ABORTED TRIP TO TEXAS
September 2009
I am on my way a little after nine am. I listen to music from the 60’s which brings back a flood of memories, wondering if they were better days. How can that be? Here I am retired and free and am thinking such thoughts. After a few hours of this and with melancholy sitting in I switch to techno music. Now I think of Burning Man and watch for Burners on the way home and began to wonder why I no longer enjoy that event. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I seem to enjoy my place in life? Why do I seem too long for something that I know not what it is? I reach Lahotan Reservoir camp in Nevada just past four P.M. after battling wind and dust storms for that last hour or so of driving. I am tired and lay down for two hours.
The next morning I am feeling bad. I woke up in the middle of the night with a sore throat. This is not good. The last thing I want is to be sick on the road. I drive east on Highway 50 towards Austin. At night I feel the soreness going away, or so I like to hope.
I feel much better the following day but only drive nineteen miles to Hickson Campground. I don’t do much. Sinbad is settling in to the routine. I think he’d rather be home but he’d rather be with me more. He can’t have both. We have the campground all to ourselves. I sit around camp, lie down inside, read, nap and watch the day crawl by. By evening I’m not doing that well. Evenings are always that way when you are sick.
I make it through the night and am still improving although the throat is not one hundred percent. We drive on to Illiapah Reservoir just past Eureka, Nevada. These are all the same stops I made five years ago in the Isuzu Trooper. The reservoir is extremely low from before. It is very peaceful and quiet. There is an older couple here from Vermont with a tent trailer. They’re birders I think. I’d like to go talk with them about Vermont but my throat just isn’t up to the task. Someday I’d like to visit their state.
Every morning I wake up thinking about my throat. Is it better or the same? I think each day is a bit better. I finally take my first long walk. It feels wonderful to do so again. On the way to Ely we take a side trip to Ruth to view what was once the world’s largest copper mine. I could not see that much since the view point was closed as the visitor season is over. In Ely I am expecting a great fuel mileage reading since there were tailwinds most of the way and drove fifty-five mph most of the time but get only 17 mpg. North of McGill is supposed to be a campground but my FREE camping directory is not that clear with the directions. The road turns into washboard and a sign warns me NO TURNAROUND BEYOND THIS SIGN. We turn around immediately and continue on north – two hours of lonely desolate highway to Wendover, Utah with no place to camp along the way. Any other time I would relish such a road, but now I do not. I turn the satellite radio on to sixties music. Again, those good memories return. Again, the melancholy soon follows. Fortunately I know right where to go to camp off the salt at Bonneville. I’m tired and hungry. I am looking forward to the Speed Week event but still concerned about my condition. Sinbad is beat.
Wow! The first thing I see before driving onto the salt in the morning is standing water, and you must drive through it! This was not so last time I was here five years ago. Egads! This is nasty stuff. Not something you want to get on your vehicle and yet people back east drive in this stuff every winter? Crazy! I crawl through it very slowly and am pleased to see only the tires and fender wells have any salt deposits when I reach the pit area. Oh but to see some of the other cars. They just blasted through the salty brine without care totally covering the vehicle in white salt crust.
It is nice to be among all the racing machinery once again. I see this old grey beard at the start line. His family is there with him all wearing these t-shirts with his picture. He is very quiet and pensive about his run, which is normal for these racers. It’s a long wait to get to the start line. It’s touching to see his wife and daughters there saying “Go Dad! Good luck!” and such. He’s off and they watch. I ask his wife, how old he is–sixty-two. Then she and the daughters go on telling me how he had a quadruple by-pass five years ago, recovered and wanted to do this. The wife wanted me to know she just earned her motorcycle license recently. I tell them how guys like him are an inspiration to me. That I’m walking around here thinking I’m too old to start something like this and then I meet the likes of him. I get a lump in my throat and said good-bye.
Then there was the guy I met several days ago in camp. I was feeling poorly that evening when this Toyota pickup pulls in to the spot next to me. Off-road lights across the top and a high-end mountain bike in the back. I figure it’s some young mountain biker here in Austin for the mountain bike competition. I check the guy out with binoculars and think I see a grey goatee. Upon closer inspection this guy isn’t young. The next morning I walk over to talk with Ron from Texas asking about places to visit in his state. He looks in great shape, lean and fit. He tells me about some things I might be interested in Texas and then I have to ask him “How old are you?” He’s sixty-five and looks ten years younger and I tell him so. He tells me his story: He used to weigh two-hundred-two pounds, had a stroke and his wife of thirteen years who was twenty-one years younger than he divorced him out of fear of having to take care of an invalid the rest of her life (they’re still friends). He didn’t blame her one bit. He turned his life around, got fit by exercise and dieting and now weighs one-fifty. I think he said it was six months when he started on this program. He likes to rock climb also, keeping it to simple bouldering instead of ropes and all. “It makes you think.” He was returning from three weeks in Truckee with his sister who lives there. He pointed across the way and said, “See that hill? One like that was at my sister’s place. I tried to ride my bike up and had to stop three times wheezing, catching my breath. Each day I tried again. Before I left I could go up non-stop, no problem. One day a thirty-something went whizzing on by me, but I didn’t let it bother me.” He said he feels all the same things I do. I demonstrated the difficulty I have squatting and standing up straight and he just shook his head. He just accepts it as part of getting older. I thought something was wrong with me because I was out of shape, but here’s this guy who feels what I do. He too used to run like me, did marathons and now if he tries any running, his knees hurt him for three weeks after. That too was good to hear for I thought I should be able to overcome that, but now I know maybe not. Ron was an inspiration for me. He looked much better than I, and was in much better condition but taught me that what I am experiencing I may as well get used to it and not to expect any changes. He didn’t come right out and say that but I got the message anyway. It’s what is in your head that matters. Think and be positive. He went on to tell me about his friend who was diagnosed with cancer and the doctors said he had about six months left of life. He did a lot of research and is still here six years later. “I’ve never known a person with a more positive attitude than he” Ron said. Ron was a really nice fellow, good looking for a sixty-five year old, a good catch for any woman (wonder what his ex looked like) and I was very happy to have made the effort to talk with him. He was stopping off at Bonneville too.
I’m going through a lot of inner searching while on this trip wondering a lot about myself and am coming up with more questions than answers. I meet people, talk with them and learn a lot about what to expect from myself and not be so hard on myself. This is becoming a work in progress and a major part of this journey in addition to seeing places I’ve not already.
I have a lot to think about.
The temperatures are in the nineties and the glare from the sun off the salt is intense. Even though I am slowly feeling better I feel it best not to linger in these conditions for the four days of the event as it is very draining. I am okay with that and decide to leave the following day. I'll come back another time as I understand they have a meet in August for motorcycles only. I stop off at the car wash in Wendover and thoroughly clean underneath. I feel I washed all the salt off. I don’t want the RV to look like it lived in Massachusetts.
I arrive in Delta Utah. There is nothing that great about Delta, Utah. I hope to find a campground or anything as I am quite tired from driving. I guess I don’t have it like I used to. If I don’t find anything I know not what I’ll do for it’s a long way to the next place. One of the things I noted about Utah, all the women mow the lawns−push mowers, power mowers and riding tractor mowers. You must wear a white t-shirt and jeans while mowing. Utah is a strange place. I have a cup of tea before I leave the Days Inn free Wi-Fi where I found two RV parks in Delta. I will go there and hopefully have internet services too.
I select Antelope Valley RV Park. Normally twenty-eight dollars but she knocked off three dollars since I didn’t have any memberships for a discount. So why even belong to Good Sam, AAA, or whatever? At any rate, twenty-five dollars well spent for hook-ups. I have no choice as all the spots have hookups. I take a nice shower, get the AC going and brew a cup of tea. I am happy to have found this place that I celebrate with a skirt steak for dinner. There are not that many people in the park and those that are, are all big rigs–fifth wheels and large coaches. I’m the small guy. Those few RVers are from all over–Iowa, Indiana and the like, the mid-east. I watch a guy struggle to back in his huge fifth wheel. What a hassle. Why he doesn’t take one of the pull-throughs I don’t know. Probably the old lady wants to be in the shade.
That night I look through the visitor’s magazine that Marva (now there’s a Utah name) gave me when I checked in. I realize I am in the prime fossil area I long ago wanted to come to. I became all worked up about backtracking on Highway 50 to these areas. After more research I see I’d need four wheel drive, my Isuzu Trooper or old Land Rovers, to get to these sites. Oh well, another missed opportunity in my life. I guess I will continue on down the road and stay at another RV campground with the other retired folk in their fifth wheels and large motor coaches.
We stay next in a Forest Service Campground, Maple Grove, south of Scipio, Utah. It is nice even with some Mexicans holding a family reunion. The noise isn’t bad. I watch one of the teenage girls come out of the outhouse crapper in bare feet. Yuck! Some clown has his generator running at all hours so I had to check it out the next morning to see who it was. It was the campground host!
Everyday is a struggle to keep going. Leaving the Salt Flats was a particularly bad day, a long drive with nothing to see and no prospects for it to get any better. The idea of dealing with the same, driving through gigantic Texas seems foreboding. Before I left a friend had told me it would be boring driving through Texas for days on end and if I didn’t find it so, he’d find a psychiatrist for me. The next morning I start out expecting as much as the day before but no matter how much I try to be gloomy, I am enjoying the drive.
Somewhere in Utah I come to the proverbial fork in the road and am given a choice to make–go left and continue on to Texas or turn right and venture away from the plan. I went left for I knew there was a campground nearby and didn’t want to give up just yet. What I didn’t know was the campground is right in the middle of Capitol Reef National Monument. I have never been here. The campground has seventy campsites and is situated in a canyon on a grassy meadow within an old fruit orchard. The apples are delicious. The entire valley is the remnants of an early Mormon homestead of ten families. The nice part is there is an abundance of hiking trails among the Navajo Sandstone cliffs and canyons. This place is truly a gem and I decide to stay awhile. In the visitor center parking lot I see license plates from all over the U.S. People are traveling despite a sagging economy.
The next day I go for a hike up into a canyon that begins right out of the campground. Very pretty rock formations all red sandstone like in Zion. At a trail junction it veers to a natural bridge three miles away. My heart just isn’t in to it. I continue on, meeting the only other hikers so far–two old grey haired women. The sight of these two old ladies lifts my spirits. Soon I find myself overlooking the highway below. Shall I go back the way I came or walk back via the highway? I do the latter. Down in the parking lot below is a trial leading to another natural bridge so I decide to do that one as it is only one-point-seven miles in. By now I have hiked over two miles and looking at the map I am facing another two miles back to the visitor’s center then another one mile to camp. A half mile into this new trail I turn back fearing my feet would be hamburger by the time I reached camp. Maybe the truth of the matter is I just don’t have it in me.
Back at camp I am pleased with what I did and having done at least that much. I also make the final decision. I scratch going to Texas.
I leave camp the following day. I’m doing okay as now I have made the decision. The drive out from Capitol Reef is on a Scenic By-way and they aren’t kidding. It is spectacular. The aspens are just beginning to turn and in couple weeks should be gorgeous. I imagine that scene against a backdrop of red Navajo Sandstone cliffs and formations as far as the horizon. It must be truly magnificent and why this is a popular destination in the fall. I would not have seen this had I continued on with the plan to go to Texas. Fortunately I did not. I turned away as most every day has been a struggle to continue on.
I don’t go through Zion National Park which was my plan. Coming from the north you have to go through a tunnel and if you’re too big, you can’t. Eleven feet four inches tall, seven feet ten inches wide including mirrors are the limits Thank goodness they tell you this at the turnoff to the park miles before arriving. Also you must be escorted through the narrow tunnel, requiring a fifteen dollar permit. Well, I am okay height wise but only had six inches to spare width wise. I’m sure the big coaches simply cannot go as they won’t fit. Add to that, the park would charge twenty five dollars just to drive through, the park that is, not the tunnel. So I pull a U-turn as I don’t need all that drama plus lack the patience to wait.
I stay the night in a Hurricane, Utah RV Park and get snowed upon for my final test of fortitude on this aborted trip. The remaining days driving home are uneventful, done in silence without sixties music to drag me down. I have seven hundred fifty miles to think and maybe get my head readjusted.