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tugrikFamiliar but detached; there while not being there. This trip helped me remember, but didn't help me connect. On the whole it was a good experience.
--------
I don't do nostalgia well. I like finding things long missed, but I have way too many internal requirements for me to enjoy the reminiscing properly. A big part of it is not being distracted by other worries. Moving to California in October of 1992 was the first time I'd returned there. After 9 hours of driving I had only a few minutes to drive past my old house before continuing on to my oddly adventurous night in Vegas. The combination of road-fatigue and surreal evening light left me feeling like I'd only gone through there in a daydream in my head. The second time, during a strange holiday stay with the parents and sisters was terribly distracting. We did drive through the town once and around Lake Mead, but I wasn't the one behind the wheel. The trip felt like watching a movie, or seeing an exhibit behind glass. It was good to remember, but hearing everybody else's viewpoints of the place kept distracting me from any kind of reflection. I don't regret the trip, but I did feel like a tourist. This last time was marred a bit by a tight timeframe and fiscal concerns... but it was still much better than the ones before.
The trip's reason was simple. Down in Boron, CA there was a recently inherited pickup truck waiting for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
revar. That's a good 6+ hour drive from home. I wanted to help out, but I didn't want to just turn around and come right home after going that far. Vegas isn't much farther and I'd recently lamented wanting to return a few entries ago, so I figured this was as good a time as any. Revar is no fan of motorcycles, so my preferred choice of two-up on the Goldwing was right out.
This left us with hoping the van would survive another long drive, and five empty seats. Empty seats feel wasteful, so I invited my older sister along (who then invited my younger sister). Van-driving requires about 1/2 the attention motorcycle riding does, so it's nice to have a passenger along to keep away boredom or road-sleepies. I had the older sis stick the camera out the window as we passed the wind farms a halfhour before our destination.
While Mom-of-Revar is arguably one of the nicest people I've ever met in the state of California, I didn't feel comfortable dumping three people on her hospitality. If it was just me, I might have stayed and continued on in the morning. Instead we took a moment to look at the stunningly amazing mineral collection, chat a few short minutes, and then get back on the road as the desert sunset took fire. Another gas break, a cheat on the diet with road-food (grr), and 2.5 hours of travel got us to Vegas.
The older sister expressed an interest in my reason for going: to see old haunts in Boulder City, camera in hand. The younger was mostly just wanting out of the house for the weekend and has always loved Vegas. Figuring a compromise was in order, we stayed in the Stratosphere casino the first night, allowing the girls to play the night away while I caught up on sleep. I woke the next morning before the sun, and went outside to see the orange light burn through the valley bowl from our 23rd floor hallway window. I'd forgotten the camera bag, however, and the lack of my polarizing filter made for annoying reflections.
The girls woke up as I was milling about. We put all their stuff into the van and split up at this point. They were to walk the strip and be tourists for a while as I went off to get pictures 20 miles away in Boulder City. Neither of them had thought to bring a cel-phone, so we agreed they'd find a payphone and call me at noon. I got in to BC not long after 8am, and just wandered the city for a while. It's tiny, you see. Sure, logically I knew that... but my old memories are from a bicycle-bound kid of a much tinier size. It was almost scary to see how small the city was now that I could concentrate on it; it made me feel like my past was in miniature, all stuffed into a tiny box like some kind of diorama. I think my perspective is skewed from living where I do now. At the top of the city was the little ridge that keeps Lake Mead just out of sight. Cresting it gives a wonderful panorama.
The panoramic software I have is painful, so sorry about the ugly stitching. Be wary of the full sized image if you try to retreive it; it's huge. Someday we'll figure out how to do a cave-like wraparound view that is easily shared with others like we share a photograph today. I can't wait for that technology to become cheaply available, as 'strip pictures' like this are vaguely annoying. The view is grand, though disturbing. If I'd taken the shot when I'd lived there back in '82 it'd contain nothing but open desert and the lake below. All that housing is new. A closer view of the lake itself seems more familiar, with most of the housing masked out by the tighter field-of-view:
Dropping back off the ridge to city-side, I circled the city again, filling my camera's little memory-pack with familiar sights of my youth. The street-sign and lamp-post of my old residence. Parks nearby. Businesses that I remember being the same as when I left. The richy-rich land of "B Hill". Radar mountain and its looming dish to the north. Open desert leading to moutains all around the outside perimeter. I took a little bad with the good, including things like my prison-like Jr. High school that was warm-hearted within its blocky, sterile exterior. Of the 200+ shots taken, I filtered out a dozen or so to stick on my images site. I'll probably pick out a few more to post, but many of them are just personal things with no real viewing value to someone who's not been there; I'll not spam the 'net with them. Some left me wanting for better equipment, like the state map that sits on the corner of my old street, built out of painted rocks in somebody's yard. I never did meet that neighbor.
One of the things I find hard to capture on film was the mix of desolation and human presence I found intermixed out there. The way that harsh environment surrounded life made it seem all the more like you had to rely on each other. The tiny outposts of equipment and technology away from the population centers were like reminders we were there, but didn't stay. I drove out southwards from town down Buchanan boulevard, and wandered into one of Hoover Dam's substations. The midmorning light was just right, and the scale of the hardware was daunting, out there in the middle of scrub and dust. For reasons I'm not fully sure of, I'm proud of the picture that came of it.
Downslope led me to Lake Mead, which has changed to a 'fee area'. I took the opportunity and re-upped my national-parks membership; I feel it's $50 well spent, considering the number of parks I visit. On the image server you'll find a handful of pictures from the lake, but I wasn't really happy with how any of them turned out. I needed a sunset out there, or to be on the lake itself. Nearing the noon hour as it was, I had to get back into cel-range. A short 10 miles around the other edge pops back into Henderson. I figured I'd have to go back in town anyway so I made tracks for the Stratosphere while waiting for their call. It came right on time, and I picked the two of them up from the front of the Venetian.
Both of them wanted to leave. Well, one more than the other. I couldn't quite get into the groove of being out here anyways; simply being here with other people who had their own schedules had a part of my mind occupied with keeping on time. The point of this trip was to help Revar anyway, so I didn't feel like it was a loss. I had this odd feeling that was begging me to find a way to get the girls home and get a week off of work so I could just stay and fit in again. This was utterly impossible for a few reasons, the least of them being not wanting to lose my job and being completely out of money now until next payday. While this nastily conflicting feeling kept bouncing around in my brain, my body kept itself busy by obsessing over getting sunglasses. We spent an hour driving around Vegas and trying to park at malls that evidently they didn't want anybody to shop at, before giving up and buying a $6.00 pair from a gas station. The glasses-hunting was just a diversion anyway; something for my body to do because my mind was tied up in knots a little. As soon as I'd gotten my cheap shades I came back to my senses and made tracks for Death Valley, intent on taking the long way home if nothing else.
The trip down the empty roads through Red Rock and Parhump, NV were vast, empty, and amazing. The little depressing edge of lonliness that comes with fading sun in open desert is one that's actually comforting, like a wistful memory. My dietary cheating in Vegas continued with a stop at a roadside icecream stand and the guilt that came with it, but it wasn't long before we were doing the long descent to below sea level in Death Valley. With the sun soon to set I really and truely wanted to stay there. The first inn we passed was not only terribly expensive -- it was closed for a special event. Pretty, though.
Down in Furnace Creek proper, the motel was much more affordable. The younger sister wasn't pleased, however. Her fun was over, and she just wanted to be home. As usual her excuse was turned around on those she was with: "oh, it's only 7pm, you don't sleep until midnight. You'll be _bored_. What will you do? Let's just go." I had no real way to tell her that just being there was enough. I wanted to sit out behind the little inn and watch the stars come out. To hear the unique kinds of nothing that you hear in Death Valley. To wake up with the sunrise, see the dunes in the morning, throw rocks at the wall in Badwater that bears the "-272 feet" sign waaaay up high. I went there on a scouting campout long ago, and I really wanted to see something familiar other than the general store. My older sister was clued in to this somewhat and sympathetic. I really wouldn't have enjoyed it knowing I made the younger one grumpy, though, so it was back in the car. The GPS said it was "only" 8h:32m of driving back to the bay. Away we went, but not before a spectacular sunset and moonrise a few minutes later.
The plan was to go as long as we could safely go, and get a dirt cheap motel room on I5 or similar when we ran out of steam. It took the first 2.5 hours just to get out of Death Valley and back near Mojave before I had to stop for gas. I cheated once more, loading up on road food, and of the worst kinds: honey roasted peanuts, sugardrinks, a hostess pie, the works. The guilt sucked, but there was an upside. Since my body wasn't used to the sudden influx of sugar and carbs, I felt amazing. I was alert, awake, and in a good mood the entire trip home, arriving shortly after 3am -- within a few minutes of the GPS's estimated arrival. I love this little tech-toy.
. o O o .
In the end I'd cheated most of the weekend on my diet, spent $1.50 gambling and didn't win a thing, drove nearly 1300 miles and only killed one poor critter on the road (a bat that flew in front of us on the way out from Death Valley. splut.). All weekend I'd seen motorcyclers, and every time I was wistful to join them. I'm left with the overpowering feeling that I must go back; it's a requirement! But, I must do it on two wheels. I might end up going with a group (there's a gang on my ADVRider board dying to go back to Death Valley), but riding one-up on a bike gives me all the head-space I need. A camera won't be so important next time around, though I'll probably bring it. There's an old friend (Agent Orange, 00J) from High School who lives out there I need to visit that I missed this time (he was working), and a few places that I want to wake up in instead of drive through.
For a little 41 hour break from Bay Area reality, though... it was a fine thing.
--------
I don't do nostalgia well. I like finding things long missed, but I have way too many internal requirements for me to enjoy the reminiscing properly. A big part of it is not being distracted by other worries. Moving to California in October of 1992 was the first time I'd returned there. After 9 hours of driving I had only a few minutes to drive past my old house before continuing on to my oddly adventurous night in Vegas. The combination of road-fatigue and surreal evening light left me feeling like I'd only gone through there in a daydream in my head. The second time, during a strange holiday stay with the parents and sisters was terribly distracting. We did drive through the town once and around Lake Mead, but I wasn't the one behind the wheel. The trip felt like watching a movie, or seeing an exhibit behind glass. It was good to remember, but hearing everybody else's viewpoints of the place kept distracting me from any kind of reflection. I don't regret the trip, but I did feel like a tourist. This last time was marred a bit by a tight timeframe and fiscal concerns... but it was still much better than the ones before.
The trip's reason was simple. Down in Boron, CA there was a recently inherited pickup truck waiting for
revar. That's a good 6+ hour drive from home. I wanted to help out, but I didn't want to just turn around and come right home after going that far. Vegas isn't much farther and I'd recently lamented wanting to return a few entries ago, so I figured this was as good a time as any. Revar is no fan of motorcycles, so my preferred choice of two-up on the Goldwing was right out. This left us with hoping the van would survive another long drive, and five empty seats. Empty seats feel wasteful, so I invited my older sister along (who then invited my younger sister). Van-driving requires about 1/2 the attention motorcycle riding does, so it's nice to have a passenger along to keep away boredom or road-sleepies. I had the older sis stick the camera out the window as we passed the wind farms a halfhour before our destination. While Mom-of-Revar is arguably one of the nicest people I've ever met in the state of California, I didn't feel comfortable dumping three people on her hospitality. If it was just me, I might have stayed and continued on in the morning. Instead we took a moment to look at the stunningly amazing mineral collection, chat a few short minutes, and then get back on the road as the desert sunset took fire. Another gas break, a cheat on the diet with road-food (grr), and 2.5 hours of travel got us to Vegas.
The older sister expressed an interest in my reason for going: to see old haunts in Boulder City, camera in hand. The younger was mostly just wanting out of the house for the weekend and has always loved Vegas. Figuring a compromise was in order, we stayed in the Stratosphere casino the first night, allowing the girls to play the night away while I caught up on sleep. I woke the next morning before the sun, and went outside to see the orange light burn through the valley bowl from our 23rd floor hallway window. I'd forgotten the camera bag, however, and the lack of my polarizing filter made for annoying reflections.The girls woke up as I was milling about. We put all their stuff into the van and split up at this point. They were to walk the strip and be tourists for a while as I went off to get pictures 20 miles away in Boulder City. Neither of them had thought to bring a cel-phone, so we agreed they'd find a payphone and call me at noon. I got in to BC not long after 8am, and just wandered the city for a while. It's tiny, you see. Sure, logically I knew that... but my old memories are from a bicycle-bound kid of a much tinier size. It was almost scary to see how small the city was now that I could concentrate on it; it made me feel like my past was in miniature, all stuffed into a tiny box like some kind of diorama. I think my perspective is skewed from living where I do now. At the top of the city was the little ridge that keeps Lake Mead just out of sight. Cresting it gives a wonderful panorama.
The panoramic software I have is painful, so sorry about the ugly stitching. Be wary of the full sized image if you try to retreive it; it's huge. Someday we'll figure out how to do a cave-like wraparound view that is easily shared with others like we share a photograph today. I can't wait for that technology to become cheaply available, as 'strip pictures' like this are vaguely annoying. The view is grand, though disturbing. If I'd taken the shot when I'd lived there back in '82 it'd contain nothing but open desert and the lake below. All that housing is new. A closer view of the lake itself seems more familiar, with most of the housing masked out by the tighter field-of-view:
Dropping back off the ridge to city-side, I circled the city again, filling my camera's little memory-pack with familiar sights of my youth. The street-sign and lamp-post of my old residence. Parks nearby. Businesses that I remember being the same as when I left. The richy-rich land of "B Hill". Radar mountain and its looming dish to the north. Open desert leading to moutains all around the outside perimeter. I took a little bad with the good, including things like my prison-like Jr. High school that was warm-hearted within its blocky, sterile exterior. Of the 200+ shots taken, I filtered out a dozen or so to stick on my images site. I'll probably pick out a few more to post, but many of them are just personal things with no real viewing value to someone who's not been there; I'll not spam the 'net with them. Some left me wanting for better equipment, like the state map that sits on the corner of my old street, built out of painted rocks in somebody's yard. I never did meet that neighbor.
One of the things I find hard to capture on film was the mix of desolation and human presence I found intermixed out there. The way that harsh environment surrounded life made it seem all the more like you had to rely on each other. The tiny outposts of equipment and technology away from the population centers were like reminders we were there, but didn't stay. I drove out southwards from town down Buchanan boulevard, and wandered into one of Hoover Dam's substations. The midmorning light was just right, and the scale of the hardware was daunting, out there in the middle of scrub and dust. For reasons I'm not fully sure of, I'm proud of the picture that came of it.
Downslope led me to Lake Mead, which has changed to a 'fee area'. I took the opportunity and re-upped my national-parks membership; I feel it's $50 well spent, considering the number of parks I visit. On the image server you'll find a handful of pictures from the lake, but I wasn't really happy with how any of them turned out. I needed a sunset out there, or to be on the lake itself. Nearing the noon hour as it was, I had to get back into cel-range. A short 10 miles around the other edge pops back into Henderson. I figured I'd have to go back in town anyway so I made tracks for the Stratosphere while waiting for their call. It came right on time, and I picked the two of them up from the front of the Venetian.
Both of them wanted to leave. Well, one more than the other. I couldn't quite get into the groove of being out here anyways; simply being here with other people who had their own schedules had a part of my mind occupied with keeping on time. The point of this trip was to help Revar anyway, so I didn't feel like it was a loss. I had this odd feeling that was begging me to find a way to get the girls home and get a week off of work so I could just stay and fit in again. This was utterly impossible for a few reasons, the least of them being not wanting to lose my job and being completely out of money now until next payday. While this nastily conflicting feeling kept bouncing around in my brain, my body kept itself busy by obsessing over getting sunglasses. We spent an hour driving around Vegas and trying to park at malls that evidently they didn't want anybody to shop at, before giving up and buying a $6.00 pair from a gas station. The glasses-hunting was just a diversion anyway; something for my body to do because my mind was tied up in knots a little. As soon as I'd gotten my cheap shades I came back to my senses and made tracks for Death Valley, intent on taking the long way home if nothing else.
The trip down the empty roads through Red Rock and Parhump, NV were vast, empty, and amazing. The little depressing edge of lonliness that comes with fading sun in open desert is one that's actually comforting, like a wistful memory. My dietary cheating in Vegas continued with a stop at a roadside icecream stand and the guilt that came with it, but it wasn't long before we were doing the long descent to below sea level in Death Valley. With the sun soon to set I really and truely wanted to stay there. The first inn we passed was not only terribly expensive -- it was closed for a special event. Pretty, though.Down in Furnace Creek proper, the motel was much more affordable. The younger sister wasn't pleased, however. Her fun was over, and she just wanted to be home. As usual her excuse was turned around on those she was with: "oh, it's only 7pm, you don't sleep until midnight. You'll be _bored_. What will you do? Let's just go." I had no real way to tell her that just being there was enough. I wanted to sit out behind the little inn and watch the stars come out. To hear the unique kinds of nothing that you hear in Death Valley. To wake up with the sunrise, see the dunes in the morning, throw rocks at the wall in Badwater that bears the "-272 feet" sign waaaay up high. I went there on a scouting campout long ago, and I really wanted to see something familiar other than the general store. My older sister was clued in to this somewhat and sympathetic. I really wouldn't have enjoyed it knowing I made the younger one grumpy, though, so it was back in the car. The GPS said it was "only" 8h:32m of driving back to the bay. Away we went, but not before a spectacular sunset and moonrise a few minutes later.
The plan was to go as long as we could safely go, and get a dirt cheap motel room on I5 or similar when we ran out of steam. It took the first 2.5 hours just to get out of Death Valley and back near Mojave before I had to stop for gas. I cheated once more, loading up on road food, and of the worst kinds: honey roasted peanuts, sugardrinks, a hostess pie, the works. The guilt sucked, but there was an upside. Since my body wasn't used to the sudden influx of sugar and carbs, I felt amazing. I was alert, awake, and in a good mood the entire trip home, arriving shortly after 3am -- within a few minutes of the GPS's estimated arrival. I love this little tech-toy.
In the end I'd cheated most of the weekend on my diet, spent $1.50 gambling and didn't win a thing, drove nearly 1300 miles and only killed one poor critter on the road (a bat that flew in front of us on the way out from Death Valley. splut.). All weekend I'd seen motorcyclers, and every time I was wistful to join them. I'm left with the overpowering feeling that I must go back; it's a requirement! But, I must do it on two wheels. I might end up going with a group (there's a gang on my ADVRider board dying to go back to Death Valley), but riding one-up on a bike gives me all the head-space I need. A camera won't be so important next time around, though I'll probably bring it. There's an old friend (Agent Orange, 00J) from High School who lives out there I need to visit that I missed this time (he was working), and a few places that I want to wake up in instead of drive through.
For a little 41 hour break from Bay Area reality, though... it was a fine thing.
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Date: 2002-10-21 12:45 am (UTC)-Traveller.
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Date: 2002-10-21 06:58 am (UTC)