Sign proclaiming the
loneliest road

Just a few days of warm weather causes us to miss the cold – just a little. About the drive on the Loneliest Road. (Map this!)

After waiting six weeks for the car to be done we were hoping for a nice relaxing drive home. Hah! We just happened to pick the worst storm of the season to drive to San Francisco. After dumping nine feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada it moved straight towards us. Luckily we skirted around it but outside Idaho Falls we hit the slipperiest spot on the trip. Going 50mph was fine until I wanted to pull over to take a photo – the FJ scooted forward like a hockey puck upon the most minimal braking.

First Greenery in weeks – Sand Mountain

The storm provided us with an excuse to take “The Loneliest Road in America”, a somewhat gimmicky moniker for Route 50 going through Nevada. In the 1980’s a guide book disparaged this section of highway and gave it this title in a pejorative sense, but the locals have turned it into a marketing tool to entice travelers to drive through. There is a small industry that sells pins, stickers, and other trinkets saying things like “I survived the loneliest road”, and such.

In a state where glitzy casinos are the main draw the Loneliest Road is a pleasant tongue-in-cheek diversion. The towns are spaced about an hour apart, hardly what one would call a remote area. There are also eleven(!) mountain passes, some that rise to almost 8,000 feet and others that are a mere 4,000 foot bump. The road conditions were excellent through out and did not have much traffic, certainly better than contending with the trucks on the interstate.

All this already seems remote, as I write this in Baja California. Sitting on the beach with multi-colored drinks provides ample opportunity to reflect on our travels through cold weather with nostalgia.

Vista from Jackson Hole Ski Resort

Jackson becomes a second home for us, with new friends and adventures. (Map this!)

When friends buy us dinner or take us out to the movies I gladly accept their generosity since I know that sooner or later I will return the favour because friendship is a long term relationship and over the course of a friendship such things even out eventually. But the kindness of strangers is another matter altogether and is surprisingly difficult to accept.

Our cottage on a snowy day (which is often!)

To accept help from someone one has to admit that they are in need and given my strong independent streak I have a lot of trouble admitting that I am in need. The Automotive Technology courses and the EMT training are an example of how we are moving towards greater and greater self-sufficiency so we are in a particularly independent mood.

But life has a way of teaching you lessons that you may not want to learn. Hitting that Elk has been a low point in this trip and we were in need of cheering up in the worst way. At this low point Dean Ecklin and his girlfriend Christy Ball stepped in with an incredible act of generosity and offered us the use of their wonderful property in Jackson for as long as we needed. Christy said, “You have to stop and make time to pickup gifts along the way”

Our backyard in Jackson

The beautiful surroundings and the warm hospitality has made our spirits soar. I do believe that when you need it the most our neighbors, friends, or complete strangers come forth with unexpected treasures. During our trip we will pay forward this generosity and make our fellow travelers smile, if only for the moment…

Contentment

Seeking a balance between the new and the old, exploring and keeping the comforts of everyday life.

We seek the new and the unfamiliar. A good friend of ours (A certain Mr. Fredrick Gault) once asked us why we wanted to start teleskiing when we were such good downhill skiers. And as we ski precariously balanced in the tele position, trying to stay away from inept skiers careening downhill on intermediate slopes, I ask myself the same thing.

It is the same reason why, with friends and an established, comfortable life in San Francisco, we are considering the move to another city. And why we put ourselves at a disadvantage among serious outdoor enthusiasts in the wilderness EMT class. We crave the excitement of doing something new and different and the satisfaction that results from having achieved it. These enterprises do not always result in success – my unsuccessful attempt at Aconcagua as an example – but when they do, we are enriched with new experiences. And sometimes whole new cultural worlds open up to us; learning Italian showed us entirely new aspects of food, wine, film, music, books. We could better appreciate Traviata and Turandot, Calvino and Buzzati, Fellini and Antonini.

And yet we will always need a multicultural city to live in – I cannot imagine myself living in the country for an extended period of time, beautiful as it is. We have all of our music with us, we see movies on a portable home theater setup, we seek out gourmet food and wine stores, we stay connected to friends and family over the internet. We take a little bit of our life with us.

We like to experience different cultures but enjoy the comfort of familiar activities. It is this balance of the strange and the familiar that ultimately makes us happy.

In Yellowstone National Park

A trip to Yellowstone is reminiscent of Canto thirteen of the Inferno. (Map this!)

This last trip to Yellowstone I couldn’t help but think of Canto thirteen, where Dante describes a walk through the wood of suicides. The souls of those who took their lives are entombed for eternity in knotty and deformed trees without leaves.

Non rami schietti, ma nodosi e involti

The stench of sulphur is omnipresent and walking on the ground can be dangerous. The heat can create boiling pools barely under the surface and a misstep can boil a person alive. Brian Barrett, our EMT instructor, describes these wounds as horrifying. The skin looks like candle wax, like chicken boiled in chicken soup. Maybe if we continue our little walk past the boardwalks and if we brave the steaming hot pools we will meet Pier delle Vigne?

Thermophiles love it hot but the trees not.

But today we find these springs beautiful and fascinating, sulfurous smell not withstanding. Would men from Dante’s age agree with us? What is beautiful changes from person to person, from age to age. I don’t think there is an authoritative example of a beautiful object but one that most of us agree on is beautiful. But the mob is fickle – what is beautiful today can become horrific tomorrow. We visit these thermal features and pronounce them breathtaking and if enough of us agree they do indeed become so.

Mammoth Hot Springs	Hot Spring Terraces

Outside the classroom Teton Science School

Classes at Kelly were hard work and no play – but the surroundings were beautiful. (Map this!)

We have been living in a monastery. Or that’s what it felt like. Get up at 5am. Study. Breakfast at 7am. Kitchen duty. Classes from 8am to 5pm. Study again till 6pm. Dinner; more study or practice sessions till 10pm. And over again. Weekends ER (Emergency Room) rotations or study. No Alcohol. Spartan accommodations in bunks. Keep your areas clean; no cycling on campus.

It wasn’t all nose to the grind; the actual classes were fun and interesting due to the talented teachers. And Shreesh and I were given a cabin to ourselves by the nice people at Teton Science School. We were in beautiful Grand Teton National Park, the Tetons a constant presence. They would peer bashfully at us through pink skies early in the morning as we lay in the snow pretending to have various broken bones, nasty hemorrhages or heart attacks for others to practice their EMT skills on us. Or they would be a majestic presence under blue skies as the instructors dunked the two youngest and fittest people in the ice cold river for others to rescue. They would be peering curiously at us in the moonlight during a mock rescue staged at night in freezing temperatures. And the elk, moose and buffalo were always around as we practiced backboarding each other in under seven minutes, gave oxygen to dummies or shocked them repeatedly for some sign of life.

The Grand Tetons	The Campus

There were, of course, the inevitable friendships and cliques, the cool people and the uncool, the “normal” and the mavericks. We missed a lot of that being on our own in the cabin but even with mostly nice people, the currents ran deep.

Did we have fun? Sometimes yes, but it was way too much hard work to really qualify as fun. Now that its over we are glad we did it; I feel so much more prepared to deal with medical situations when doctors aren’t readily available. In hindsight though, a Wilderness First Responder course would probably have sufficed.

Contemplative.

Death in the modern world is a pretty violent affair.

It is a given that as an EMT you will see some gruesome things. Things that most people won’t see or others in the medical profession will just shrug off as normal. I never expected to see someone die on my second day of ER rotations, but there it was.

The ER is a pretty strange place. One gets to see the result of making a lifetime of bad choices, of destroying the only home you have, your body. I am forty two years old and I have seen forty two year olds who look more like eighty – mainly due to drug and alcohol abuse. Parents, if you want your kids to be wary of that shit have them do a few hours in the ER!

He was only fifty seven years old, but looked like he was several decades older. When we came in he was alert and conscious but shortly thereafter he crashed bad. I think he told one of the nurses that he knew he was going to die. He picked a good place to be saved and within seconds he was surrounded by over eight medical professionals trying to help him, to no avail.

Death in the modern world is a pretty violent affair. After his heart stopped they started CPR and if I hadn’t known that they were trying to save him I would have thought that they were beating the crap out of him. In the midst of everyone he died alone, no one from his family or friends to see him off to the great beyond.

Man in a Yellow Jacket

FJ Cruiser vs. Elk. FJ wins but not unscathed.

We have been here in Kelly Wyoming leading a very scholastic life. Days begin with us getting up at four or four-thirty AM and end around ten PM with the entire time in between devoted to classes or studies. I have never been such a dedicated student in my life as I am these days. It has been like finals week, but now going on three weeks!

Grand Teton National Park, where we live, is full of wildlife. Buffalo roam by the hundreds, Elk by the thousands and there is a smattering of Moose, Coyote, and other animals. We made a rule at the beginning of this trip to never drive at night and have mostly adhered to it. But this weekend we had Emergency Room rotations so we had to make a trek out to Riverton, WY.

It happened on the way from Jackson at 18:55 on Friday. A huge bull Elk weighing over a thousand pounds awaited the FJ around the bend on Route 89. I took evasive action but I didn’t see him till the very last minute. The FJ struck him on a glancing blow on the driver’s side, flipping him over the roof and back down. The windshield was smashed and the A-pillar mostly held but might be compromised. The one inch tubular steel tubing of the GOBI rack was bent back and most of the PIAA lights were smashed.

Incredibly both Neena and I were completely unharmed. The local policeman was astonished that not only were we uninjured but that the FJ was drivable after the impact. This car is nothing short of amazing for we now owe it a large debt that we cannot repay. I hope that the damage to the A-pillar is superficial and the car is not totalled.

Luckily Toyota built the FJ really strong - enough to flip a 1,000 pound Elk and still drive.

I consider myself to be the most fortunate man alive, to be able to continue having experiences, to enjoy the company of my wife, and to have such caring friends. Our fellow students Christine (Nean), Linda, and Emily stopped to help, their faces full of concern. With our escort, the FJ limped back to the Teton Science school…

The power of the consumer

The internet and its reach gives a powerful voice…with possibly far reaching consequences.

While searching for a place to stay in Bozeman, Shreesh ran into the description for a B&B … “Room was nice but so and so made it hell”. I wonder what the innkeepers had done to the guy to make him strike back so vengefully. One review like that could put the kabash on a small inn. (Needless to say, we did not stay there).

While we have had (one) bad B&B experience ourselves, I remembered the drama during our climb of Mt. Shasta. We had almost made it all the way down when the lead guide blew up, called some of the clients names and stalked off in a huff. While this was completely unprofessional, I can attest to the fact that the clients in question would have tested the patience of a saint.

Responsibility. The reach of the internet has given us much power. We can vent, rave and rant on the internet, give products and people bad (or good) reviews and do it anonymously. Our reach is far. Who are the people who write these reviews? Are they the ones with an agenda, an axe to grind? Would someone who had an average experience or even a good one bother to write up a good review to balance out a bad one? We live in a society that discourages personal responsibility. “I choose to smoke and destroy my lungs but the cigarette companies are at fault”. Are we responsible enough to have the power to affect someones livelihood?

Maybe the person in question did have a bad time. And maybe ebay has it right…it gives the power to both the consumers and the providers to rate one another, making it an even balance of power.

The drive has been pretty spectacular even though we took I-5. (Map this!)

We simply love California and Oregon, even though our stay has been brief. Tall snow capped volcanoes framed by foothills, beautiful fall foliage of red and yellow, serene rivers, and ocean side ports.