All the Way to California

 

Denver, as we were leaving, yesterday

Elko, Nevada is a sprawling commercial strip with every national retail chain and hundreds of motels and a remarkable number of casinos.  We had a fine breakfast at our super inexpensive motel (Jon was moved to leave an extra dollar for his Don Hirsch Honorary Motel Tip) and then we went to Home Depot to try one more time to find good zip ties.  Jon has tried unsuccessfully to tie our broken bumper back together -- he hit a clump of ice on the first or second day, can't remember -- but yesterday he gave up and just cut the bumper with his Leatherman and away we went.

It wasn't so cold yesterday, and we were heading down into Reno, so I was much more relaxed. In fact I took a turn driving and we got to be on the family Zoom call as we zoomed across the wide open level area between the mountain passes. We heard about Jesse and Shalini's new house, we got the update from Israel (schools are open, life feels fairly normal despite the ongoing war to the north and south), we talked about the family reunion in Boston that is happening next spring. It is amazing to be able to see and talk to people sprinkled all over the globe.

We got to Joanne's house pretty much on schedule -- we were quite surprised to go through a gate that guards a development of 1100 houses, every one of them with an astounding view of the huge basin to the east. As Joanne's husband Paul (that's the third Paul on this trip, and there will be more) said, they discovered when they were looking for house to buy, customized houses are built for the first customer and not so much for the next one. As he said, their house is exactly the same as one out of four of the other houses, and their house suits them just fine. During covid they all had plenty of room to work and breathe, plus they have a grand patio with nice furniture where they ate all their meals.

We started first with catching up on the news of Uncle Babe and Auntie Arlene (Joanne's beloved parents) and then we had plenty of other things to talk about. Kira was there, home from Wellesley, which made it extra fun to visit. We learned again that Joanne's family is still in our political bubble but most of our other cousins and aunts and uncles are further to the right. We still love them all, and we will have to remember to be careful with our opinions as we go to visit other cousins along the way.

We bought more windshield wiper fluid, went to our fourth Maverik gas station in two days (our new favorite) and headed into the mountains again, leaving the sunshine behind and climbing into the snow clouds. Just before we got to the Donner Pass, the signs said to put chains on. Jon had actually taken the time to practice putting chains on while we were in Joanne's driveway, so he felt prepared. It was windy and cold (an understatement) and he put on his wool cap and his gloves and went out to lie down on his back on the pavement. I timed him, since I was just sitting in the warm car. It took him 8 minutes to get the chains on and one minute to get his glasses unfogged. And then we chugged on up the mountain, along with all the gigantic semi trucks, carefully and slowly.  It was not scary because everyone was moving slowly. 

 

We scrambled off the highway at Soda Springs and churned on up the mountain to Bruce's house. Bruce is a friend of Jon's from grad school. He came to California to ski and work for Hewlett Packard many years ago, and has retired to this place where he can ski from his back door. Bruce had this incredible house built about 25 years ago and moved here full time. It is not a house for a senior citizen, with all the stairs and multiple floors, but you can't build a one level house up here because it would get buried in the winter. So he will live here until his skiing days are over and then he will figure something else out. It is so much fun to see all the systems and solutions that a single person devises for himself, living exactly as he wants to. Bruce and Jon could talk for hours about engineering related issues of mutual interest -- the list is endless. It snowed and snowed all night.

There had been a hope that Anne, their good friend from school, would be able to meet us here but she was snowed in at home, up in Oregon. She was halfway through a 16 inch blizzard, snug at home, and we had a Zoom call with her. Much better.  I used to visit Jon up at Dartmouth and hang out with Bruce and Anne too so we all have plenty to talk about. Like us, Anne is a new grandma. And Anne used to be an organic farmer before she turned into a computer programmer and her garden is constantly besieged by deer.

Bruce cooked dinner for us, Jon made the kale salad, and we ate a good amount of a delicious sourdough loaf that Bruce had baked. This is the life.

We may be just about done with the exciting parts of the driving, which is fine with me. I would never do this trip by myself in the winter. I guess I would never do this trip by myself anytime, but Jon does all the work of getting us through the challenging parts. And I have to say, since our conversation on the way to Columbus, he is a lot more patient with me about my fretting and I know not to say the same thing over and over quite as much. Yesterday he just said, "what are you so afraid of?" and I said the same thing I always say -- at this speed, it would be very hard for us to fix the situation before something dire happened. We have no back up plan for sliding off the road into a ditch. It would mess up the whole schedule...