And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 01:50:30 EDT >Subject: What a long. . . #1 >X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 16-bit for Windows sub 41 > > >August 1999 in The West > >First Fitte > >Friday August 6, 1999, the day before we left, 500 lightning bolts struck >Nevada. > >The lightning did a day's work, starting grass and brush fires, killing >cattle, addling sheep, awing artists and satisfying Armageddon forecasters, >out in force this week ballyhooing a Nostradamus prediction that the king of >terror will reign in the sky or rain from the sky. > >Nostradamus was a seer and astronomical observer with a fine, rigorous mind. >I don't think he would have been satisfied as to the accuracy of his omens >with a pawky 500 lightning strikes in a desert on the other side of the >planet. > >The next day, Saturday, we set out in our rented red Mercury Mountaineer, >across the Central Valley of California, not kneedeep in John Muir's bee >pasture but four lanes wide in traffic, backtracking Kit Carson over the >Sierra crest on Highway 50, down the eastern slope and into the Great Basin >of sage brush, rabbit brush, and lightning between the wide open spaces. > >I love the desert. I remember when I used to be scared of it. Then like a >fever the fear ran its course, leaving a sand-cast respect for the dangers of >a high, wide, exposed and arid place, and eager pleasure in the beauties of >the dry bottom of the extinct vast inland sea we call Lake Lahontan, and in >the rows of piles of granite rubble which stand for mountains in Nevada, and >which, when viewed in topological relief, someone described as "an army of >worms marching south." > >Highway 50 is far less travelled than Interstate 80, of course, but the >Californication of Nevada now stretches as far east as Fallon. I understand >this. One can buy a prefab house for $29,500, which means one can earn $8 an >hour and have a family and a house in Nevada. But the result is that all >those extra Americans who can't possibly join the leisure class or the ruling >class or the educated class or the bureaucrat class will have more children >who will also be unable to afford what TV wants them to want, and they will >do what? when Nevada runs out of water . . . world population of humans now >6 billion and rising, expected to reach 10 billion before we die. And >between Fallon and the Pacific Ocean it's basically wall to wall cars. > >A few miles east of Fallon is the Grimes Point Archaeological Preserve. We >didn't stop this year, but last year I spent several hours photographing >petroglyphs, rock carvings pecked out with stone on the lava boulders and >hard old granite, and then acid-etched with cactus juice to stain the images >an eggshell-pale, in fine contrast to the brown rocks. The rocks surround a >sink that was once a goodsized inland lake, surrounded by reeds, shorebirds, >ducks, antelope, mule deer, maybe even bighorns. Then, people we call >Fremont culture people lived here, and stored their food in caves in the >hills that ring the north end of the lake. > >One stone story stuck a granite sliver in my heart. A bolt of lightning >strikes the earth, a long-chested, squat-legged man holding a tripod-based >staff stands transfixed, and to his right, a shape sits - is it a rainbow? >is it a female sexual organ? Is it a cave? > >Does this story convey a religious sentiment, something about god the >lightning coming down from the sky, transfixing the man with awe and terror, >causing him to run to woman? Why a humanoid male, a pudendum female? > >At Austin, Nevada, in the middle of the state, we stopped for gas and learned >that there'd been several more lightning strikes, setting Grass Valley, >Nevada on fire. > >"I love to sit inside and watch them hit," the tired blonde clerk said. She >had strikingly horselong teeth. "They're real pretty. But it sure is spooky >to see them strike and set the hills on fire." > >Maybe the stone story says when the lightning rains down from heaven, man, >head for the cave at the north end of the lake. You'll be safe from terror >and death there. > >We camped 12 miles past the Austin town dump, in the mountains, at a camp >called Big Creek. It's a lovely, minimally developed spot, includes a beaver >dam and meadow. The dry bare mountains resemble marble, and make a fine >backdrop for the clean little creek and the willow scrub. > >In Nevada, the light at sunset turns barren rock into crimson, scarlet, gold, >poppy-orange, flowing nectar, fire-stained glass windows. For fifteen >minutes, color-neutered bluffs transform from grey to amethyst, gold, indigo, >lapis. Every sunset in the Great Basin hummingbirds fly out of my heart, >stab each others' breasts and offer them still whirring to the sun, climb >into the sky and dive with a noise like bullroarers in kamikaze flights to >the ground, pulling out of suicidal impact at five feet above the earth and >zooming upward again, scattering feathereens out of sheer joy. > >The dogs love travelling, which I find a little strange. They have to sleep >in the back of the truck surrounded by shifting luggage for four-five hours >at a stretch. Then they get a few hours of freedom in a strange place, and >the next day repeat the process. They spend most of their road hours riding, >sleeping, waiting for us to make camp or break camp, make food, feed them, >feed us, walk around with them. But they love it. New smells, new dirt, I >suppose. > >Golden Retriever Reddy's vacation report: First night camped by a beaver >dam. Got in the mud! Found a stick and Nick threw it in the beaver dam a >bunch of times and I retrieved it. Good mud, good stick, good spot. Back in >the truck for a snooze. > >Sunday morning we got back on Highway 50 and headed east, topped a hill and >met a mule and his white-bearded rider, who waved a red flag at us. Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
