Last week, Michele and I went to a Life Celebration for our friend Ed Dieden. It was eye-opening, almost shocking, how much he gave to the world. He was a former Marine officer who had been badly wounded in Vietnam, which left him with a lifelong crab-like gait and a desire to help other people. I’ve read variations of Once a Marine, Always a Marine everywhere, and, in Ed’s case, it came out in his volunteer work. To quote from A Celebration of the Life of Ed Dieden, Ed was a mentor to addicts and incarcerated men. He was a Stephen Minister. He volunteered with the Alisha Ann Burn Foundation…and the list goes on, and on, ending with Him helping establish the first Vetreans Court in Alameda County. One item towards the bottom of the list was that he volunteered at Stand Down, weekend retreats for service members, veterans, and their families, where I had the good fortune to join him.
That’s not where I met Ed, however. I first met Ed Dieden in 2006, or 7, while I was developing a moderate-income infill project in Union City. I was looking for somebody to handle the construction side of it, and my banker, Bob Mazza, who, it turned out, was our banker, introduced us. It was a perfect fit.
The Union City project was my last before I retired, and I think it was Ed’s last project, as well. We were both left with a time hole to fill and quickly bonded over politics, photography, especially photos of graffiti, and wilderness camping, which was just driving out into the desert to see where we ended up. Once, we went to Los Vegas for a Marine Reunion, stopping three times to camp on the way there and twice on the way back (I was along only for the drive, not the Reunion part).
We met once a week for lunch or to take photographs, meeting in the middle until Ed moved from Oakland to Benicia. He had Parkinson’s disease, and it became increasingly harder for him to drive. We saw each other less frequently and then not at all. Like an old soldier—no offense meant—Ed just faded from my life.
Ed Dieden was the kind of guy who always brought out the best in people. After a day or a weekend with him, I always felt better about myself. He was a true Mensch. He was all that a man should be. I’ll greatly miss Ed; I hope he is resting in Peace with the God he so loved.
In Northwestern Nevada is an oasis named Wall Spring (for a spring in the closest canyon, Wall Canyon, I think). The Wall Spring in the canyon is a result of geology, the namesake Wall Spring is a collaboration between geology and Mike Moore. Geology provided the aquifer and Moore tapped into that aquifer with two artesian wells, one around 100′ and the other 180′ deep; provided judicious use of rented skiploaders – or backhoes, if you prefer – over several years to make ponds and waterways; and pole-planted trees (sourced locally, he tells me).
In the past, I have referred to it as Mike Moore’s place in the Smoke Creek Desert, but it is as much Linda Fleming’s – Mike’s wife’s – as his and it is now becoming a home to some major pieces of her art. Linda is an artist who creates, among other things, Wall Art and Sculptures. Her work hangs – stands? – in such diverse collections as the Stanford University Museum of Art, the Albuquerque Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Oakland Museum, the U. S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, and, I want to add, Michele’s and my home where we have two of her drawings. Now some of her major pieces are at, or are moving to, Wall Springs.
On our way to Portland, Oregon to go to nephew Jason’s wedding, we decided to go via Wall Spring, in Nevada, for dinner with Linda and Mike (it makes more sense if you have the roadtrip gene). It turned out that Mike’s brother Kirk and his sister Kathy would also be there to make it a party. We were bringing much of the dinner because we had stopped at the San Mateo Farmer’s Market and we wanted to tout our fresh produce over what we assumed – wrongly, I think – to be their meager desert fare. We are also on a barbecued goat-leg jag and we brought one with us, it is perfect for a party of six.
We wanted to be there by four to get the goat on the barbie, and catch the 5 o’clock tour of Linda’s work – and we were running late, having diddled away an hour in Truckee – so the last hour and a half of our trip was at 60 miles per hour, or so, over gravel roads. Windows up, cool air blowing through the quiet car from the A/C, the desert, almost motionless in the windshield, with only time rushing by, was a new experience for us. We were in a rented Chevy Captiva, a compact SUV, that is just sold to Car Rental Companies. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the start of the end of our Range Rover adventures.
We got to Wall Springs on time, and while Mike prepared the barbecue, Linda took us on a tour. The one time I had seen more than one piece of Linda’s – often – huge sculptures was at a show in the Esprit Sculpture Garden in about 1988, and I was thrilled to see some more ( it even included a nice wine, like any uptown opening).
Michele, Kathy, and Linda
Mike and myself with “Necklace” [steel; 2000] in the background
As an aside, the lines on the Buffalo Hills are old beaches where the water level was during the last Ice Age. End aside.
On her website, Linda says My works hint at the co-existence of the mundane and the cosmological where two realities simultaneously exist including the possibility that the past is also present. The structures are diagrams of thought that provide a glimpse of the strangeness beyond the every day world; opening a place where thought becomes tangible, history leaves a trace, and information exhales form. My reaction, seeing the work here, is visceral; they just seem to fit, to be part of the geological province.
“Insinuation” [steel; 1997]
As an aside, the dog is Lefty who is a rescue dog. Lots of people I know have rescue dogs – or cats – but they don’t know they are rescue animals, but Lefty does. Mike found him with his left foot caught in a coyote trap about 70 miles from the nearest paved road (for the longest time, I kept calling Lefty, Lucky, and still want to call him Lucky for what I think are obvious reasons). End aside.
“Pink Glass” [cast glass/steel; 1988]“Grey Matter” [laser-cut powder coated steel; 2006]“Hercules” [wood and steel;1988] with the Granite Mountains in sunlight
The tour ended as the shadows stretched out along the Buffalo Hills, we retired to the back porch for drinks and appetizers.
Sitting on the back porch, drinking my wine, eating Linda’s appetizer of heirloom tomatoes, and watching the alpenglow glow on the Fox Range , I am struck by two, almost diametrical, thoughts. Why does this austere, inhospitable, landscape so pull me? How come it doesn’t pull everybody?
We had roast goat leg, corn brought by Kathy and Kirk from Truckee, and salad for dinner as the Terminator – the line marking the earth’s shadow – under the pink Belt of Venus, ended the day.
The air is soft in the Gloaming and the Silence flows in off of the desert floor. On the back porch, we soak up the moment, knowing it is valuable for being transitory. Tomorrow, the heat and the glare will return; the air so dry it buzzes, the light harsh, and the heat an overbearing physical presence.
The next morning is Monday and getting our usual late start, we turned off the gravel Smoke Creek Road onto an actual paved road at about 11:30. In this case, the paved road is Highway 447 which goes north into Cedarville and beyond.
When we left Cedarville, heading East, we felt like we were going back into the West that we love so much. The green Surprise Valley was behind us and the Sheldon Range, home of the Sheldon Antelope Refuge, Where the antelope play, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day was ahead of us. The Refuge is in a High Lava Plains ecoregion, ranging from 4,000 to 7,300 feet, cold in the winter and hot in the summer. It is dryer than neighboring areas that have more farming and is just as desolate as it must have been in 1931 when it was a nice Leftover place to turn into a Refuge.
Just before we started climbing into the mountains, Michele said Stop the car, look it’s Another Enigma of the Sheldon Range and then we saw another Another Enigma and we stopped again. When we got home, however, we were not so sure that we saw the real Another Enigma of the Sheldon Range (of course there might not even be a real Enigma).
Michele and Mike Moore with “Another Enigma of the Sheldon Range” (by Mike Moore)
When we entered the actual Refuge, I was surprised that a Federal facility would have such an amateur sign. Maybe it was the result of a school contest or maybe the Feds were trying to save money because Congress voted for the Refuge in 1931 but stopped voting for any money to run it. Either way, it was a low-key operation and Antelopes are pretty strange-looking animals anyway.
Climbing up into the Range, we got great view back from where we came.
We did see some Antelopes – this is an Antelope Preserve after all – but we saw alot more wild horses.
As long as we were driving, both the Antelopes and the horses would ignore us, going about their daily business, but, when we stopped, the horses would move away. This is not surprising, the horses are the center of a controversy out here. Like wild burros, the horses are not native, being a mix of escaped Conquistador horses, Indian ponies, left over Cavalry horses, and probably stray ranch horses and, in the past, they have been rounded up and put in horse jails. Like any other invasive species, they have no natural predators and are eating the native species, like Antelope, out of house and home (they also compete with cattle, another invasive species brought in by invasive ranchers, for food). The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has cut back on rounding up the horses because they no longer have the money to store them – as you can imagine, killing horses draws protesters – and there are actually more wild horses in storage areas than on the range. I am ambivalent on this, it is exhilarating to round a corner and see a group of wild horses and, I know, they don’t belong here.
Mike had suggested a place to camp that was just off of the road we were on and he said that when we got to the Dufurrena Rim we will have gone too far. We all knew that we would recognize Dufurrena Rim because we have two of his paintings showing the Rim from the road and sure enough, as we started down a grade, there was our picture. It was kind of thrilling.
Dufurrena 4 by Mike Moore
Dufurrena 10A by Mike Moore
When we doubled back to Mike’s secret – secret in about 1976, that is – campsite we found that it is now an official campsite and even has outhouses and a camp Welcomer (just like Walmart). The campsite also has a hot spring that has been tamed and is now a pool (although it is a pool with a sandy bottom and fish). Our first thought was to look for a place camp that was more private but there were signs everywhere saying No camping except in campgrounds, so – being good citizens – we camped in the authorized campground. Our campsite was perfectly fine, private and quiet. It was also near water and had thousands of bugs. Michele and I are used to drycamping and the bugs were a big surprise (we had no bug repellent and our ever-increasing bug-bites became a major source of conversation for the next week).
We were rewarded however with an outstanding sunset including just the sliver of a moon which went down early giving us the best night sky I can remember seeing in years. In Death Valley, the light pollution from both Los Angeles and Los Vegas have washed out the night sky, sure, we can see the Milky Way in Death Valley, but here, it was more like looking into infinite space. The stars were bright enough to cast shadows.
While Michele slept in, I went over to the hot-spring for a look and to fill up our water jugs. The hot spring was packed but still looked very inviting and I hoped we would get a chance to use it. We were also visited by a flock of Yellow-headed Blackbirds – Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus, try saying that fast five times – which we encouraged by tossing out crumbs.
By the time we were ready to leave, surprisingly enough, the hot spring was empty giving us a chance to enjoy a short swim like it was our private pool (with little fish nibbling at us).
After the swim and after a shower – from the same water; somebody told us not use the shower water to fill our canteens because the shower water was from the pool although it looked to be the other way around – we started out for the Steen Mountains.
![Insinuation [steel; 1997] with Lefty-1835](https://i0.wp.com/srstern.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Insinuation-steel-1997-with-Lefty-1835.jpg?ssl=1 "\"Insinuation\" [steel; 1997]")
![Pink Glass- [cast glass-steel; 1988]](https://i0.wp.com/srstern.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Pink-Glass-cast-glass-steel-1988-4044.jpg?resize=604%2C339&ssl=1 "\"Pink Glass\" [cast glass/steel; 1988]")
![-Pink Glass- [cast glass-steel; 1988]-1855](https://i0.wp.com/srstern.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Pink-Glass-cast-glass-steel-1988-1855.jpg?ssl=1)
