The Dedalus Log

How many a year has passed and gone,
And many a gamble has been lost and won,
And many a road taken by many a first friend,
And each one, I’ve never seen again.
(Bob Dylan’s Dream, by Bob Dylan: 1962)

In gloomy silence, Greg drove slowly away from the speed trap.  A fog of thick depression seemed to envelope us. No one knew what to say or how to console Greg about this second speeding ticket in one month. As we floundered dumbly in search of a topic to ignite some new conversation, John finally erupted in the back seat.
“Yah know, Greg,” he rumbled, “that was screwed. Don’t take this lying down. I’d fight it! You got nothing to lose by challenging the ticket. Patrick got a speeding ticket when he was driving through San Luis Obispo, on his way home from San Francisco. He claimed residential hardship and postponed the court date two or three times, hoping that when he did finally appear the police officer wouldn’t be there. If the arresting officer is not present, the case is dropped. It worked out that way for him. I’m telling you, it’s worth the trouble. Come on Greg, I’ll come along and we can stay in Vegas for a night or two and make a weekend of it.”
“I think it’s worth a try, Greg,” I added. “I’ll come along too! We’ll try the Craps table again at a Vegas casino. What do you say?” I held my breath, praying that Greg would rise to the bait. The idea of Greg in a funk for the remainder of this trip was troubling. So far he had been the glue that bound us together, and kept us motivated.“Yah know John,” he announced, “you’re right! I shouldn’t just pay the fine and let this screw up my driving record. I will fight it! We’ll just plan another trip. So come on Tony, snap out of it! Check the map and tell me where I make the next turn.”


 

None of us had ever visited Hoover Dam before, and I naively betrayed my excitement by asking too many questions about the sights along the way. The communities on Interstate 215, from the southern outskirts of Las Vegas to Henderson were surprisingly upscale in appearance, with elegant, residential homes, gated condominium complexes, and mega-stores like Super Wal-Mart or Home Depot Warehouses anchoring glistening, new giant malls. Gradually, the area along Nevada Highway 93 to Boulder City became more and more rural and desolate as we gained altitude through barren mountains and then descended into a provincial looking Boulder City, located in a basin at the outskirts of Lake Mead. We caught a brief glimpse of the southern shores of the lake as we ascended into the mountainous, canyon region that is bisected by the Colorado River, and separates Nevada from Arizona. We began getting hints of the massive size of the dam by the increasing number of large concrete buildings, towering girders, and spanning electrical cables and conduit that we passed. But even with that preparation, we were struck dumb by the looming appearance of a mammoth, overhead highway bridge, as we turned a wide curve.
“What is that?” I whispered, finally breaking the spell.
“I think that’s the Bypass Bridge they were building when the 9/11 Attack stopped construction,” Jim explained. “We’re on the old highway. Eventually, cars won’t be able to get this close to the dam and Highway 93 will be detoured above us”.
“Wow,” Greg declared, looking at the spanning roadway. “That’s something”.
We slowed as the highway narrowed into a two-lane street that wound its way around the edges of Black Canyon and suddenly became a part of Hoover Dam. We were actually riding on top of the massive dike, crossing from Nevada to Arizona. I mentally isolated myself from my comrades, and became lost in a state of wonder. I felt we were entering the black and white world of the 1930’s. I imagined we actually drove into the past, into the middle of the Great Depression, the days of monumental public works projects that reshaped the nation. We had driven from a modern era of speeding tickets and futuristic super highways, into the Dust Bowl period of Model T Fords and The Grapes of Wrath.

As soon as we parked the car I fell behind and separated myself from the others. I dawdled along the walkway, gazing up, down, and across. Holding tightly to my camera, I calculated the photos to take, and framed each picture in my mind. The gigantic drum gates fascinated me, and I visualized how they could steer overflow water into the cavernous mouth of the Arizona Spillway Tunnel. I stared at the Intake Towers, with their art deco design, mystified by how such large and functional structures could look so delicate and stylish in the water. I couldn’t conceive of the time and effort it had taken to make them so aesthetically pleasing that they seemed to float on the water. Even the breathtaking view of modern Bypass Bridge didn’t detract from the concrete works below. The flying bridge that spanned the sky was impressive, but it looked like a practical, tinker toy construction compared to the fluid and flowing cement structures created 73 years before. I put off staring down the arch-gravity wall-face of the dam for last. It was like looking down an ocean of grey concrete, and spotting a narrow string of fresh, blue water, seventy-two thousand feet below. A wave of dream-like unreality seized me as I leaned over to photograph the power plant below. I felt an overwhelming compulsion to keep leaning out for the perfect shot, and then dropping my camera, so I’d have to dive after it - tobogganing down the face of the cement wall until I reached it. I shook myself awake and pulled away from the mesmerizing drop. Hoover Dam, and its adjacent buildings and monuments took my breath away for the two hours we explored the area. I will never adequately describe what I saw that day, depending, instead, on my photos for a detailed explanation (see Flickr album: 2010-03-06 Hoover Dam).

By the time I made my way back to the car, Jim was hunched over a road map, with Greg standing over him.
“So Jim,” he was asking, “how does it look? Have you figured out a route back, or do we leave the way we came?”
“Don’t you think that would be a little boring?” Jim shot back. “I found an alternate route, but I don’t know if there’s anything there worth seeing. Have you ever heard of a town called Searchlight, Nevada?”
“Searchlight,” Greg repeated, “you’re kidding, right? How can we NOT consider visiting a place called Searchlight? We’ve got to find out what it looks like. Come on Mr. Sulu,” he said, calling Jim the name of the helmsman of the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek, “steer a course to Searchlight and then back to Primm.”
Greg was in full exploration mode now, and it soon infected Jim, John and me. As Greg drove along, we speculated about what we’d find in Searchlight. This was before Sarah Palin made it notorious as the hometown of Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader, and the site of a Tea Party Rally on March 27. We anticipated it would be a ghost town resembling Randsburg, or a small-scale mining town like Johannesburg, two tiny hamlets off of Highway 395 in central California. However, despite it curious name, when we arrived at that the tiny town (population 576), and saw that it offered nothing of sightseeing value, we simply transitioned from Highway 95 to Highway 164 and continued traveling east to the California border at Nipton. Between those two points on the map, there was nothing except hills, highway, rolling dunes, yucca and Joshua trees, and far off mountains. We loved it. There is a rugged beauty to desolation, with its sparseness of fauna and flora. A desert is actually a vital, balanced, and self-sustaining ecosystem. One just needs the eyes to see it as such, and not an empty wasteland. Our ride through the Nevada and California desert gave us another chance to savor the simplicity of desert beauty, and an opportunity to let your minds wander, encouraging us to speak about any topic or idea that occurred during the long, uninterrupted drive. Then, when crossing the state line and descending into a wide desert valley, we noticed a small patch of green on the narrow band of highway, and a curious dark pipeline off to the left of the desert floor. The closer we came to the green dot, the more distinct the dark line became.
“It’s a train,” John announced from the back, “and it seems to be heading for the same place we are, that green patch straight ahead.”
“That’s got to be Nipton,” Jim added. “There’s no other town or community around here. It sure is tiny, though.”
“Greg,” I shouted, grabbing for my camera, “can you get there before the train? I want to get some pictures of this.”
“I’m trying,” Greg grimaced, as the SUV bounded forward. “Just keep an eye out for CHP, will ya.”
We were in a race with a long black train from the South, as we sped down the hill, along the narrow, black highway. We ignored the flashing terrain and concentrated on the lone speeding object, constantly judging its distance from the green patch - which was fast becoming a grove of trees, around a small, rustic hotel, beside a marked railroad crossing.
“Just stop on the road near the crossing, Greg.” I commanded, holding tightly to my camera. I leapt out of the car as soon as he stopped and ran up to the train tracks. I had a few moments to get my bearings and raise the viewfinder to my eye when the giant locomotive pounced and blew past me. On and on the carriage rolled, with box after box of freight, produce, and cargo rumbling by. I had never been that close to such a huge, fast moving, thunderous object before. The looming, continuous wall of flashing metal was almost alive and bursting with power. The sensation was timeless, exhilarating, and frightening. I finally lowered my camera and stared longingly at the receding caboose, as the wind and noise faded and whispered a soft farewell. I turned to rejoin my friends who were already inspecting this crossroads town, with its lone, frontier hotel and store.

The following day we got an early start on an unseasonably wintery Sunday morning. The change of climate signaled a new phase and a different mood in our trip. Gone was the heightened excitement of the casino floor, and our bantering and joking around the green felt gaming tables, now we were facing a long and weary day of desert travel in separate cars. Jim had plotted a course for today’s trip to that included two California locales we’d never visited. They had exotic sounding names and were located in the middle of nowhere. We’d stop at Kelso and Amboy, and then a drive through the Joshua Tree National Forest to Pappy and Harriet’s Palace in Pioneertown for lunch.  We had explored Boulder and Nipton in bright, sunny weather, a stunning contrast to this new day. The sky was grey and overcast, with ominous, low-lying mists clinging to the feet of far off hills and mountains, and dark clouds billowing from their summits. We split up for the journey, with Greg and Jim leading the way in the white SUV and John and I following in the roadster. I agreed with John to keep the convertible top down for as long as we could stand the cold, but I regretted that agreement almost as soon as we started. We retraced our path from the day before toward Nipton, but then turned south on Ivanpah Road. On that road we commenced our Southerly trek across the Mojave National Preserve to Kelso, CA. Our only halt was a brief photo opportunity and bathroom break along the Morning Star Mine Road, where Jim insisted I take pictures of the desert floor sweeping up into the far off mountains. We were curious about Kelso because of its interesting name, and having heard of its history from a Huell Howser California Gold episode on PBS. Officially classified as a ghost town, the train depot was closed in 1986. However, in 2005 the remnants of the Union Pacific depot building were renovated as the official Visitors Center of the Mojave National Preserve. I fell in love with its isolated beauty the moment we saw its “California Mission” building style. Camera in hand, I wandered off by myself, leaving my comrades to fend for themselves as I explored and photographed the adjacent railroad crossing before inspecting the depot. In the silent embrace of the desert, I again experienced a time machine moment and imagined these sights in the black and white world of the 1920’s, when railroads and telegraph were the essential means of travel and communication (see Flickr album: 2010-03-07 Barstow, Kelso, & Amboy).

By the time we got back into the cars, the wind was up and storm clouds were gathering. I’d never driven through a desert in a rainstorm. The sensation is like riding through a narrowing tunnel. You see a wet ribbon of asphalt between rhythmic windshield wipers, and the soggy roadside through foggy windows. Sheltered beneath the snug, convertible top, John and I listened silently to the stereo player as we drove along, interrupting our meditations only to ask if we had a musical preference for the next CD. There wasn’t much to see or do in Amboy beyond its few nostalgic attractions, and we didn’t stay long. Amboy is considered another Mojave ghost town, the remnant of a thriving community, which once attracted a lot of business and tourism until the modern Interstate 40 opened in 1973. There we stopped to visit Roy’s Motel and Café, a famous Route 66 landmark and take some pictures. Roy’s was known for its “retro-future” architecture and some of the original buildings were still standing (see Flickr album: 2010-03-07 Barstow, Kelso, & Amboy). There are also two extinct volcanoes nearby, but because of the unstable weather, we ignored them and decided to drive through the Joshua Tree National Forest in the rain to Twenty-nine Palms and Pioneertown, before completing our day’s journey in Rancho Mirage. By the time we arrived at Pappy and Harriet’s Palace, we were tired, hungry, and cold - and ready for a drink. The rain had stopped and once we had something to eat, and a chance to talk and relax, we would be on the road again.

I wish I could end this story with some tense and climactic scene, to balance the emotions we felt at being caught in the speed trap near Las Vegas. Unfortunately, 44 year-old friendships don’t follow convenient plot lines. There are always conflicts in a friendship, and plenty of arguments, but relationships that manage to endure, do so because they keep rolling along - like a mountain stream, flowing towards the valley below, meandering around the rocks, boulders, and fallen trees that sometimes get in the way. I first heard Bob Dylan’s Dream sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary on their Album 1700, in 1969. The song saddened me because it predicted the inevitable endings of friendships as campanions came to natural crossroads in their lives. In 1969 I was on the verge of graduating from college and on the brink of being drafted into the military. Friendships seemed very fragile things then, and I readily agreed with Dylan “that the road we traveled would shatter or split”. Fortunately, that has not proven to be the case. Except for the loss of one high school friend, the four of us have managed to stay together all these years. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has always been fun, and each of us has contributed in some way in keeping us together. This trip was filled with nostalgic landmarks and locations that were best visualized in black and white. These sites complemented the retirement theme that christened this journey from the start. But the most enjoyable moments were in living color when the four of us came together to eat, talk, laugh, and travel. Bob Dylan sang of those joyful moments in his song, but he let them pass away. Despite our inability to win any money at gambling, and our occasional arguments and disagreements, I suppose we are luckier than most people in keeping this friendship on four wheels and the road.

Bob Dylan’s Dream:

While riding on a train going west
I fell asleep for to take my rest
I dreamed a dream that made me sad
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had.

With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I spent many an afternoon
Where we together weathered many a storm
Laughing and singing till the early hours of the morn.

By the old wooden stove where our hats were hung
Our words were told, our songs were sung
Where we longed for nothing and were satisfied
Talking and joking about the world outside.

With haunted hearts through the heat and cold
We never thought we could get very old
We thought we could sit forever in fun
But our chances really were a million to one.

As easy it was to tell black from white
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right
Our choices were few and the thought never hit
That the one road we traveled would ever shatter and split.

How many a year has passed and gone
And many a gamble has been lost and won
And many a road taken by many a friend
And each one I’ve never seen again.

I wish, I wish, I wish, in vain
That we could sit simply in that room once again
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I’d give it all gladly if our lives could be like that.