When Michele and I buy paper towels, what we get depends on where we are. If we are at Whole Foods, we will get some something like Seventh Generation which advertise that they are 100% recycled paper and 100% unbleached. If we are at Safeway, we will get something like Bounty which just touts their soaking up power.
But, when we get home, both choices seem wrong. The Bounty and their ilk are made from virgin forests and bleach, so we are wrong there. But the perforations allow us to use half sheets so we use alot less. The Seventh Generation paper towels are perforated so we can only use full sheets (unless somebody wanted to use scissors to cut the sheets). So they may be made in a way that has less impact, but using them uses almost double the paper.
It is Friday night and I am sitting in Michele’s family cabin; it is Friday night and my – formerly – trusty Range Rover is on its way back to Minden, Nevada. At least I hope it is on its way back to Hollar’s Automotive And 4 Wheel Drive in Minden. To start at the beginning:
After the Range Rover collapsed on the way to Death Valley and was towed to Hollar’s, it was given a complete top-end rebuild in situ. Monday, Michele and I set out to pickup what we expected to be the rejuvenated Range Rover in Minden. We settled on Highway 88 as the best way to go. Highway 88 seemed counter intuitive but both Google and Apple agreed that it was the fastest way to get to Minden and we figured that, even if it wasn’t the fastest way, it would probably be the most interesting way.
We left home about noon and drove to Stockton by freeway. Passing into Red State California around Altamont Pass at the Jesus Saves Hillside.
At Stockton, left the freeways for the – relatively – backroads. It was mostly straight roads across the Great Central Valley into the foothills. Then lots of sweeping turns over the Sierras and down into the Carson Valley to Minden.
The Rover was ready to go and Michele wanted to have her VW GTI serviced at Eurotech in Incline Village – because she felt they had done such a good job with the Rover the first time we were there and German cars are their speciality – so she drove ahead to Tahoe to get there before they closed.
I paid Hollar’s for the work on the Rover and then followed her a few minutes later. Driving up the Carson Valley and then over Spooner Summit on Highway 50, along, I marveled at how good the Rover sounded. Then the low coolant light came on. Just for a moment, just a flash, but enough to raise my blood pressure and adrenaline level. Then no light, then more flashing.
By the time I got to Eurotech, the light was flashing full time and popping the hood revealed splashed coolant all around the radiator holding tank. It was after business hours, so we left the Rover at Eurotech and drove the GTI to the cabin. The opposite of our plan which was now starting to look like a distant fantasy.
The next morning, Eurotech called and said that they tightened a couple of the houses and they thought everything was OK. It was amazing how quickly the fantasy returned. I drove Michele’s GTI over to Eurotech, picked up the Rover, and was on my way. The light didn’t start to flash for almost 45 minutes. That was Tuesday morning.
With variations, Wednesday was similar. Thursday was waiting for a part day – a part that was new about three weeks ago, but we were now hoping was defective – because the replacement was being shipped from Seattle. Today, Friday, was finding out that the part was probably not defective day and that I have a bigger problem.
It turns out that Dave at Eurotech and Mark Hollar are big off-roading buddies and fans of each other’s work. Dave called Mark who sent a truck to take the Rover back to Hollar’s in Minden. I don’t hold much hope that I will ever be wandering around in Nevada – in the Rover – again and, as I write that, I am starting to realize what a big portion of this blog – and my life – that is.
This time of year, our backyard is dominated by our Fremontodendron californicum, known to Michele and myself as our Fremontia. It is a native of California but I don’t think that I have ever seen one in the wild (actually, I have not seen very many in captivity). The tree – bush? – is actually much more dominating than the pictures show, let me try again.
It is really rough and stickery up close and I am always amazed at how easily the squirrels negotiate it. Today, the bees were busy tending the Fremontia and
My preference is to drive to the desert, especially the deep desert, during the day. I like watching the subtle change from green to brown, and red, and yellow; from Civilization to the Great Empty. (About twenty years ago, I dropped Michele off at work and drove all day to Page, Arizona, to meet her flight that night. I had a deep feeling of where I was while Michele, having just got off the plane, wasn’t even sure which way was north.) On this trip, we left Bishop at about 10:00 PM after a late dinner and drove south to Big Pine where we turned east to drive into the White Mountains just as a large moon was rising.
When we entered Eureka Valley, it was bright enough to get a sense of the vastness of the valley – really a graben – but not bright enough to easily spot the camping spot I had planned on. What we did find worked great and, after a leisurely breakfast we went south about ten miles on the Eureka Dune Road to the Eureka Dunes (duh!).
JR had already been up since before sunrise and had gone for a long walk and his enthusiasm, added to Gina and Courtney’s. I have been going to the desert – mostly Death Valley, but also The Mojave National Preserve, Anzo Borrego State Park, Northwestern Nevada, and assorted other places like the Moroccan Sahara – since the early 70’s when Iver Iverson introduced me to Death Valley and I Had a religious conversion as my very ex-wife so disparagingly put it. Michele and I got married there. But it has been hard to get friends to share my wonder, my fervor.
Over the years, I have tried, dragging people there with promises of subtle wonders. Their reactions have ranged from This is nice, let’s do it again, I’ll call you, don’t call me. to Ugh? nice, I guess, but windy, to Where are the trees? to Can we go home now? ; but Gina and Courtney were the first people in a long time that caught the excitement that Michele and I share.
Meanwhile, back in Eureka Valley, the Eureka Dunes are the highest dunes in California – which may be akin to being the longest earthworm or heaviest crow, interesting but not very important – at 680 feet above the dry lakebed they sit in (they look smaller because the surrounding Last Chance Range towers over them).
We drove to the west side of the dunes, nearest the highest point and furthest from the crowded parking lot – it was packed, there must have been five cars – on the theory that we would climb to the top. I had climbed to the top, once, over twenty years ago where I ran into a guy who climbed to the almost-top with skis. He was going to ski down the steepest part, but it was a failure (for him, fun to watch for us). Everybody packed lots of water – as the temp was climbing – Gina and Michele brought snacks, and we set off across the dry lakebed to the dunes.
Sand dunes are caused by the wind (in the desert, atleast). The wind scours the desert, picking up sand and dust. On a very windy day, so much is in the air that we can’t see across the valley, but – as the wind bumps up against a mountain and slows down – it looses its carrying capacity, dropping its cargo of sand and dust. Over time – alot of time, one grain of sand at a time – the sand and dust has built a dune 680 feet high and, maybe, a mile long. The shape of the dunes is governed by the shape of the surrounding topography that is slowing down the wind so it has been pretty much the same since the invention of the camera.
When we got into the dunes, we began to see and feel their complexity. In some places, they were hard and in other places almost too soft to get anywhere. Here would be a pattern and over there a smooth wall. On the otherside of a ridge, a valley going all the way down to the lake bed.
And, as we climbed, the changing view of the Eureka Valley and the Last Chance range open up.
I stopped climbing first, choosing, after our snack break to sit on a nice warm ridge and take an afternoon nap while everybody else kept at it.
JR and Michele got the furthest, both of them – as far as I can tell – switching to barefoot sand-walking. At least they were both barefoot when they got back down to my level; JR reporting an equipment malfunction and Michele just seemed to like walking barefoot in warm sand. Then it was time to put the shoes back on, dust the sand from our butts – in my case, atleast – walk back to the cars, drive over the Last Chance Range to Upper Death Valley Wash, and find a place to camp.
For the final part – presumably – of Michele’s 2013 Birthday Extravaganza, we went to see Anne-Sophie Mutter at the, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed, Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.
Before the performance, we went to a new – for us – Thai Restaurant, Lers Ros. It was a little bit of a shock with tastes and textures that were new to both of us (atleast with Thai food). I think the restaurant is the Thai equivalent of the introduction of new Hunan Chinese food into our cultural cuisinescape about 50! years ago. Up until last night, every Thai restaurant we have been to – even in Hong Kong – have been pretty much the same. Some were better than others, but all were rifts on an established theme. The food here is hotter and had more pickled veggies than we are used to in Thai food. It was more interesting than the satisfying comfort of the familiar and we want to go back.
Anne-Sophie Mutter is a German violinist we both love from her – our? – CD’s and she was accompanied by the pianist, Lambert Orkis. But, for Michele and me, Mutter was the reason we were there and she didn’t disappoint. We sat in the $15 seats behind and above the stage and, I think, they were better than most of the seats in the house (except that they are benches and they did get harder over time). We had a great time – Anne-Sophie Mutter was great, Lambert Orkis was a more than pleasant surprise, and the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill building just gets better with age – and, because we do stuff like this so infrequently, it felt very celebratory.
When Michele and I buy paper towels, what we get depends on where we are. If we are at Whole Foods, we will get some something like Seventh Generation which advertise that they are 100% recycled paper and 100% unbleached. If we are at Safeway, we will get something like Bounty which just touts their soaking up power.
