Road Rash (Robert Kirby)

Word from the high seas

2008-09-18T15:42:00.000-06:00

Stay tuned for more later from my trip. I'm at sea now and I can't type. I'm not seasick until I sit down in front of the computer screen. Then I get queasy. It isn't bad, but it makes trying to be creative tough. On the bright side, I'll have plenty to write about when I get home.
P.S. My wife will be VERY happy if I don't blog anymore. She says it's unromantic.

High Speed Home Run

2008-09-15T03:41:00.001-06:00

We’re rocketing through the Aragon in a time machine. It’s actually an “alta velocidad” (high speed) train operated by Renfre, Spain’s national rail system.
According to the odometer at the other end of the coche (car), we’ve reached a speed of 300 kilometers an hour.
My wife and I had our first serious vacation disagreement about this. She says 300 kilometers an hour is roughly 180 mph American. I tried explaining the math to her – how it was necessary to break it down into millimeters first, then converting it into psi before building it back into the average American mpg. In this particular case, I said the exact speed didn’t matter. What mattered is that we didn’t need a cow catcher on the train. If we hit it going this fast, a cow would simply vaporize.
I looked it up later. We were both right. The high-speed train we booked out of Barcelona for Zaragoza reached a top speed of 186.41 mph. If we hit a cow, we certainly didn’t notice.
Zaragoza is located northwest of Barcelona in the more arid Aragon region. It’s similar to Catalonia in that it’s technically a part of Spain, but different in that the Aragon is not quite so snotty about it. Like most European countries, Spain is a collection of former kingdoms, regions, principalities, fiefdoms and medieval HMOs, put and held together by the sword and rampant royal inbreeding. Seriously, the histories of these places read like Monty Python sketches.
But the history I’m interested in now is my own. We’re heading back to the place I lived as a kid, to see how the old neighborhood is doing. I’m nervous. What if I discover that I should have stayed there?
In a notebook balanced on my knee is a running tally of the things I see outside that remind me of the Spain I lived in from 1958-1961. The flashing imagery is comforting: farms, vineyards, tile roofs, lemon trees, stone walls, olive groves, and dusty villages wrapped around churches.
We landed in Spain on January 3, 1958. I was only five at the time, so I don’t remember the exact date. I had to look that up as well. Actually, I asked my father before we left. He was full of all sorts of information about the years we spent abroad. He warned me about returning to Spain, that there might still be warrants out for me there.
When the Kirbys arrived in Spain, we traveled from Barcelona to Madrid and then to Zaragoza, where we rented an apartment on El Paseo Fernando El Catolico. The old man made the trip from the city to the American air force base outside of town.
I started school in Zaragoza. Kindergarten and first grade were spent in American classrooms held in a Spanish orphanage. I’d catch the bus in front of the panaderia (bakery) across the street. My friends as school were Mike, Perkins, and Joe.
We arrive in Zaragoza roughly two hours after leaving Barcelona. The city is just like I don’t remember it. Seriously, how much can you remember from your extreme youth? A kid’s head isn’t big enough to hold serious details.
I remember money though. When we arrived in Spain the first time, the monetary unit was the “paseta.” I remember this because it took half a Mason jar of them before I could afford to buy a gun that shot real corks. I plugged my little brother in the head with it and knocked him right off a rocking horse just like John Wayne shooting Indians. He still has the scar in his eyebrow.
Today, the monetary unit in Spain is the Euro. In ’58 the exchange rate was 46 pasetas to the U.S. dollar. It takes a buck sixty to buy a Euro. The cab ride to the old neighborhood from the train station costs $25.
The city looks the same except that there are a lot more foreigners. I find out from the driver that it’s because Zaragoza is hosting the International expo on clean water. Fifty years ago, we couldn’t drink water from the tap. The old man hauled drinking water to our apartment in a larger glass jug wrapped in a wicker basket.
17 Paseo Fernando El Catolico, Segundo, al la derecha is just like we left it, except that it’s a lawyer’s office now. Great. Perfect.
The place is locked and no one answers the bell. My wife and I cross the street (asphalt now instead of cobblestone) and sit in the park (tiles instead of sand) on benches that have to be the same.
We spent an hour in the park, an hour remembering nearly four years. The panaderia is a bank now and the kiosk where we bought peanuts and toys is gone. But if I tilt my head just so, and catch the angle of the sun in the right way, I can almost see Mike and Perkins and me waiting for the bus. I can even hear Nieves, our maid, yelling for me to come home.
People say you can never go home. You can if you try hard enough. You just have to ask yourself if it’s worth it—then add 40 percent for the exchange rate.

NO ZARAGOZAMOS

2008-09-12T21:37:00.001-06:00

We didn’t make it to Zaragoza today. When we arrived at the Estacio
Sants (the main Barcelona train station), all the trains heading to
Barcelona were full. There’s some sort of water expo in Zaragoza this
week. Half the world is heading in that direction.
We booked tickets on a high speed train for tomorrow morning. Spain,
like the rest of Europe, is way ahead of the U.S. in public
transportation. That doesn’t mean everything runs well. America
practically invented air travel and we still get six-hour layovers
when the toilets in our planes still explode. Hopefully, the toilets
on Spanish trains do not interrupt their takeoff times.
We stuck around Barcelona today and soaked up the Catalonian
culture. I’d say “Spanish culture” but remains a sensitive subject
what with everyone still hung over from yesterday’s “Boy, Do We Hate
Spain Day.”
Personally, I’m cool with everything. I’m having fun. There are,
however, some noticeable differences between here and home that I
find…distracting? I don’t want to sound like an Ugly American
pointing them out. This is, of course, a reference to the penchant
Americans have while traveling abroad of lording ourselves over other
people. I don’t want to be one of those.
My wife and I argued when I suggested we try hard not to offend. She
said she can’t be an Ugly American because she’s Canadian. Thanks to
Canada’s inherent inoffensiveness, the worst she can be is “Slightly
Homely Canadian.” I said she’s actually a “Lovely Canadian.” It was a
wise foreign policy move.
Still, there are those differences between Spain and home. Here are
just a few:
ELECTRICITY: The electrical plugs here are round instead of flat.
It’s the whole 110 vs. 220 argument, which I believe was the true
basis for the Cold War. I thought we fixed that on this trip by
bringing a transformer. Unfortunately, we only brought one. So, if my
wife wants to use her curling iron, I can’t charge my cell phone or
my computer.
PERSONAL SPACE: Europe seems to be a lot more crowded than the U.S.
Maybe that’s why no one here thinks it at all odd to talk to you
while standing inside your shoes. There’s also no hesitation
whatsoever about cutting you off or knocking shoulders while walking
in a crowd. Our saunter up The Rambla yesterday was lovely but also a
bit of a beating.
PRICES: The Euro is stronger than the dollar. I got that. I’m even OK
with it. But I’m not OK with paying $9 U.S. for a Pepsi. We stopped
at an outdoor restaurant on the Rambla and ordered a small pepperoni
pizza (think Ragu spread on saltines) and two soft drinks. After
conversion, the bill was $49.60 U.S. not counting the tip (which my
Lovely Canadian wife refused to leave.
TELEVISION: Europe does a good job of converting U.S. sitcoms into
Spanish. We watched “Seinfeld” last night. George’s lips actually
seemed in synch with the Spanish words. It’s nothing like the old
Japanese monster movies where the character’s mouth keeps moving a
full minute after saying, “Godzilla is coming, sir.”
LANGUAGE: Speaking of lip synching, my Spanish seems to be improving.
I actually talked to a waiter yesterday and asked him for a glass of
water ($18.50 U.S.), and he didn’t reply, “Por favor, senor, but
there is no elephant in my wife’s pants.”
TIME: Still trying to get used to this. We’re awake when our bodies
are telling us we should be asleep. But since I have the same problem
at work back in the states, it almost feels like home.
Tomorrow – Zaragoza.

Rambling the Rambla

2008-09-11T23:59:00.000-06:00

Sorry about that. I was just looking at the bed and woke up four hours later holding my camera bag and passport. The flight and time difference (Barcelona is eight hours ahead of Utah) must have caught up with me.
It’s Friday morning here. 7:15 a.m. to be exact. You probably just finished watching the nightly news and are heading to bed. We’re going to Zaragoza.
After regaining consciousness yesterday, it was time for an evening stroll. We were a bit nervous because we’re Americans and it was September 11. As it turns out, September 11 is also remembered in Barcelona, ironically for a similar reason.
Barcelona is NOT, as any drunk will tell you (and there were a lot of them last night), a part of Spain. It is actually the capital of Catalan, a mostly autonomous and completely better region of Spain. On September 11, 1714, Barcelona had the crap kicked out of it by Spain and it’s still mad about it. It’s been a reason for getting drunk ever since. At 5 a.m. this morning a crowd of hammered kids were still loudly discussing it five stories below our hotel room.
Ancient politics notwithstanding, we enjoyed a pleasant evening walk along The Rambla. It’s a mile-long pedestrian only park that cuts through the center of weird in Barcelona. With almost no imagination, it’s reminiscent of the bar scene in the first "Star Wars." Street performers, shops, and sidewalk art galleries were swarmed by a crowd comprised of every nationality in the galaxy.
We had a late dinner at the American Restuarante on the Rambla. I ate the best paella marinera I’ve had in 40+ years. It was a platter the size of a Cadillac hubcap filled with saffron rice, vegetables, clams, mussels, fish and squid. It doesn’t get gooder than that.
The evening ended with a walk down to the Columbus monument near the waterfront. We’ll be taking a cruise through the Mediterranean from there in a couple of days.
My wife called home from the monument. Our daughter picked up just as a police car went by with its distinctive Euro siren going: “Naught-ee, Naught-ee, Naught-ee.”
Our daughter heard it and asked, “What did Dad do now? You haven’t even been there a day yet.”

A Day With Delta

2008-09-11T15:33:00.002-06:00

3:55 a.m.
It’s time. We pulled ourselves out of bed after three hours of sleep. For reasons particular to the airline industry, passengers on international flights are expected to be at the airport a month and a half before the departure of their flights.
This was our first trip to Europe but we finished packing in a manner long prescribed by family vacation: frantically flinging everything we could think of into our suitcases until we could hear luggage zippers losing teeth as they strained to hold it all in.
Our son-in-law Dallas drove us to the airport. The normal drop off lane at Salt Lake International is closed for construction, so he had to leave us at one of the other outer rings of hell. It’s an omen, I know it.

6:41 a.m.
It’s technically three minutes after the requested two-hour prior check-in time, but Delta took us anyway. We checked our bags, shouldered our carry-ons and headed for the gate. My wife started in with the usual “I hope the plane doesn’t crash” stuff. She’s been thinking about it for a while now and has come up with a psychological countermeasure.
“I keep telling myself that a million people fly everyday and nothing happens,” she said.
It’s excellent logic. In fact, I used it on myself in order to jump out of airplanes at Ft. Benning, Georgia, in 1977. It worked perfectly until the day that it didn’t and I hit the ground going 500 miles an hour.
I thought about mentioning this minor loophole in her logic but decided not to. We’re going to Spain. They probably won’t let me carry her onto the plane drugged.

8:11 a.m.
We boarded the aircraft at gate D1. The crew was in hurry to get the aircraft loaded and into the air. They kept telling us to sit down. There’s always someone though, isn’t there. In our case, it was a young couple separated by the cruelties of pre-assigned aircraft seating. They climbed over the seats and blocked the aisles until they found two people willing to change seats with them so that they could sit together.

8:45 a.m.
The plane is taking off. Technically it’s seven minutes late but I’m not going to say anything about it making us even for checking in less than two hours before take off because, also technically, I’m not supposed to be typing on this laptop while the wheels are coming up.

9:36 a.m.
The movie on this plane sucks. According to the screen, a small airplane is 38,996 feet over Wheatland, Wyoming, traveling 587 mph, with a 67 mph tailwind. Also, it’s -61 degrees Fahrenheit outside the plane. It’s a lousy plot if you ask me.

9:39 a.m.
Got it. The little plane is us.
It’s a map. Looks like we’ll be flying over Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Lake Michigan. We’ll also be violating a teeny bit of Canadian airspace near Lake Eerie.
I would have rather had the movie.

10:27 a.m.
It took us exactly 30 minutes to fly across Iowa. I waved south at Des Moines, home of the greatest travel writer of all time (except for Mark Twain) Bill Bryson. That reminds me --- I left my copy of “Innocents Abroad” home on the kitchen table. I’ll have to buy one in New York. Can’t go to Europe without America’s #1 travel primer.

12:10 p.m.
Sorry. I fell asleep after lunch. Not all the meals on flights are now included as part of the ticket price. Flight attendants brought around menus. My wife was thinking ahead though. She packed us a lunch: ham sandwiches and grapes. I traded my grapes for the Oreos of a kid across the aisle.
We’re about to land at JFK.

12:14 p.m.
We’re not landing at JFK. The airport is overbooked. We’re in a holding pattern over the southern Catskill Mountains. The pilot says we’ll be here another 20 minutes.

12:19 p.m.
Change of plans. We are landing.

2:59 p.m. (New York time)
We landed and walked through the terminal. I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones in it whose native tongue is English. We are definitely not in Utah anymore.
I stopped at a book store for a copy of “Innocents Abroad.” The clerk --- and I’m not lying here --- actually made me spell “Mark Twain” so he could check the computer for the book’s availability.
I’m not sure whether that bothers me more or the fact that they didn’t have a single copy of anything by Twain (or Bryson, for that matter). Plenty of courtroom and vampire novels though. Maybe it’s good I’m going to Europe. At least over there they have a reason for saying, “Who”?” when you mention Mark Twain.

4:01 p.m. (New York)
I wasn’t kidding about the language barrier at JFK. The young couple sitting next to us at Gate 10 for Barcelona is speaking --- near as I can tell --- Catalan or Basque. Maybe it’s Martian. Hell, I don’t know. We manage to make it work when they ask for the time, shared the rest of my grapes, and looked at pictures of my grandkids on this laptop.

4:29 p.m. (New York)
Remind me to never work at JFK International Airport, especially as an airline customer service rep, janitor, food service worker, and/or cop.

7:55 p.m. (New York)
What was supposed to be a two and a half hour layover is now into its fourth hour. Our plane is broke. Not the entire plane, just the toilets. They exploded or something. I don’t mind waiting. If it was something to do with an engine or the landing gear, I’d be mad. But there’s no way I want to be somewhere over the middle of the Atlantic and suddenly find myself heading for Europe in a septic tank with wings. The only thing worse than actually being dead is wishing you were and being unable to make it happen.

8:50 p.m. (New York)
We’re getting a new plane. The toilets in the old one are still broke.

9:48 p.m. (New York)
The wheels just came up on Delta Flight #94 and we’re headed for Spain. Apparently everyone is a little frazzled. A flight attendant just walked by and saw me typing this. She didn’t seem to care that it might cause us to crash. She sort of rushed the safety drill as well. No matter. If we crash, it’ll be in the ocean. I swim about as well as a piano.

12:16 a.m. (Atlantic time)
We flew up the coast of America, past Halifax where my father-in-law helped sink German U-boats in WW2, out over the Grand Banks and the grave of the Titanic. As near as I can tell by the view from my window, we’re somewhere dark with lots of clouds. My wife is asleep on my shoulder.

2:01 a.m.
Who can sleep like this?

10:46 a.m. (Barcelona time)
We’re here and heading for Spanish customs. There’s a long line. I hope this isn’t going to hurt. Wish I hadn’t eaten all those grapes.

10:51 a.m. (Barcelona)
That was easy. A guy with a gun gave me a visual once-over and slammed a stamp onto my passport. We’re officially in Spain. I could have been muling a pound of meth or a bunch of Pam Anderson DVDs and he wouldn’t have cared.

11:22 a.m. (Barcelona)
Holy #&%@! That was some cab ride. During the last half, the driver actually turned around and put his chin on the back of the front seat while he talked to us.

12:42 p.m. (Barcelona)
We’re checked into our hotel. I can’t wait to get out and explore Catalonia. The room is OK. The bed actually looks

Getting Gone

2008-09-09T14:12:00.002-06:00

You’re looking at a picture of a miracle about to happen --- my family on the eve of our departure for Spain in 1957.
I’m the well-behaved one on the far right. It’s no coincidence that my father is positioned between me and the rest of the family. I’m only five but already possessed of the imagination of Timothy Leary and the morality of a ferret.
We were a young and poor family, so our entire worldly possessions fit into and onto an old Chevy. In a scene straight out of “The Grapes of Wrath,” we traveled from California to Spain with only a timetable and the old man’s dead reckoning.
Given that our departure from the land of the free occurred way before cell phones, computers, and global satellite positioning, it’s a miracle we didn’t end up stranded on an Arctic ice floe.
Nearly 50 years later, the same trip requires another act of God. My wife and I are only going for two weeks, but we’re taking everything we own as well. The difference is that it all has to fit into one checked bag, one carry-on bag, and one personal item each.
“Personal item” sounds like an enema bag, but I checked. It actually refers to a briefcase or a purse.
With less than 12 hours to go before we leave our bedroom looks like Benghazi yard sale. Cameras, underwear, shoes, batteries, books and computer crap cover every spare surface. It’s all stuff I can’t do without.
The kid in the picture went to Spain with the clothes on his back, a pair of holstered cap guns, and a set of plastic binoculars with which to watch for Spain. Mom no doubt packed some other stuff for me, but that was all I was concerned about.
Things have gotten complicated. Try taking a cap gun to Spain now and you’d end up covered in federal marshals. It’s going to be tough, but I’m leaving my pocket knife at home. This is the first trip I won’t be able to defend myself against a hangnail.
In ’57 we drove across America in four days. We’ll fly across it today in four hours. It’s less time but far more aggravation. Of course, those four hours don’t count standing in lines at security checkpoints, boarding gates, and baggage carousels.
There’s also a language barrier. The first time we went to Spain we didn’t worry about being understood. This time I do. I just got off the phone with our hotel in Barcelona. The receptionist there spoke better English than I do. She kept asking me to repeat things.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kirby,” she finally said, clearly a bit frustrated. “I do not understand how a choice of accommodations should beat, as you say, the hell out of anyone.”
I better get back to packing. There’s not much time left to cram all of the wrong things into the right number of bags and get to the airport hours before I really need to be there.
I’m feeling every bit as out of sorts as the kid in the photo. By the time you read this, I’ll be well on my way to Spain. I will have been scolded, ordered to stand in line, disarmed, fined, kept waiting, and threatened by people more powerful than myself.
Cool. It’s going to be just like the first time.

Whine-oming

2008-08-03T16:24:00.000-06:00

12:11, Thursday, July 31
Sixth Crossing, near Sweetwater Station, Wyoming
There isn’t a cell phone signal or a tree in this entire *&$#@! state. It doesn’t matter if I die of sunstroke now because I’m probably already fired.
The families picked up their handcarts here at Willie Station. It’s also where Jess, Rick and I part company. Rick needs to accompany our family in order to take pictures. Jess, who is crazy from the heat, wants the experience of a genuine Mormon trek. That leaves me driving the 4-runner loaded with the gear. We argued.
Jessica isn’t a Mormon. I said she should leave the wilderness to Mormons like Rick and me. After all, we’re descended from professional wanderers. Jessica reminded me that she’s Jewish. Compared to her people, Mormons are rank amateurs when it comes to getting into jams like this. If there’s a professional is the entire trek, it’s her. That left me driving our useless computer and sat phone gear to the next stop.
The handcarts were loaded with buckets. Before setting off from Willie Station, the rules of the road were explained. The handcart trail crosses Bureau of Land Management terrain. Because they’re a government agency, they have a longer “Thou Shalt Not” list than God. Here are the ones I remember:
1. Stay on the trail.
2. Going to the bathroom must be done in a chemical toilet or one’s own pants.
3. Do Not Litter.
4. Leave artifacts in place.
5. No flower picking.
6. No rock picking.
7. No fires.
8. Leave all animals alone.
9. No burying babies.
I didn’t make up that last one. Previous trek companies had apparently issued plastic dolls to their families as overwrought object lessons. The baby had to be cared for and protected and lugged the entire way—until it died. Then it was buried alongside the trail. The experience had a mixed effect on the mostly teenage families. Some tossed the babies about like footballs. Others got attached to it and actually cried when it “died” and was buried along the trail.
The BLM wasn’t keen on the idea and put a stop to it. The object lesson risked catching on with all trek companies, and the last thing even the butt end of Wyoming needs is 40,000 plastic babies buried in makeshift graves along a trail. Future trekkers would be digging up babies just to bury more babies.
I stood by the truck while the companies took up the march. Soon Jessica and Rick are lost in a cloud of dust in the burning distance. The Sage night camp near Rocky Ridge is seven miles away, all of it a wagon-dragging trudge across a flatiron stove.
I don’t care anymore if there’s no cell phone service. The 4-runner has air conditioning.
TREK TIP: Single-serving Crystal Lite flavor packets. The taste of well water gets old.

Rock On

2008-08-03T11:32:00.001-06:00

9:21 p.m., Thursday, July 31
Independence Rock, Wyoming.
I’m writing this at a cement picnic table at the foot of Independence Rock. It’s where overland pioneers stopped to water their stock and carve their names. Hundreds of them are still visible.
The rest of the trek group is up on the rock now. I can see the entire stake huddled in the broiling sun for another “special moment.” I’ve had my fill of them already.
I can take the heat, the distance, the dirt and even the teenagers, but I draw the line at being repeatedly told that dying for a cause is sufficient proof its truthfulness.
Fortunately, the Sandy Canyon View Stake is being led by Pres. Mark Oviatt, who seems to have the right mix of faith and common sense. When we get out onto the trail, I’m betting he’ll make it clear to the kids that praying for God’s attention doesn’t mean you can stop paying attention yourself.
Case in point—snakes. At the end of the Martin’s Cove tour, we hiked back down to the parking lot. I was plodding behind Rick when he and the 50 pounds of camera gear he lugged the entire trek suddenly jumped sideways. A 2-foot prairie rattler was coiled and buzzing inches from where he had been walking. Jessica walked six feet off the ground the rest of the way to the parking lot.
The meeting on the rock is breaking up. I can see my “family” coming down. We’re organized into family groups by ward. Jess, Rick and I are in the Sandy Hills ward family. Each family is assigned a ma and pa. Our ma and pa are Brikaelie and Casey, both young but competent kids. In fact, Brikaeli is only 19.
Since I have pants older than Brikaeli, there was no way I was calling her “Ma.” She said it wasn’t required but that it would be nice if the “other kids” heard me do it. Since Jess and Rick call her Ma, and the other kids have already put a “I’ve had enough” gleam in her eye, I figure she’s perfectly capable of slamming a frying pan across the back of my head. So I said, “No problem, Ma.”
Still no signal. I’m worried. I have to file these field reports with my editor—who I don’t have to call “ma” but she still scares me.
TREK TIP: Gold Bond Medicated Foot (and Crotch) Powder.

Breakfast at Epiphany's

2008-08-03T10:57:00.002-06:00

6:55 a.m., Thursday, July 31
Jackson Campground
Things are better this morning. Woke up covered in dirt, but the coyote is gone and Rick seems none the worse for wear. All in all, I got maybe two hours of sleep.
On the bright side, the Sandy Canyon View Stake eats extremely well. The food committee—a column of vehicles that sets up at each night stop—works hard to feed 200 teenagers and adults.
Breakfast this morning was juice, French toast, pancakes, fruit and ogre vomit. There’s probably another name for the mix of eggs, corn meal, bacon, sausage, onions and whatever frapped’ into a goo and then fried. It looks awful but tastes fabulous. I went back for seconds. Needs Tabasco Sauce.
Maybe breakfast was a sign, something to the effect that even stuff that looks or seems awful can be good for you. Lord, I hope so.
Still no signal. Drove out five miles from camp looking for one to send this on. Nothing. We might as well be on Mars.
We leave for Independence Rock as soon as Jessica loads all the gear back into the 4-runner.
TREK TIP: Bring ear plugs. Not only do they keep out the noise when you’re trying to sleep, but also the dirt.

Jackson Junk

2008-08-03T10:27:00.001-06:00

I should apologize. I wasn’t able to stay in touch as much as I wanted to on the trek. Among the billions of civilized comforts missing in central Wyoming are water, pay phones and satellite signals. I finally gave up trying to file reports after climbing to the top of a hill and not getting any cell phone signal. Also, my laptop is full of dirt.
Here’s what I wrote during the days we went missing. I'll try to post in order as I rescue the notes from the laptop.

11:30 p.m., Wednesday, July 30
Jackson Campground
This place BITES. It’s windier than a Republican convention. At any one time, about 25 percent of the landscape is moving horizontally. While eating dinner (excellent stew) a small praying mantis landed on the rim of my plate.
Right now, I’m in the bottom of my sleeping bag. It protects me from the wind. But there’s a coyote a couple hundred yards away mindlessly aggrieved about something. From the sound of it, it’s probably love. It’s been howling for hours. I hope it chooses Rick first. Jessica is asleep in the back of the 4-runner with the doors locked because we weren’t able to convince her that snakes don’t know how to operate door latches.
No signal. More tomorrow. Or not.
P.S. The stars in the desert are—I don’t know. Someone pried the lid off God’s jewelry box. I can't describe it.
P.S.S. This place really bites.

The other half of the story

2008-07-31T17:38:00.000-06:00

PORTA-POTTY STOP NO. 1, Wyo. — I am writing this in the middle of a sagebrush flat. It's hot, the wind is blowing and there isn't a tree for 10 miles. In about an hour, 200 sweaty and parched people will heave into view pulling handcarts.
For the past two days, we've followed the Willie-Martin handcart trail as part of a faith-promoting experience for LDS youngsters. I tagged along to see if it's working.
Quick answer: Pretty much. The kids seem fairly impressed with the stories of horrible faith-based sacrifice. It's hard not to be proud of what your ancestors endured to help build Zion.
Long answer: I don't know. I get a little nervous when it comes to making heroes out of people by telling only half the story.
The story we're hearing on this trip is that a group of impoverished Mormon converts attempted to reach Utah by pulling handcarts across America. Caught by snow in Wyoming, hundreds died. Others had limbs amputated from frostbite.
They endured all of this — starvation, frostbite, dead children — because of their devotion to the gospel. So determined were they to build up the kingdom of God that they were willing to die.
The kids are being told this is the sort of faith they should have today.
Maybe, maybe not.
I believe the handcart journey certainly started because of faith. My own ancestors did it. I've read their journals and letters. Tired of being mistreated as a minority in England, they wanted to gather with other Mormons in Utah.
I think my ancestors understood there was some risk in this. I also think they weighed those odds and proceeded anyway.
But if someone had guaranteed them that coming to Utah would cost them six children, a father, a pair of legs and years of pain-wracked poverty, I'm betting they would have stayed home and helped build up Zion in England.
When is your trouble an actual test of your faith and when is it simply the natural result of your own stupidity? It's a fair question, especially because there are valid lessons in both.
Right now the kids are only hearing about how brave and faithful the pioneers were, how those who survived the test were truly devoted to God. They aren't hearing that they ignored repeated warnings to wait until the following year. So how about lessons on how important it is to listen to wise counsel, and even just common sense?
Leave a baby in a hot car today while you earn a living, and you're a monster when the baby dies.
But haul four kids into the mountains in the middle of winter in an open handcart, and you're a valiant pioneer when all of them freeze solid. I suppose it's understandable that we teach this. You can get more mileage out of valiance than you can out of simple-mindedness.

No dawdling, and drink your water

2008-07-31T10:05:00.003-06:00

I tried to blog last night from somewhere in the desert. The sky was clear enough for good reception, but apparently satellites don’t go over that part of Wyoming. The Milky Way does. This far from civilization, it was a chalk stripe against the sky.
A cop in Rawlins told us to get out of town. He even gave us directions. Turn right down the alley, left at the stoplight, left again at the Kum & Go convenience store, and follow the highway north.
I got pulled over for going the wrong way on a one-way street. It didn’t improve the cop’s mood that we looked like reverse Mormon fundamentalists: two husbands and one wife. Jessica was wearing a long skirt, apron, a bonnet, and Asics Trail Runners. Rick and I were straight off the set of “Hee Haw.”
I told the cop we were on our way to an LDS trek. Apparently Rawlins sees a lot of confused trekkers because I watched his hand move from his gun to his Taser. He agreed to give us enough time for breakfast (Penny’s Diner. Try the hashbrowns).
We hooked up with the Sandy Canyon View Stake at Martin’s Cove, located 60 miles and several dimensions in time north of Rawlins. A couple hundred kids and their adult minders piled off four busses. Mormon pioneer costumes ranged in historical accuracy from “Little House on the Prairie” to cowboy in The Village People.
The staff at Martin’s Cove herded us into a large meeting hall with a veiled threat: the longer we dawdled, the hotter the day was going to get. And it promised to be a scorcher out on the trail.
Time couldn’t have been that important because the announcement was followed by an hour’s worth of testifying and idiot-proofing. We wouldn’t be able to feel the spirit of the Lord in this special place if we were dead from snake bite, dehydration, sunstroke, or handcart crash.
We were told to stay on the trail, drink our weight in water every hour, and to flee hysterically from anything that rattled.
Depending on age and physical condition, the hike following the sermon was anywhere from 6 to 900 miles long. We stopped several times for testimonies about the horrible conditions faced by the 1856 Martin and Willies handcart companies.
A word about the kids: They’re a good bunch, but they’re still kids. And there’s nothing wrong with kids that trying to reason with them won’t make worse. On the bright side, there’s nothing that makes kids more reasonable than complete physical exhaustion. It should be a law that every kid between the ages of 12-19 should have to hike a dozen miles a day.
The day ended with an excellent Dutch oven dinner served in the middle of a wind-swept, sun broiled flat. This part of the experience resembled less a Mormon handcart trek than it did garrison duty in Iraq.
A coyote kept me awake all night. Tomorrow we trek for real.

Crawlin' to Rawlins

2008-07-30T00:21:00.001-06:00

This is my first shot at blogging. Bear with me—or not. It’s possible that this is the only post I’ll be able to make. Cell phone technology in Martin’s Cove, Wyoming, is still at the smoke signal stage.
Tribune religion writer Jessica Ravitz, photographer Rick Egan, and I left Salt Lake at 4 p.m. today. Much as we intend to experience the trek, getting up at 4 a.m. tomorrow to ride a bus filled with teenagers wasn’t the sort of experience we needed. We elected to leave the night before and get rooms at a motel in Rawlins.
We met at the Tribune and loaded our gear into my SUV—sleeping bags, cameras, canteens, a tent, laptop computers, and several sacks of food, including a bag of jerky made from old golf shoes.
At the Tribune I got the highly unattractive picture taken of me that you see above. I look like Jethro Bodeen and Walter Brennan got married.
In the event that our cell phones didn’t work in the desert, we were given a satellite phone and detailed instructions on its use. Another reporter unzipped the case, pointed at the “On” button, and said, “That’s it. Don’t hurt yourselves.”
I took it up on the roof of the newspaper and tried phoning Sputnik. Nothing.
During the four hour drive, we constantly checked our cell phones for service. Rick’s phone managed four bars the entire way. Jessica’s phone got three bars. My provider is Mega-Fone, so I lost service completely on Foothill Boulevard.
There were plenty of bars in Rawlins. We counted 14, all of them open and serving.
We checked into the motel and ate a late dinner at Sanford’s Grub & Pub. The food was good but we couldn’t order milkshakes because they “have a new dishwasher and he’s slow.”
Trek hasn’t even started and it’s weird already.