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Published: July 18th 2008
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Hello from our Trip Mascot
The boys are announcing a Name the Prairie Dog Contest! He rides on the dashboard. What's hot: Completing the coast-to-coast drive, 3900 miles.
What's also hot: Nevada Desert: 96 degrees
What's not: Elko, NV
The road: Paul gets stopped by Nevada cop for failure to use turn signals.
Travel lesson of the day:Get a trip mascot.
from Kathy:
Arrived at my friend Susan's house in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury section last night at 7:45. The last time I drove across country, it was also to see Susan--in 1973!
After 12 days, the beautiful vistas began to look alike and, for the first time, we listened to hilarious Canadian Comedy Factory podcasts and finished
Into the Wild by Jon Krakower, almost all of the 500 miles we drove yesterday. Scott played Tetris and Scrabble. Scott and Paul continued their long-running License Plate game. At stake is $20--who will get all the license plates first?
In the desert, we see dust devils--tornado wanna-be's. One in particular is impressive, white and tall, stretching from the sky to the ground.
JJ observes that the further west we go, the bigger the meals get.
The "boys" also designated a little toy prairie dog the
Bike Friendly Town
In Davis, CA, the bicycle seems to have equal status with the car. They have won a number of awards for their bicycle-friendliness. trip mascot and wish to announce a naming contest. See next post for that fabulous prize-winning opportunity!
Those are the lighter headlines. But I can't help myself, here are ponderings on the trip through Nevada, where the hotels--even the family-standard Holiday Inn-- are all gambling stops. Skip right past this if you don't want to get depressed:
Cash Your Paycheck
The sign across the street from our Elko, NV, Best Western says, "Cash Your Paycheck, Play Paycheck Poker!"
In the parking lot of the same hotel, there is a large police-bust taking place. Perhaps 10 cars have been surrounded by police cars, people are standing by their cars, including a few families with little kids. One woman holds a baby as she waits for the police to search the trunk of their family roadster.
I cross a 100-acre parking lot to visit a Burger King. In this water-starved environment, I see tiny trees and shrubs isolated in pavement breaks, surrounded by gravel. Someone has placed sprayers on them, delivering a few drops of water to the plants and a torrent to the pavement. The hoses are loosely connected to their outlets, spraying
Cash Your Paycheck
On the next screen, they suggest a game of Paycheck Poker! the sides of buildings.
The service at Burger King is so slow that I leave, returning to the smoky dining room of the casino-restaurant at our hotel. There I find a local Chamber of Commerce magazine. A headline reads: "It's All About the Price of Gold." Elko, it seems, is a gold-mining town. Surprise to me: there's still gold mining in the American West. The article goes on to explain how prosperity has come to Elko as the price of gold keeps rising--now to more than $1000 per ounce.
In the mining valley, there are church steeples. We see a bumper sticker that says
God Bless Our Troops, Especially Our Snipers.
Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.
It all started after Yellowstone. Things felt different, people looked different, I didn't feel so familiar anymore. In fact, I felt like I was attracting stares--probably because I looked as different to them as they did to me.
Whenever this happens, I know that my own assumptions and--yes--prejudices are being exposed. For one thing, I'm not used to being in an environment where no one is dressed to go to the office. "Business casual," I guess, would be a foreign term in these parts. There's nary a pair of Dockers or a polo shirt on the horizon.
In Idaho, the accents are so thick that the boys laugh to themselves and shake their heads.
"Can't understand a word that guy is saying," reports JJ.
When every meal comes from a diner, you get accustomed to listening to what's happening at the next table.
In Wells, NV, we stop at a casino/diner where the conversation between two young truckers is all too clear. JJ, who has a job as a pizza delivery man, is listening carefully.
"I gotta' do this in three 11-hour days to make any money," says one.
As the conversation evolves, it sounds as though these drivers lease their own trucks and get paid $35 per hour, $48 in overtime, by their customers. They can charge for the price of gas. (JJ is impressed, he has to pay for his own.) But they don't get meals and motel.
As they strategize around the price squeeze they're both feeling, one takes a call, seemingly from a young daughter.
"Honey, I'll buy my baby a nice present when I get home. I'll be home on the weekend, I promise."
They finish dinner, pay their bills, and return to tip the waitress--a young woman who looks about six months pregnant.
As soon as they leave, we look at each other--something about their intensity had our attention. When I mused on the difficulty of making a living in the current economy, Scott snapped at me.
"Okay, enough, Mom, why do you always say that!"
Apparently I have commented like this before, but apparently I have touched a nerve in Scott.
I said nothing about Paycheck Poker (I keep wanting to call it roulette)--but you can imagine what I was thinking.
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