that they confiscated mine just so they could have one. After all, that must have been the reason because it was an American apple, not a Mexican apple. But these fine stories will have to wait for another occasion.

Today, I just want to tell you about the beach. Since Ms. Genevieve has brought it up… We both wanted to spend some time on the beach so we drove out to Los Algodones beach just about an hour before sunset. The beach was a few miles north of Guaymas (and San Carlos) and we were told it was one of the nicest ones around there. On arrival, we discovered we had it all to ourselves. This made us both a little uneasy but we stayed anyway. There was no parking lot, of course, so we pulled my ½ ton truck onto the seemingly hard-packed sand of the beach.

A couple of words about the beach itself – it lies next to a scimitar-shaped “bay” and trying to reconstruct its dimensions from my memory, I’d say maybe ¼ mile long. It was a couple of hundred feet wide at the most – maybe much less. But it was a beautiful little beach with a beached boat on it (see photo) and some islands offshore that lent a ruggedness to its scenic appearance. Some of the scenes from the film “Catch 22” were filmed there. Again, there was no parking lot. We drove out onto the sand… for a few feet; the sand was fairly hard-packed and was no problemo. Farther out, it got softer and thicker, even, you might say, fluffier. Gen kept saying “go a little farther out” and “park over there, why don’t you…” So I did.

We got our ice chest, spread an old sleeping bag on the sand and enjoyed the remaining rays of the sun and watched a beautiful sunset. Gen had a glass of wine and I drank a Diet Coke… and we smoked cigars! These were not big stogie-type cigars, but thinner cigarillo-type cigars. And I swear I did NOT inhale… So the sun goes down. It gets dark. And we start to feel very alone and vulnerable.


Gen, another beach, another day...
By and by we decide to head back to town. We loaded up the truck and I thought it might be easy to just turn around in a circle instead of backing up. Had we stayed on the harder-packed portions of the beach, this would not have been too much of a problem. But on that softer, fluffier sand, it was. Pretty soon, the truck was dug in up to the wheels. Well, we investigated all our options. No help in sight. Not too much in the way of tools to dig ourselves out. Several miles to walk back to town, leaving the truck on the beach unprotected. None of this seemed of any promise, exactly. What we did have, was a sleeping bag. 

So I jammed the sleeping bag under the rear wheels to gain a little traction and then we both tried to push but that didn’t work. Then I got Gen to push and I steered and depressed the accelerator just so. This took great finesse… and got us a few feet at a time before we’d run out of sleeping bag. Then we’d move the remnant of the bag to the front of the tire again and repeat the process. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat. Finally, we reached the firmer sand and we were both able to get in the truck and ride. Genevieve was really great at pushing though, I have to say; she is quite a truck-pusher.

I learned several lessons on Los Algodones Playa…
1. Never drive your street pick-up truck on the beach. ANY beach.

2. Make sure you take tools, so that if you do get (inadvertently) off-road and find yourself mired, you can get out easily. At minimum, at least have a nice, thick, sleeping bag.

3. Make sure you have a strong and healthy young person to “help” push – while you steer of course and finesse that accelerator. No one knows how to do this better than you.  I mean, it's your truck, right?

4. Alternatively, you might wish to confine your beach adventures to those strands where you will always have plenty of company. It is a sinking feeling to find yourself hopelessly mired on a lonely beach five miles from the nearest town…

It sure was a pretty beach though. I was very happy to share it with my friend.