When it rains at Burning Man, everything comes to a halt! You are looking at the reason why. Thick mud that sticks to your feet makes it extremely difficult to walk. It’s impossible to bike. And driving is an absolute no-no. These are my shoes. It felt like they weighed 20 pounds each!
Peggy and I have been going to Burning Man off and on since 2004. We definitely aren’t virgins, which is what Burners call newbies. In fact it’s hard to be much more veteran than we are although there are old timers around who have been going since its San Francisco beginning in the mid-80s. Over the past 19 years, we’ve seen everything the Black Rock Desert has to throw at people who come to this unique event north of Reno, Nevada. The worst is usually high heat, strong winds, and blinding dust storms where dust rules your universe. The only thing you can do is put on your goggles, wrap your bandana around your face like a bandit, and proceed. If it’s a white out, you hunker down until you can see where you are going. Not doing so is a recipe for disaster.
Rain has been relatively rare compared to dust storm and requires a different response. The Burning Man Organization (BM Org) shuts everything down until the rain stops and the Playa dries out. It’s quite dramatic. There is no driving except for emergency vehicles. Driving tears up the desert floor and getting stuck is almost guaranteed. Since Burners are required to park their vehicles when in camp (except for mutant vehicles), it isn’t much of an issue unless you are driving in or out. That happened to us once when we were coming in and we had to wait for three hours— along with the thousand or so other vehicles entering at the time. It turned into a party. Typical Burning Man.
This time it was different, as you have undoubtedly seen or heard about on the news or through social media. It just kept on raining. What was normally a 2-3 hour wait went on for three days. Burning Man was featured in headlines around the nation and around the world. 70,000 people were literally stuck in the mud. Even the President was briefed on the situation. We managed to escape yesterday. Our story is best told in photos. All of these are taken by either Peggy or me.
We were happily sitting in Serafina, our 22 foot travel trailer, and sipping a glass of wine when the rain started. We had an ‘impressionistic’ view out our window as the rain made its way through the ever-present dust. “Great,” we thought, “it will cool things down and dampen the dust.” But the rain had something else in mind… We leisurely wrapped up our cocktail hour and checked outside. As expected, Burning Man had shut down all driving. Clouds were threatening more rain! This is Jackalope Road, BTW. We lived at Jackalope and 5:30, out on the edge of Black Rock City. We had come in on Monday and sites closer in were all taken.An hour or so later, we heard yelling and quickly looked out to see what was happening. An impressive double rainbow was stretched over Black Rock City and Burners were celebrating the beauty. On the bad news side, rain was beginning to cover the playa.We took lots of photos! This is looking east.The colors were incredible. But was there a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?We turned around and took photos to the west where the sun was busy setting. What would Saturday morning bring?The extent of the problem became apparent when we got up. It was clear the nobody was going anywhere.Or, if they were, it was on foot. I walked out on Jackalope Road to take photos. Peggy took photos of my progress. The photo at the top was from my brief journey!While I was busy doing something else, I turned around and Peggy was trying to scrape the mud off my crocks. What a woman!There ia a solution to the mud stuck to your shoes challenge. Wear garbage bags. The mud doesn’t stick to them. Peggy held hers up with Bungee cords. I told her she was a fashion statement, ready for Vogue. A group walked in back of our camp. It was obvious that they weren’t wearing their garbage bags!As the day wore on, conditions did not improve. A few people ignored Burning Man’s no-travel restrictions and escaped Black Rock City. Most ended up stuck in the mud. What a surprise. It became apparent that the Man would not burn on its traditional Saturday night. There would be no great party out on the Playa. We resigned ourselves to hanging out at our trailer and reading some of the good books we were carrying. It was also important that we had a more than adequate supply of beer and wine.This large RV slid off of Jackalope Road, getting stuck and almost hitting cars parked beside the road.Street conditions had worsened considerably by Sunday morning, the traditional day when about half of the people leave Burning Man. BM Org still had a no-drive rule in effect, however. It was a rule that more and more people were choosing to ignore.We watched a pickup slide up the road. At first I was irritated. On the other hand, BRC radio was predicting more rain, which would mean more mud, which would mean more delays. Maybe we would get out on Monday, maybe we wouldn’t. We had a slight window of opportunity on Sunday Morning, however. Would we take it? Should we go or not? Since Animalia was the Burning Man theme for the year, the stress brought out the werewolf in me…I felt like I was in the middle of a 40s era black and white horror film. It was a hair raising, nail biting situation.To relieve our stress, Peggy and I decided to walk down to the port-a-potties, 2 1/2 blocks away on 5:30. The path the people followed had been walked over enough times that garbage bag shoes weren’t required. Maybe the road the escapees were taking would be similar. But 5:30 did not look promising. How would you like to be in the RV coming up the road with thoughts of getting through this mess. The green building on the right are the port-a-pots. Looking down the road, the Man stands out on the Playa, undoubtably laughing.The port-a-potties were not pretty. I took a photo of the mud covered floor. Actually, it was quite nice compared to the toilet itself. The sewer trucks could not run and the toilet was close to the, um, full. Unfortunately, our trailer’s tank was getting there as well. Hanging around much longer was looking worse and worse. I distracted myself while doing my thing by reading the comics that some Burner had posted on the door.And another… which I felt was somewhat appropriate for for the situation.Walking back, we noticed a skeleton about to grab unsuspecting Burners.” It’s time to get out of here, Peggy.” I exclaimed. A Burning Man official was directing what traffic that was choosing to leave. I stopped to chat. “If you have four wheel drive, you should be able to make it,” he told me. Not only did my F-150 come with 4-wheel drive, it came with special gears to handle deep mud and ruts. When we got back to the trailer, Black Rock radio was reporting there might be severe thunderstorms later in the morning with high winds and heavy showers. We were packed and out of there in 20 minutes. Just as we left, a large RV jack-knifed across the intersection of 5:30 and Jackalope. I took off cross country to the next street over.This is a different RV that had got stuck in the mud while trying to escape. Imagine the cost of getting a tow truck to haul it out.
I’m sorry we don’t have more photos of our journey back to the paved road but we were a bit otherwise occupied. Slipping and sliding, we crossed over several mud holes and two streams and made it out in just over 30 minutes, which beat my previous record by almost an hour.
As of today, some 64,000 people were still at Black Rock City and I am pleased to report that the weather is behaving itself. At 1:00 PM, Burning Man told everyone that the road was open. I suspect that it is a slow journey out. Many have even chosen to stay. BM has said the Man will burn tonight and I expect the sewer trucks are out in full force.
We truly enjoyed our trip to Burning Man, even the weather. It was an adventure! And the art was great, which will be the subject of our next several posts.
The massive carving of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln on Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota.
Like many public projects, Mt. Rushmore was conceived as a way to encourage tourism. The project was thought up by Doane Robinson of the South Dakota Historical Society in the early 1920s. Peter Norbeck, who was serving as South Dakota’s Senator at the time, gained Washington approval and funding for the concept. Robinson then proceeded to hire the sculpture Gutzon Borglum to implement the vision. It was Borglum who selected the specific location, chose the four presidents to be featured, designed the sculpture, and oversaw the work, i.e. just about everything.
Given George Washington’s role in the Revolutionary War and as the first president of the nation, he was a natural for inclusion.As was Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves and saved the union. Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president of the US, but Borglum chose him because he nearly doubled the size of the country with the Louisiana Purchase, which by the way, also included South Dakota. Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican known for his strong foreign policy overseas and his progressive reforms at home. The latter included the control of powerful corporations, protection of consumers, and pro-conservation efforts— all worthwhile efforts, even more important today than they were then.
As might be expected, an incredible amount of work was involved in creating the massive sculptures shown above. Started in 1927, the work took 14 years to complete. Over 400 tons of rock were removed— around 90% by carefully placed dynamite charges and the rest by jack hammers and facing bits. The latter designed to smooth the rock. Over 400 workers were recruited to do the work, among them local miners, lumbermen and ranchers. Going to work involved first climbing 700 steps to the top of the mountain. Workers weren’t paid for the climb. The carvers would then be lowered by rope to do the job.
This illustration from the Visitors’ Center provides details on the size of the sculptures. It doesn’t capture the size nearly as well as another photo in the Visitors Center, however… A nostril-sized carver works on what I think is Roosevelt’s nose. (Photo from Visitor Center at Mt. Rushmore.)This early photo, also on display at the Visitors Center, shows Mt. Rushmore before carving commenced. The bottom to top crack on the left marks the beginning; the knobs on the right mark the ending.This photo will provide perspective by moving back and forth between the two photos. Originally, Borglum had plan to carve Jefferson on the right of Washington but poor quality rock led him to blast off the work that had been done and put Washington first. A trail leads down to Borglum’s studio from the main visitor area and displays the models of the sculpture he worked from. Note Lincoln’s hand. The original plan had been to represent the top half of the president’s bodies. Problems with the lower rock base and funding led to only the presidents’ heads being carved.The view from Borglum’s workshop provided him with a clear view of the work in progress. Another trail from the workshop brings you closer to the presidents and provides a different perspective.This was our first view of the monument when we drove in from state highway 385 on highway 144.A close up of George.In conclusion: With over two million visitors a year, Mt. Rushmore is one of America’s best loved national monuments. South Dakota has more than succeeded in creating the tourist attraction it first dreamed of.
Next post: It’s back to Egypt with a focus on Memphis, a giant statue of Ramses II, and a look at one of the first pyramids created.
Today Peggy and I are continuing to post about the trip we took up the Rhine River last summer to celebrate Peggy’s 72 birthday. All photos are taken by either Peggy or me unless otherwise noted.
The town of Boppard, Germany, located along the Rhine River is both picturesque and historical. The coach with its horn blowing, top hat driver is what caught our attention here.
Whenever our riverboat stopped at towns and cities along the Rhine, Peggy and I would go exploring if we had the time. Wandering on our own, traveling at our own pace, and making detours whenever something captures our attention is our favorite way to travel. We also feel that it is also the best way to experience an area. This is true whether we are hiking in the wilderness, exploring a small town, or visiting a large city. We found Boppard, Germany to be an ideal walking town. It was picturesque, historic, and easy to explore in the limited time we had.
Its roots date all the way back to Celtic times. It became a Roman fort during the time of Julius Caesar. Bouncing back and forth between the various powers that occupied the region since, it thrived during the Middle Ages and has maintained its medieval charm down to today where it is noted for both its wine and tourism.
An excellent example of late Romanesque architecture, the church of St. Servus was built on the site of an early Christian church, which in turn was built on the site of Roman military baths.The spires of St. Severus Church help define Boppard’s skyline. I don’t know who the figure perched in the air and looking a bit like the Statue of Liberty is supposed to be.The Carmelite Church in Boppard is also an impressive structure. Most of the buildings in Boppard have their own personalities. This is the Villa Belgrano.This is another example of a colorful, historical building that we saw on our walk. I read that it was built in 1509.Even though these buildings are more modern and looked somewhat similar, they were each painted a different pastel color.Numerous trees added to the beauty of the town.We really liked the contrast here between the white and green.This metal plaque of harvesting grapes reminded us that we were in one of the Rhine’s prime wine-growing regions.A minimally dressed, pair of colorful sculptures seemed to be checking out the tourists. The mosaic added even more color.I was attracted to this hairy-nosed boar with an attitude.A lone motorcycle came buzzing down the street and caused us to look up from window shopping. I snapped a picture of an object in the window…It seemed appropriate.
Farther up the Rhine we came to Speyer and its massive cathedral. The Speyer Cathedral was built in 1030 and added to in 1077. It is considered to be an outstanding example of Romanesque architecture. Eight kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were buried in its vault over a period of 300 years. They’re still there.
Peggy and I wandered around outside admiring the church and snapping photos.A side view of the cathedral. A worker provides perspective.Looking at the front of the church. A winged lion, winged horse, winged eagle, and winged person, i.e. angel, surround the stained glass window and Jesus.A pair of massive doors awaited us at the entry.An owl seemed to be guarding the entrance.Or maybe it was watching the pair of long-eared, amorous squirrels on the opposite wall. “Come on sweetie, give me your nut.” “Get your own, Bozo.” The owl was probably thinking dinner. After a thousand years, I imagine it was hungry. A view inside Speyer Cathedral.As we were leaving for our boat, I spotted a metallic, crowing rooster up on the roof. I wondered if it was a lighting rod. That would be something to crow home about. Cock-a-doodle-ZAP. I once knew a rooster that I would have liked to zap with lightning. He made a habit of crowing under my window at 5 a.m. when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa. Instead, I threw a bucket of water on his head. Cock-a-doodle-SQUAWK! After that he would crow under my window and run like hell.
Next Monday we will be visiting Grand Teton National Park and one of the world’s most beautiful mountain ranges.
Peggy and I just returned from our visit to Egypt and trip up the Nile River. Wow! What an incredible experience. We are excited to share it with you. I’m now putting together an introductory blog which I will post later this week. Several more posts will follow as I go to work on sorting though our experiences and some 3000 plus photos. Grin. My apologies for my absence the last three weeks. We had really thought there would be time for reading and commenting on posts. Ha.
It’s only right that I start this post featuring Peggy photographing Old Faithful. She worked at a restaurant in Yellowstone in the summer of 1969 as a college student. Its large picture windows opened out on Old Faithful, meaning that she got to see it erupt several times a day.The family dining room that Peggy worked at has now become a cafeteria, but it’s large picture windows still give diners a great view of Old Faithful erupting.
Erupting geysers are one of Yellowstones best known features. In fact, half of the world’s active geysers are located in the National Park. Peggy and I photographed lots of them when we visited last fall on our four month trip around the US.
Have a few geysers and fumaroles! Including the small ones, I counted over 30 in this photo.
The reason behind Yellowstones record breaking number of geysers is that much of the park is located in a giant caldera, a collapsed volcano. Semi-molten rock exists in some areas as close as 2-5 miles below the surface. This extremely hot rock heats ground water flowing near it and creates Yellowstone’s hydro-thermal features including geysers, hot springs, fumaroles and mud pots. We featured hot springs two weeks ago. Today is the geysers’ turn. They erupt when the super hot boiling water creates pressure in channels leading to the surface that erupts as steam out of a vent. As the pressure is released the geyser subsides until the process is repeated. They come in all sizes. The most famous is Old Faithful, given its name due to the regularity of its eruptions.
Peggy and I arrived just as Old Faithful was beginning to erupt. She jumped out of our truck and began snapping photos.I was a bit farther away. Can you imagine how many photos of Old Faithful have been taken? They have to be in the hundreds of millions if not billions. In other words, we aren’t the first. Grin.As the pressure inside the vent subsided, Old Faithful lost its steam, so to speak.As I mentioned in the beginning, the geysers come in all sizes. From this little fellow…To larger…We had a sense of ‘dancing water.’Each geyser had its own personality.These geysers combined to be tall and skinny.I conclude today with this pair of more hefty twin geysers. Next up, Peggy and I will return to Heidelberg, variety being the spice of life. 🙂
The book cases are gone, as are the books, and almost everything else. Packed up and shipped east or given away. The house feels lonely now, but soon it will be occupied by someone who is excited to have a home in the woods. The sale is pending!
My blogging friends Linda and Karen from Texas called yesterday and wanted to know where in the world were we. It was special for them to check up on us. They caught us between Death Valley and Las Vegas.
Peggy and I hadn’t dropped into a black hole and simply disappeared from WordPress as people sometimes do. We had forgotten how much work goes into moving and selling a house. It’s number three on the top-five list of stress producers— right after the death of a loved one or divorce, and before having a major illness or losing a job! There was no time for blogging during the day, and by night, I had reached zombie status. Sitting and vegging were about all I could muster. I had gone beyond couch potato; I was a couch turnip.
Anyway, long story short, two weeks ago, Peggy and I made a final walk around our house, hooked up Serafina, the trailer, to Iorek, the truck, and drove up our road, honking as we had promised our neighbors we would in a final farewell. Beep, Beep, Beep-Beep, BEEP—BEEP.
Peggy and I took a final walk around our house and said goodbye to the Red Buttes, the Oregon pioneer rose, Peggy’s garden, the deer and so many other things that we had taken joy in.
Saying goodbye wasn’t easy. We had lived in our little home in the woods for 11 years— longer than either of us had ever lived anywhere since heading off to college. We had come to love the five acres we were responsible for with its irrepressible wildlife and even gotten used to the deer pressing their noses up against our windows to see what we were doing inside. Or leaving their babies sleeping on our porch as the moms went off to browse. That speaks to how much the deer trusted us. It gave a whole new meaning to baby-sitting. Then there were the squirrels and foxes and bob cats and cougars and bears. Oh my! Bald eagles flew up and down the canyon and soared into the air where they were joined by osprey and hawks. Numerous other birds lived on our property or stopped by on their way elsewhere. Watching them gather at our bird feeder and determine who was boss provided endless entertainment. Having a national forest in our backyard and a river in the front yard wasn’t half-bad either. Nor were the views of the Siskiyou mountains, a scant ten miles away with their snow-covered peaks and incredible sunsets.
Last, but certainly not least, Peggy and I had great neighbors. They were a diverse group that came from widely different backgrounds but genuinely liked each other, almost a miracle in this age of irreconcilable differences. On Friday we had them all over for a going away potlatch party, which, in case you don’t know, was a tradition of the Northwestern American natives where the chief would call everyone together and give away most of what he owned at an opulent feast.
Our potlatch didn’t quite qualify. For one, we weren’t chiefs; for two, our opulent feast was a beer, wine, booze and pizza party. Papa Murphy’s did the honors on pizza and we cleaned out our liquor cabinet for the beer, wine, and more serious alcohol, like 98 proof rum and Tom’s Blackberry Surprise. The surprise was the amount of vodka he added to juice from the five-gallons of blackberrys we had picked last summer. Drink a little and it tastes good; drink enough and it is the best concoction you had ever downed. There was plenty of alcohol to make everyone happy. An opulent feast wasn’t necessary and the pizza was scarfed down.
And finally, we didn’t give everything away. Hardly. We’d already sent a 16’ x 8’ packed moving pod off to our daughter’s home in Virginia with our treasures— mainly books, book cases, a buffet, art, a couple of comfy chairs and some heirlooms. We had also made numerous trips to Goodwill and the dump. And, while we had shipped 30 boxes of books to Virginia, we had also given 15 to Friends of the Ruch Library to sell to benefit the library. Peggy had been the president of FORL for six years. To top it off, Serafina and Iorek were loaded to the gills with everything we might need for the road— Plus. Peggy kept stuffing things into Serafina or showing up with bins for me to find room for in Iorek. Even with all of that, none of our neighbors went home empty handed. There were still couches and beds and chairs, and kitchen supplies, and lamps, and food, and sporting equipment and left over alcohol. There was even a 24 roll pack of TP from Costco. That would have brought a fortune at the beginning of the pandemic. People would have killed for it. We could hardly give it away.
As tough as saying goodbye was, Peggy and I were more than ready for our new life of full-timing. After all, the name of this blog is Wandering Through Time and Place!
With two weeks on the road behind us, we are almost human again. What we did, actually, was drive down to Reno where we camped out for a week while we relaxed and reacquainted ourselves with life on the road and our new trailer. And then we drove on to Death Valley, getting there four days before they closed the campgrounds for the season. A blog is coming.
A teaser from my next blog. This was taken along the 20 Mule Canyon Road. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
We’ve now moved on to Las Vegas and are getting ready for our next National Park, Zion Canyon. We have four travelling companions along: Bone and Eeyore of course. They’ve travelled with us for over a quarter of a million miles. This time, however, they have been joined by Goofy and Iorek’s avatar. Goofy has been hanging out with me since the 70’s when a friend learned that one of my in-law relatives had been responsible for the creation of Goofy and, I might add, Bozo the Clown. I identified more closely with Goofy. Yuk, yuk. Iorek’s avatar was sent to us by Chrystal Trulove, one of our close blogging friends, as a Christmas Tree ornament. He told us that he would much prefer to be on the road with us than be packed away in a moving pod.
Goofy is patting Bone on the head. Bone is dressed to travel in his quilt. Usually, he runs around naked. Iorek, who is new to our menagerie, peaks out from under Eeyore’s ear.And finally, me, happily settled into Serafina, the trailer, and back at blogging. Our Murphy bed morphs into a comfy couch, only a part of our Africa quilt is showing! (Photo by Peggy.)
Quivera, looking beautiful, was suspicious about about all of the effort we were putting into her— as she should have been. But she has found a great new home in Ashland, Oregon and will be well loved.
I’ve been a fan of Jimmy Buffet’s ever since I went to see him and his band, The Coral Reefer’s, at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe in the early 1980s. As I recall, we even had a ‘reefer’ (or three) in preparation for the concert. By we, I mean Tom Lovering, his Aussie buddy, Trevor, and me. It was a guy’s night out. Cheese Burger in Paradise and Son of a Son of a Sailor are still floating around in my mind. As is Margaritaville.
I’ve been thinking about another one of his songs from that era, Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude, over the past three months I’ve been taking a break from blogging. These lyrics in particular struck a chord:
Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder, So I can’t look back for too long. There’s just too much to see waiting in front of me, and I know that I just can’t go wrong with these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes…
I could hardly blame you for thinking, “At 78, there is a lot more over Curt’s shoulder than there is waiting in front of him.” But Peggy and I don’t view things that way. Life is an adventure to be lived— one day at a time— for as long as you can. So, when Peggy casually mentioned to me a few weeks ago that she was ready to wander again, I was right there with her. We did that in 1999/2000, taking a year off from work to travel extensively in North America for a year. And we did it again in 2008 when Peggy retired. That time it was for three years.
There is something incredibly freeing about life on the road, as many of you who read this blog know from your own travels. Each day brings something new to see, to experience and to learn. Everyday life and concerns fade into the background. While we have travelled using just about every mode of transportation possible over the years (minus the four-legged type), our North American road trips were accomplished in two different Pleasure Way vans, Xanadu and Quivera.
Our goal this time will be to do a more thorough job of exploring North America than we have in the past— traveling relatively short distances to the next interesting/beautiful location, settling in for 1-3 weeks, and exploring the surrounding country. It will require a slightly different approach. We are buying a small trailer and have already bought a new pickup to pull it. The trailer will serve as our base. The pickup will serve as our exploration vehicle. It even comes with 4-wheel drive and off-road capacity! The trailer is designed for either living in campgrounds with hookups or boondocking (living off the grid) with solar power.
Peggy is standing in front of our new F 150 which we bought to pull the trailer. It’s big! And even designed to help back up the trailer.
As for our schedule, we have yet to decide how long we will be on the road each outing before we return to our home base. Neither have we decided where each trip will take us but we are thinking warmer when it is cold up north and cooler when it is hot down south. Both Canada and Mexico will be included in our plans depending on conditions. Our goal will also be to avoid some of the worst problems associated with global warming. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted as our plans develop. And, of course, you will be invited to travel with us as I blog along the way.
Our new Grand Design Imagine 17-MKE trailer is only 22′ long but it is beautifully laid out and equipped. A Murphy bed (on the end) will give us extra space during the day. This photo is from Grand Design’s website since our Imagine is still on order.
Tom Lovering on his ski boat in the Sacramento Delta. In addition to the ski boat,Tom also owns a fishing boat, a sail boat and miscellaneous kayaks and rafts. His love of water matches my love of the mountains and wilderness.
Tom wanders in and out of these posts frequently. I first met him in 1974 when I walked into Alpine West, his outdoor gear and clothing store in Sacramento. I was planning my first 100 mile Sierra Backpack Trek as a fundraiser for the American Lung Association and was seeking a sponsor. After telling me that the trip was crazy and that people would come off the hike hating me and the ALA, he immediately offered to promote the event through his store. That’s Tom. We’ve been friends ever since and have had numerous adventures together that have included backpacking, boating and Burning Man, among others. He was with me when I found Bone on a backpacking trip in 1978. In the photo below, Tom has Bone woven into his hair on an 18 day raft trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon he led in 2010 that included Peggy, me, and other friends.
Tom shares a hairy moment with Bone. Some drinking may have been involved… Kudos to his hair stylist.
Here, Tom good-naturedly poses with sideshow art that was featured one year when Burning Man had a circus theme.
Three years ago, he and his friend Lita were deglazing a pot that they had used for cooking blackberry jam. Tom threw in a dollop of vodka to make the job easier. Naturally he couldn’t waste the vodka. Much to his delight, the sugar-enhanced blackberries combined with a generous helping of vodka went well together. A new drink was born: Blackberry Surprise! Over the next couple of years, he and Lita made pilgrimages to the Fort Bragg area on California’s Pacific Coast each summer to pick blackberries to mix with vodka as he refined his recipe.
I told him that lots of blackberries grow where we live and invited the two of them up to join Peggy and me in making Blackberry Surprise. To seal the deal, we sent him a photo of plump blackberries a week and a half ago.
The bait. Himalayan blackberries (Rubus armeniacus) are actually easy to find almost anywhere on the West Coast. Originally from Armenia, the plant has wonderfully large, sweet and juicy fruit. It is also incredibly invasive. Our canyon is filled with the plant and I do my best to keep it there. I will say it provides great cover for birds and wildlife.
Tom called immediately. “We’ll be up tomorrow,” he told me. I hadn’t expected the photo to elicit such a fast response.
“Um, Tom,” I replied, “we are having dinner out with our friends Don and Nan.”
“What time will you get home,” he asked. “Eight-ish” I replied. “Great, we’ll see you then.” I could hear Lita in the background suggesting you don’t call someone and show up the next day. Ha. Tom and Lita drove up the 320 miles from Sacramento in their Pleasureway van and were waiting at our house when we got back from dinner.
Tom immediately broke out a battery operated blender with the power of a professional Vitamix that he had invented and whipped us up a generous helping of Blackberry Surprise. We all went to bed happy.
Lita with Peggy in the back of the ski boat on the Sacramento River. The two bonded immediately. I suspect it may have had something to do with their discussion of their choice in men. When Tom and Lita first started dating, her grown daughters immediately jumped online to see what they could learn about him. The first photo they found was the one featured above with Bone in his hair that I had taken and posted on a blog. I would have loved to have heard their conversation. I imagine it went something like this: “OMG, Mother, what have you gotten yourself into!”
The rest of the story is best told in photos. Here, Tom and I are working our way though a patch that had particularly large berries. Many we found were on the smallish side due to the drought.Tom had bulled his way to the top using a ladder to break through the thorny challenge. Peggy, Lita and I worked our way around the edges. (The photos of us picking were taken by Peggy Mekemson and Lita Campbell on their smart phones.)
I reach through the berries for a particularly plump one. My shirt provided a degree of protection.
Peggy and I share a moment. Altogether, the four of us gathered some nine gallons of blackberries working over two mornings. Then the real work started.
Creating the Blackberry Surprise involved several steps. First up was gently boiling the blackberries to separate the fruit from the seeds. Next up, we strained the concoction. I then used our blender to further separate the left overs, using a portion of the vodka to add more liquid. We then strained that. Tom added sugar and once again heated the blackberries. We then added more vodka and bottled the final project. (Tom wanted to strain everything one final time but we restrained him instead, so to speak.)
The next morning we reenacted part of the process for a photo op. “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble.” Tom chanted as he stirred away.
Tom demonstrates the importance of sampling the product frequently as it is made. “Ah, just the right amount of vodka,” he declared.
But then he warned of the danger of too much sampling…
A final photo of our booty. Altogether we made some 14 gallons of Blackberry Surprise. (All of the bottles minus the five gallon jug had been filled with vodka when Tom arrived.) I kept approximately a gallon of Tom’s elixir and sent the rest home with him.
Tom took this photo of Lita, Peggy and I as he and Lita prepared to leave for Sacramento with their Blackberry Surprise.
NOTE: This is one of the occasional blogs I am posting this summer as I take a break.
It’s hard to imagine that this innocent looking young fellow petting a donkey could be part of the infamous Mekemson Gang. BTW, note the stacks of lumber drying at Caldor Lumber Company. One of our sports was climbing to the top of the stacks and leaping between them. Woohoo!
While the Pond and the Woods provided an innocent and often educational escape for me, much of my outdoor time was spent getting into mischief, especially in my younger years when I roamed around Diamond and the surrounding countryside with my brother and our friends. What I remember most about these great adventures was that we were skating on the thin edge of trouble.
Gradually, we developed a reputation. I am convinced that a whole generation of little kids in Diamond blamed their misbehavior on us. “I didn’t do it Mama, the Mekemson kids did.” And Mama probably believed them. The mother of my life-long friend, Bob Bray, did. She refused to let him play with me. I was a bad influence, guaranteed to lead her son straight into the arms of the law.
Most of our mischief was relatively harmless. For example, Jimmy Pagonni lived across the street and had a zero-tolerance policy for us. We lusted after his cherries. He transformed them into wine and every drop was precious. He turned his dogs loose on us if we came anywhere near his orchard. Naturally his insistence on keeping us out only guaranteed our presence. Raids were carefully planned.
We would invite two or three friends over and make a party out of it. The cover was sleeping out in the backyard, but sleep was secondary. Somewhere around one o’clock in the morning we would slip out of our yard, cross a very lonely Highway 49, climb over Jimmy’s rickety gate, and disappear up into the trees. It was all very hush-hush and cherries have never tasted more delicious. We would stuff our stomachs and then fill up bags for take-out. It was pure greed.
Jimmy’s dogs never caught us before we were able to scramble over the gate but they did catch my cocker spaniel, Tickle, once, and almost killed him. Tickle had been out on the town visiting a lady friend and took a shortcut across Pagonni’s property. We were infuriated. Marshall retaliated by shooting Jimmy’s bull in the balls with a BB gun. (If not fair to the bull, it was at least alliteration.) Jimmy never knew Marshall committed the heinous act but I am sure he had his suspicions.
Marshall, Tickle, another family pet and I sitting on our goat shed. I was in charge of the goats.
Even more serious, an older Marshall (eighth grade I think) stole a jug of Jimmy’s wine. He stored the fermented cherry juice in an old Gold Rush era building that may have served as a jail in its youth. It was located right in the middle of his well-guarded cherry orchard and featured a stout locked door and one barred window. I am sure Jimmy considered it impregnable but he failed to consider just how skinny my brother was. With help from his friend Art, Marshall managed to slip through the bars one night and pinch a gallon of Italian Red.
He and Art then headed for our treehouse in the Graveyard to do some serious imbibing. Considering that a gallon of Jimmy’s Italian Red would have knocked out two grown men, it almost killed Marshall, not to mention encouraging strange behavior. He described how Mrs. Ross, my 4th and 5th grade teacher, came upon Art and him madly peddling their bikes. This wouldn’t have been strange except they were lying on their backs holding the bikes above them in the air!
I remember him slipping in the back door and trying to get to our bedroom before Mother and Pop noticed. It didn’t work. In addition to stumbling and mumbling and heaving, he smelled like a three-week gutter drunk. He was one sick kid. Both parents hurried to the bedroom out of concern and I moved back outside to sleep in the cool, but fresh fall air. It was one of those crimes that incorporates its own punishment.
The question in next Monday’s post from my blogged book It’s 4 AM and a Bear Is Standing on Top of Me, is who shot Pavy’s pig? The sheriff wanted to know.
WEDNESDAY’S POST from my Peace Corps Memoirs: As I came close to graduating from Berkeley, I had a choice of how to serve my country: Either join the Peace Corps or be shipped out to fight in a Southeast Asian War.
FRIDAY’S TRAVEL BLOG: We are going for a walk in the woods— on a trail I built. There are wild flowers to admire, a gold mining operation from the 20s and 30s that suggests that there may be gold under our house, poison oak, and a buck doing strange things.
One of my greatest thrills as a boy exploring the woods near our home was watching a doe with her recently born fawn. I am still thrilled when does bring their babies by our home. This photo was from last year. We are expecting new fawns soon. There is a pregnant doe a few feet away from where I am writing right now. At least three others are scattered around our property.
I just fed mom an apple for Mother’s Day.
In my last blog-a-book post from my outdoor adventure book, It’s 4 AM and a Bear Is Standing on Top of Me, I wrote about the Pond, which was a major influence in my childhood leading me to a lifelong love of the outdoors and wilderness. Today, I will introduce another one, the Woods.
The Woods also earned a capital letter. To get there you walked out the back door, down the alley past the Graveyard and through a pasture Jimmy Pagonni rented for his cattle. Tackling the pasture involved crawling through a rusty barbed wire fence, avoiding fresh cow pies, climbing a hill and jumping an irrigation ditch. The journey was fraught with danger. Hungry barbed wire consumed several of my shirts and occasionally went for my back.
Torn clothing and bleeding scratches were a minor irritation in comparison to stepping in fresh cow poop though. A thousand-pound, grass-eating machine produces acres of the stuff. Deep piles sneak up your foot and slosh over into your shoes. Toes hate this. Even more treacherous are the little piles that hide out in the grass. A well-placed patty can send you sliding faster than black ice. The real danger here is ending up with your butt in the pile. I did that, once. Happily, no one was around to witness my misfortune, or hear my language, except Tickle the dog. I swore him to secrecy.
You do not want to step in this. No, no, no. I took this photo on our recent Cow Walk at Pt. Reyes and got ‘the look’ from Peggy. Think of it as cow art, a Jackson Pollock type of painting, abstract expressionism at its best. Grin.
For all of its hazards, the total hike to the Woods took about 15 minutes. Digger pines with drunken windmill limbs guarded the borders while gnarly manzanita and spiked chaparral dared the casual visitor to venture off the trail. Poison oak proved more subtle but effective in discouraging exploration.
I could count on raucous California jays to announce my presence, especially if I was stalking a band of notorious outlaws. Ground squirrels were also quick to whistle their displeasure. Less talkative jackrabbits merely ambled off upon spotting me, put on a little speed for a hyper Cocker, and became bounding blurs in the presence of a hungry greyhound. Flickers, California quail and acorn woodpeckers held discussions in distinctive voices I soon learned to recognize.
From the beginning, I felt at home in the Woods, like I belonged. I quickly learned that its hidden recesses contained a multitude of secrets. I was eager to learn what they had to teach me, but the process seemed glacial. It required patience and I hardly knew how to spell the word. I did know how to sit quietly, however. This was a skill I had picked up from the hours I spent with my nose buried in books. The woodland creatures prefer their people noisy. A Curt stomping down the trail, snapping dead twigs, and talking to himself was easy to avoid while a Curt being quiet might surprise them.
One gray squirrel was particularly loud in his objections. He lived in the top branches of a digger pine beside the trail and maintained an observation post on an overhanging limb. When he heard me coming, he would adopt his ‘you can’t see me gray squirrel playing statue pose.’ But I knew where to look. I would find a comfortable seat and stare at him. It drove him crazy. Soon he would start to thump the limb madly with his foot and chirr loudly. He had pine nuts to gather, a stick home to remodel, and a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed lady to woo. I was blocking progress. Eventually, if I didn’t move, his irritation would bring him scrambling down the trunk for a much more up-close and personal scolding.
After about 15 minutes of continuous haranguing, he’d decide I was a harmless, if obnoxious aberration and go about his business. That’s when I begin to learn valuable secrets, like where he hid his pine nuts. It was also a sign for the rest of the wildlife to come out of hiding. A western fence lizard might work its way to the top of the dead log next to me and start doing push-ups. Why, I couldn’t imagine. Or perhaps a thrush would begin to scratch up the leaves under the manzanita in search of creepy tidbits. The first time I heard one, it sounded like a very large animal interested in little boy flesh. Occasionally there were special treats: A band of teenage gray squirrels playing tag and demonstrating their incredible acrobatics; a doe leading its shy, speckled fawn out to drink in the small stream that graced the Wood’s meadow; and a coyote sneaking up on a ground squirrel hole with an intensity I could almost feel.
I also began to play at stalking animals. Sometime during the time period between childhood and becoming a teenager, I read James Fennimore Cooper and began to think I was a reincarnation of Natty Bumppo. Looking back, I can’t say I was particularly skilled, but no one could have told me so at the time. At least I learned to avoid dry twigs, walk slowly, and stop frequently. Occasionally, I even managed to sneak up on some unsuspecting woodland creature.
If the birds and the animals weren’t present, they left signs for me. There was always the helter-skelter pack rat nest to explore. Tickle liked to tear them apart, quickly sending twigs flying in all directions. There were also numerous tracks to figure out. Was it a dog or coyote that had stopped for a drink out of the stream the night before? Tickle knew instantly, but I had to piece it together. A sinuous trail left by a slithery serpent was guaranteed to catch my attention. This was rattlesnake country. Who’d been eating whom or what was another question? The dismantled pinecone was easy to figure out but who considered the bark on a young white fir a delicacy? And what about the quail feathers scattered haphazardly beside the trail?
Scat, I learned, was the tracker’s word for shit. It offered a multitude of clues for what animals had been ambling down the trail and what they had been eating. There were deer droppings and rabbit droppings and mouse droppings descending in size. Coyotes and foxes left their distinctive dog-like scat but the presence of fur and berries suggested that something other than dog food had been on the menu. Some scat was particularly fascinating, at least to me. Burped up owl pellets provided a treasure chest of bones— little feet, little legs and little skulls that grinned back with the vacant stare of slow mice.
While Tarzan hung out in the Graveyard and pirates infested the Pond, mountain men, cowboys, Indians, Robin Hood and various bad guys roamed the Woods. Each bush hid a potential enemy that I would indubitably vanquish. I had the fastest two fingers in the West and I could split a pine nut with an imaginary arrow at 50 yards. I never lost. How could I? It was my fantasy. But daydreams were only a part of the picture. I fell in love with wandering in the Woods and playing on the Pond. There was an encyclopedia of knowledge available and a multitude of lessons about life. Learning wasn’t a conscious effort, though; it was more like absorption. The world shifted for me when I entered the Woods and time slowed down. A spider with an egg sack was worth ten minutes, a gopher pushing dirt out of its hole an hour, and a deer with a fawn a lifetime.
NEXT MONDAY’S POST: Not surprisingly, my classmates start calling me Nature Boy. It was a title I wore proudly.
My friend and blogging buddy, Crystal Trulove at Conscious Engagement posted this blog today that feature a quilt made by her daughter and friend and a dragon quilt made by Peggy specifically for Crystal. Quilting helped lots of folks get through the pandemic. Scroll down to see a pair of beautiful quilts made in two, very different ways.
This post also speaks to the close friendships that are developed through blogging. Crystal came down from her home north of Portland, Oregon and stayed with us while we all enjoyed the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. She also carried Bone back with her to meet her Cherokee Tribe in Oklahoma. And she has been working with our son Tony in defining what medical benefits he is eligible for from injuries received while serving as a Marine and Coast Guard pilot, a specialty of hers.. –Curt
Over the Garden Wall-themed. Each fabric is carefully chosen, including the fabrics that had to have frogs and bluebirds, pumpkins, and teakettles.
Today’s post is about two quilts. Maybe three if you count the amazing quilting on BOTH sides of one of them. Ok, we’ll make that 2 1/2 quilts.
The end of March, my kiddo Tara, and their partner, Brynnen, came to visit for a real visit. This time no masks and we were indoors together and even hugged. It was blissful. Tara wanted to see me, but also wanted to work on a quilt. This is a new kind of project for T. Their very first quilt ever is not quite done, but will be finished soon because Tara was picking up some fabric for that quilt that I had at my house. In the meantime, they had started this new quilt. So the one you see here…
Wandering through Time and Place 