Mojave National Preserve and Zzyzx

Rocket Boy and the twins have been quite sick the last week or so, but they're finally on the mend, so we decided to do another road trip today. Last spring I read about Mojave National Preserve on a list of good places to go to see wildflowers -- but when I realized it was so far away we went to the Poppy Preserve instead. But since then we've gone on some much longer drives and we've all survived, so this weekend we decided to tackle Mojave.

To get there from here, you take Highway 395 south for 47 miles to Kramer Junction and then turn left onto Highway 58. Already this was exciting, because we've never turned left onto 58. We've turned RIGHT to go to Boron, and we've gone straight through to Victorville many a time, but never left. OK, so we turned left and drove 35 miles to Barstow.

I hadn't been to Barstow since we moved here, and the first thing that struck me -- struck both of us, actually -- was how much it looks like Ridgecrest. Only worse. It's about the same size, but no Navy base. One thing it does have that Ridgecrest doesn't is a Radio Shack, so we went there because Rocket Boy needed something. But otherwise, Barstow, hmm, not high on my list of places I'd like to live.

Onward we went. From Barstow we got onto Highway 40, headed for the Preserve. We had been planning to eat lunch at the Preserve (there's a little coffee shop at the Visitor Center), but it was already noon when we left Barstow and we had a long way to go. So instead we drove 52 miles to the "town" of Ludlow, where there is a cafe.

Quite a good cafe, actually. With no customers to speak of. We all enjoyed our lunch and Rocket Boy got a piece of cherry pie to go.

Then, since we realized we were actually on the old Route 66, we decided to continue along on that, which we did for (I'm guessing) maybe another 25 miles, until we reached the Kelbaker Road, which would take us into the Preserve.

(An aside: I didn't want to take Route 66, but Rocket Boy shamed me into it. He said, "People in Germany would KILL to take Route 66." So we took Route 66. It was fine and we saw a lot of trains.)

The Mojave National Preserve is 1.6 million acres of land bounded by Interstate 15 to the north and Highway 40 to the south. It goes all the way to the Nevada border. This place is HUGE. Third largest National Park entity in the contiguous US (Death Valley is first). And it's so very dry and deserty, and not really a lot of manufactured "attractions" for visitors to look at (though of course there's lots we didn't see). I guess that's because it's a Preserve and not a Park?

All I could think, as we drove through it, was how many desert tortoises must live there. I could almost feel their little pulsing souls all around me.

The Preserve was not busy today -- probably because it's January, too early for flowers. We drove maybe 40 miles on the Kelbaker Road to Kelso and saw maybe 3 cars the whole time (I think most people enter from the I-15 side, though). As we drove through this utterly barren, bleak landscape, I started thinking what if there were a big earthquake in Ridgecrest today and when we got back, our house was flattened? I have a tendency to imagine disasters all the time anyway, but something about that desert...

When we reached Kelso we found a very attractive Visitor Center and coffee shop housed in the old Kelso depot.

We all got out and explored the place, I bought souvenirs at the gift shop, and the twins ran all over the exhibit rooms and up and down the stairs. I asked one of the rangers for a suggestion on a nice little hike we could take, but he didn't have any good ideas for the direction we were headed (northwest -- by then it was already 3pm and we really needed to be aiming ourselves back toward Ridgecrest). Clearly this is a place we need to come back to. You could spend your whole life exploring it.

But then Rocket Boy thought to ask about Zzyzx, and the ranger said that was a good idea -- on our way home and a nice little walk.

So we drove on across the Preserve on Kelbaker Road another 35 miles to the town of Baker, where we left the Preserve and got on I-15 headed west. About 6 miles down the road is an exit called "Zzyzx Road" and Rocket Boy, since he was a child, had always wanted to take that road. So we took it. It leads you back into the Preserve, because Zzyzx is now part of the Preserve.

Zzyzx has been various things over the centuries, but from 1944 to 1974 it was a spa, a "religious spa" according to one sign we read. Now it is a Desert Studies Center for various CSU campuses. But it's been extensively restored and it looks like a spa -- like you could just check in and start using the hot springs.

Well, almost.

We enjoyed Zzyzx very much, walked all around the pond and out to the dry lake. (When the boos saw the layer of white evaporite on the dry lake they said "Pfeffernusse!") But by then it was nearly 5pm and time to go.

From Zzyzx we drove 56 miles on I-15 back to Barstow, where we had dinner at an IHOP. Saturday night dinner at the Barstow IHOP. There's just something so desolate about how that sounds. Actually it was fine, and kids now eat free every night, so not too expensive either.

And then 35 miles on Highway 58 to Kramer Junction and 47 miles on Highway 395 back to Ridgecrest. When we got home we discovered that there had not been an earthquake that leveled our house, but we HAD left the coffeemaker on. No fire, though. Maybe next time.

Reading the newspaper again

I've been reading the Ridgecrest newspaper again. I know I shouldn't, it's such a joke, but it arrives at our house 5 days a week, and I'm slow in the mornings, so I read it.

Yesterday's paper had a couple of interesting articles. First, there was a "Valley Voices" profile of the woman who processes the birth certificates at the Ridgecrest hospital. Of course, as always, there was a glaring error in the profile -- it said the woman was 64 and had moved to Ridgecrest from Camarillo in 1970 (when she would have been roughly 24, right?) and that her 4 sons had all graduated from high school in Camarillo but her daughter finished up in Ridgecrest. So that means the woman had four children age 18 and over when she herself was 24. I think she must have moved to Ridgecrest in 1990, not 1970, but never mind.

The interesting part of the profile came a little later, in a description of her job. Here is the relevant quote:

With half of the babies born at Ridgecrest Regional Hospital belonging to unmarried parents, Frances also works with the Paternity Opportunity Program (POP), which establishes a legal link between the father and the child. Unmarried parents who sign the Declaration of Paternity form help their child gain the same rights and privileges of a child born within a marriage.

HALF the babies born at the Ridgecrest hospital are to unmarried parents. HALF? I realize that this could be just another typo, maybe she meant to say 10%, but I don't think so. Of course some of these many babies could be born to adults who have chosen not to marry because they don't believe in it or whatever, but I think we're mainly talking about teen pregnancy here. Welcome to Ridgecrest.

So then we go on reading, and here's a nice letter to the editor from the President of the American Life League of the Indian Wells Valley, announcing that on the anniversary of Roe v Wade there will be "two local outdoor public events." The first event will be "on public sidewalks leading to the entrance to Burroughs High School" and the second will be at the hospital. The letter goes on to say that "both of these events will use graphic pictures to show what abortion is all about."

Please. If HALF the babies born at the Ridgecrest hospital are to unmarried parents, I think we can assume that abortion is not a popular Ridgecrestian activity.

Now, don't get me wrong, I would never encourage someone to have an abortion. I believe in choice. I really do. For example, adoption is a nice choice. But another REALLY nice choice is BIRTH CONTROL!!!!!

Someone might want to organize another "local outdoor public event" outside the high school where they could hand out free condoms. I'm sure that would go over well. Maybe the American Life League would like to get involved. Nothing stops abortion like condoms.

Oh man, I know Ridgecrest is starting to grow on me, but every time I read something like this I think, we need to get the hell out of Dodge before the twins grow up.

A perfect day with my mother

would include a visit to a fuchsia show,
where there might be a hummingbird, also visiting,
and then we might drop by Wessex, the used bookstore
in Menlo Park -- oh that’s right,
it’s out of business -- but my mother
is dead, so no matter -- we’ll go there anyway,
pick up some LPs,
and on the way we can visit
an elderly friend, someone who likes to be read to,
we’ll bring her some homemade baked custard
and a maybasket,
and then, let’s see, we need to stop by the nursery,
pick out some impatiens and lobelia
to plant in the garden this spring,
and then there’s a nice-sounding estate sale in Los Altos,
where we might find something we don’t need,
but of course we’ll take a short detour in order to drive by an especially beautiful liquid amber
crape myrtle
magnolia
bed of tulips
wisteria vine
I’m feeling wistful, no, hungry it must be,
shall we stop by the bakery? Harlan’s has been gone for years,
though that shouldn't matter (see above), but
you know, nothing really compares to homemade olallieberry pie,
let’s go home, there’s one just coming out of the oven,
also a pot of potato soup, macaroni and cheese,
actually I’m not that hungry, let’s just have popcorn in front of the TV,
we can sit all cuddled up
and watch Masterpiece Theatre,
or Mystery, if it’s on,
or if it’s not,
we could just sit and talk,
in fact, maybe I’ll just call you,
from wherever I am. If it’s Sunday,
then we can talk for an hour,
or if it isn’t, we can talk anyway,
for as long as we like.

Inspired by the beautiful piece my sister Barbara read at our mother's memorial service in 2008.

Back to the Pinnacles

We visited the Trona Pinnacles for the first time in February of 2009, in other words a week or so after we moved to Ridgecrest. I remember driving east out of town, bravely trying and failing to admire the desert landscape, my new home. The road to the Pinnacles is quite rough and I was very nervous about it, sure that a flash flood would come up out of nowhere, wash out the road, and strand us, because of course no one but us would ever go on such a road.

What a difference two years makes! Now I know that the Trona Pinnacles are visited constantly, that you can SEE Trona from them, if you were washed out you could WALK TO TRONA for heaven's sake, and in any case, someone would rescue you quickly so you wouldn't have to.

It's still a pretty rough road, though, and a pretty weird bleak sight, once you get there.

We were inspired to visit the Pinnacles again after watching that dumb movie, Just Add Water, that I mentioned in an earlier blog. The movie is dumb on so many levels, but the ending is so goofy you almost don't know what to do with it. After the good guys kick the bad meth dealers out of Trona, it starts to rain, and eventually Searles Lake (which has been dry for millennia, though the movie claims it's only been dry since the 1980s) fills up completely. The good guys open a restaurant on the lakeshore and also set up a desert tortoise preservation area next to it. Completely bizarre, but lovely shots of tortoises. (Oh, and sorry about the spoilers, in case anyone was going to rent it.)

But anyway, it does have some nice shots of the Pinnacles, so we decided to visit them again. Boo bears insisted on bringing their toy shopping cart, which they filled with all their Thomas trains, plus all their toy food, toy motorcycles, a stuffed Elmo, and their sippy cups. When we stopped near the Pinnacles to read some signs, they demanded that I get the cart out for them. Unfortunately, it was not easy to push across the rough ground, and this led to tears.

There were more tears soon after, when Rocket Boy decided to walk from there to the Pinnacles while I drove. Baby A elected to walk with RB, while Baby B went in the car with me. Unbeknownst to me, as soon as Baby B and I drove off, Baby A had a nervous breakdown. Rocket Boy had to put him on his shoulders and jog after me (and he has a cold and is in no shape to be jogging).

When I parked the car and got out, I could hear Baby A's screams -- it sounded as though he were being disemboweled. I couldn't see him around the bend, so I ran toward the sound. I thought perhaps the people in the white truck who had also been reading the signs when we were there had taken advantage of my leaving to grab Baby A and torture him.

But no, nothing was wrong, it was just my absence that was the problem.

And while I was running to save Baby A, Baby B went over to explore the little restroom and got his finger caught in the door briefly, so then he went running after me, screaming and crying. All in a moment, we had total disaster, and it was simply because I wasn't right there.

In three days it will be the third anniversary of my own mother's death, my own mother who I miss every single day.

It is a huge responsibility to be a mother, not just in the obvious ways. I have taken on an enormous psychological role in my two boys' lives. It is daunting, nay, overwhelming. If I think about it too much, I get dizzy.

The disaster at the Pinnacles was assuaged by a few hugs and kisses. Pretty soon we were all climbing around the tufa mounds and having a good time. And thus January continues.

Baby pictures

So today was Thursday again, which is work-on-photo-album-and-baby-book-day. Once again I pulled out the twins' baby books, and this time started at the beginning. Right at the front you are supposed to paste a 5x7 photo of the child. So I decided my task today would be to choose a picture for each boy's book and order it from the Kodak site. I thought that might take 15 minutes.

But how does one choose? What ONE photo best represents each of my sons? Should it be a newborn picture or a toddler picture?

I started looking through our collection of digital photos. Two things quickly became apparent.

1. We never take pictures of the boys alone, only the two of them together, so I have nothing to choose from.

2. They were so cute when they were babies that it BREAKS MY HEART to look at their pictures!

For example (one of thousands)...

And then there's this one...

And how about this one...

I just freecycled that little pair of white fleece overalls! What was I thinking? I should have framed it or something.

Looking at their baby pictures makes me terribly upset to think that I could ever be mad at them, or yell. Never mind that Baby A hit me in the face with a piece of Thomas train track (on purpose) or that Baby B dumped his bowl of cereal all over the floor (also on purpose) or that Baby A stole all of Baby B's Thomas trains (also on purpose) or that Baby B hit our cat Pie Bear with a book (yes, also very much on purpose). They were so cute when they were babies! Thus, no one should ever get angry at them!

No one ever told me about this part of motherhood -- the insanity part. Or maybe it's just me.

After an hour or so of agony and guilt, I suddenly remembered Mitzi and Molly's photos from Mitchell Park in the summer of 2009. Mitzi and Molly are PROFESSIONAL photographers and they actually took photos of each boy individually. Many many photos. I managed to find the disk they gave me and started looking through it. An hour or so later I had narrowed my choices down to 6 photos, 3 of each boy. I uploaded them to the Kodak site and then began agonizing over which was the cutest. Finally I gave up and ordered 5x7 prints of all 6 photos. Whatever I don't use in the baby books I can frame or something.

Little by little, things get done. As January passes by.

January, continued

I'm trying to remember whether I have ever liked this month, and I don't think so, not really. In high school I kind of liked going back to classes after the Christmas break -- there was always someone I was in love with who I would have missed seeing. But other than that, nothing much good comes to mind. Growing up in the Bay Area, January meant rain, which I did like, so there's a positive. In Michigan and Colorado, January meant snow and ice and cold. In Ridgecrest so far this year, weirdly, January has meant snow and ice and cold. At least the wind hasn't been blowing.

I am not doing well with my resolutions, and already there is that temptation to chuck them all. But I must not do that. Not writing every day in January doesn't mean that I might not write every day in February. And planning to quit Weight Watchers is just silly, since I know I will go back. Today I spent $118 at the grocery store and did not buy any chocolate. Gotta be a record, for me. It was mostly fruits and vegetables. I may not eat any of them, but I bought them.

January also seems to be the time when people die. Sometimes people who are very ill hang on until Christmas and then they let go. Other people catch pneumonia from their relatives at Christmas and die from it in January. My little mother died of pneumonia in January, three years ago.

Today we found out that Rocket Boy's cousin in Germany has a tumor on his thyroid. He is having an operation on Wednesday to determine whether or not it is cancer. Since he is a ferocious smoker, I am not looking forward to the results, though I know that thyroid tumors can be benign. We both really like this particular cousin. Baby B is named for him, just as Rocket Boy was named for the cousin's father. He is younger than I am. We are not ready for him to be sick or dying. Yes, I know I always kill everyone off before I even know they're sick.

On a more cheerful note, we are watching the movie "Just Add Water," which is set in Trona. Note to anyone thinking of renting this movie: eh, maybe not worth it. It is quite a ridiculous story, not to mention just simply wrong about Trona -- they pretend it is in the Owens Valley and has no water because Los Angeles stole it -- sorry, folks, wrong valley, wrong story. But the movie has an unexpected pleasure: the main character has a tortoise! I wonder how many movies feature tortoises. I would happily rent them all.

It's a short movie but we only watched half of it tonight because Rocket Boy has a mild flu, so he couldn't even sit through an hour of it. Another thing to love about January: the flu.

So as not to end on a low note, I will include a photo of our trip to Death Valley yesterday. There's one good thing about January: Death Valley is cool and nearly empty of visitors. Here we are taking a GPS reading at Zabriskie Point -- such a nice father-son activity.

Note to anyone trying to decide whether or not to rent the movie "Zabriskie Point": skip it. OK, the scenery is nice, but the real thing is much better.

Resolutions

I'm a little late with these this year, but that's because I needed time to think about them. Some years I just scribble down a long list and never look at it again until the year is over. (I keep all my lists, going back to 1984, on a clipboard that always manages to surface around December 31st.) So many things are on the list year after year: lose weight, manage my finances better, write a novel, read 100 books. But in 2009 I did finally write a novel. And last year I not only wrote another novel, I read 100 books. So I'm starting to think I might want to take these resolutions a little more seriously.

This year I have 15 resolutions on the list. I think that's too many. I'll never keep 15 resolutions. But the thing is, I don't know right now which 1 or 2 I will keep. If I narrow the list down to 4 or 5 items, I might miss the one whose year it finally is. So 15 it is.

Here they are, grouped into 4 categories:

Health and beauty
1. Stick with WW. "Lose weight" has been on my list since I was 10 and will be on my list until the day I die. No worries, things could be worse. Thank goodness WW exists.
2. Exercise. The sad thing about this is that for years and years I didn't have to put it on my list -- it was a fun and constant part of my life. But now I live in Ridgecrest. So my resolution is to walk several times a week, perhaps resume lifting weights, and take advantage of whatever opportunities to exercise arise.
3. In bed by 11 PM each night. By far the hardest resolution for me. Definitely worth pursuing, however.
4. Develop or regain my personal style. How I might go about doing this is unclear, but I want to remind myself that it's an issue, and my sassy new haircut does not obviate the problem.

Self-actualization (the smallest group this year, or perhaps the most focused, because I think I know what I want).
5. Write or edit (my own writing) every day. At least 15 minutes. Also, I'm planning to set a specific writing goal each month, like "write a poem for X writing contest."
6. Find a part-time editing job. I think it's time, or it will be at some point during the year. Remember, if I find a job on December 31st it still counts. Need to think about this one.
7. Read! Anything I want! I was going to set a more serious specific goal, but clearly I need some time off. My first book of the year was a young adult novel called The Dollhouse Murders, that should tell you something.

Family life
8. Work with Rocket Boy to figure out where we want to live. This is important. It means don't wait until he gets a job offer and then whine about having to move somewhere I don't like.
9. Figure out a solution for our problematic Colorado properties. We're working on it. Two seem OK, the other two not OK. If we're going to be land barons, we need to be good land barons.
10. Baby books, photo albums, photo storage & organization. I don't especially want to work on this, but the guilt associated with not doing it is really dragging me down. I decided I could work on it for 1 hour per week, tentatively scheduled for Thursday afternoons. Today was my first attempt and I managed to glue a photo of each boy's first salon haircut into their respective baby books. QUITE an achievement, and a significant subsequent reduction in guilt. Just think, if someone asks to see their baby books, I can display that page!
11. Potty training! Oh yeah...

Personal relationships
12. Maintain friendships. The Christmas card orgy always reminds me about this. I have so many wonderful friends and I don't want to lose them. So the current plan is to write an email, birthday card, etc., to at least one friend every Tuesday. Sounds pathetic, but it would be an improvement over last year's record. And NO, I am NOT going to join stupid Facebook, NOT NOT NOT. There are other ways to stay friends with people.
13. Date night once a month. Rocket Boy and I have such a hard time with this. But we had maybe half a dozen nights out without the twins last year and they were really good for us. Once a month sounds doable.
14. Try to fulfill my volunteer commitments. (One of which is currently driving me batty.) I said I'd do it, I'll try to do it.
15. Enjoy the twins. Maybe I need to make this more specific -- or maybe not. Last year I put down that I should do music and art projects with them. Oh yeah -- or not. I think it's more important to live in the moment with them, rather than plan activities. Though the moment can be quite horrible at times. Maybe enjoying them means working more on discipline. I'm not sure. But today while looking for things for their baby books I came across the photos my sister took during their first week of life. I can't remember them being so tiny! And then I found some photos of them during our move here. They were so precious! So the bottom line is that I want to find ways to enjoy them, even though sometimes it seems impossible.

Anyway, that's the list. We'll see.

I hate January but I love January. Everything's so new, especially my resolutions. Even the one about Weight Watchers. And now it's nearly 11, I must go to bed!

Snow

I admit it, when I looked out the window on Monday morning I thought -- it's Colorado! Ridgecrest actually got 3 inches of snow from Sunday morning to Monday morning. Last year when it snowed we were told it hadn't snowed in 6 years -- and last year's snow wasn't as deep as this one.

This is what it looked like the previous afternoon, when it had been lightly snowing for an hour or two:

I took the photo because I thought this was all we'd get, silly me. It just kept snowing and snowing and snowing.

At 6 am Monday morning our phone rang. Of course immediately I thought someone had died and the survivors had kindly waited until 6 am to call and tell us. But then I thought -- who? All our parents are gone. If one of my sisters died, would the surviving brother-in-law in question call me at 6 am to tell me? If one of Rocket Boy's remaining relations died, would anyone even remember to tell us about it, much less call politely at 6 am? While I was puzzling about that, the phone (which is on Rocket Boy's side of the bed) stopped ringing and went to voicemail.

I lay there worrying. The phone rang again. This time Rocket Boy woke up enough to answer it. It was his boss, telling him the base was going to open 2 hours late. I sat up in bed and looked out the window, observing the Colorado scene.

Only thing is, in Colorado nobody's going to close a base for 3 inches of snow!

We still don't know our way around this place, that's for sure. Apparently you're supposed to listen to 102.7 FM to find out whether anything else is closed for weather, but we didn't do that. Imagine my surprise when I drove up to the twins' daycare at 11:30 to find the parking lot COMPLETELY empty. Turned out, all the schools in town closed, and of course the daycares. For 3 inches of snow, which began to melt as soon as the sun came out, mid-morning.

So the twins and I went to the park instead, at their insistence. Sorry, no photos, because I didn't have my camera with me -- I wasn't on my way to the park, I was on my way to drop them off at daycare. But you improvise. Boo bears don't have proper snow attire -- no warm coats, no warm boots. They do have mittens, from last year. Baby A insisted on wearing his in the car; Baby B insisted on not wearing his at all, ever. When we got out of the car to go to the park, Baby A decided to leave the mittens behind. I figured we wouldn't be staying long, what with our inappropriate clothing, so didn't press the issue. I didn't have gloves either -- what can I say, I thought I was on my way to daycare!

We walked around in the snowy grass. Boo bears complained, and went to walk on the path instead, until they encountered a big puddle of melting snow. Several snowpeople had been constructed in the park, so we went to look at some of them. Then I wanted to show the boos how it's done, so I started rolling a ball. Just as on that memorable day back in January 1962 when it snowed in Palo Alto, the snow rolled up like a carpet, though in Leroy Jackson Park it also brought with it a lot of dry dead grass and some bird poop. And I had no gloves, so my hands immediately started to freeze. I rolled one ball, for the snowman's bottom third, and then gave up. I made a quick little ball with my hands, put it on top of the big ball, and said "OK, there's our snowman, now let's go bye-bye car!" The twins were happy to follow me, as they too were cold and wet.

That night I got online and ordered them some warm, waterproof, winter coats.

Today we had fog and the roads were icy, but daycare was open. There's a tiny bit of snow left in our yard. It should all be gone by tomorrow or the next day.

An old friend from Colorado called me today -- she'd gotten our Christmas card and hadn't sent out any of her own, but wanted to keep in touch. She mentioned that a few days ago they'd finally had their first good snow.