On the Road: Salt Lake City, Utah

Note: First published on Blogger on August 25, 2006

Click on Thumbnail for MapUnfolding the Map

Sal scoots through the state of Utah, passing through it's capital by bus and doesn't appear to stop. You can move on too, or stay and linger awhile. As always, click the image if you want to see the map.

Book Quote

"...arriving at Salt Lake City at dawn--a city of sprinklers, the least likely place for Dean to have been born..." 

On the Road, Chapter 11

Salt Lake City, Utah

I have never been to Salt Lake City, but I've heard and read much about it. My father, who passed through after basic training during World War II, thought it funny that the statue of Brigham Young was positioned so that "his ass pointed toward the temple." I'm not sure if that's true or not but it made him laugh, and I wasn't able to share a lot of moments like that with him, so I laughed too.

In high school, one of my best friends was Mormon. We had a friendship like any other. We drank Cokes and Pepsi together. I had heard that Mormans couldn't drink caffeine, and asked him why he did. He said that Mormons were allowed to drink caffeinated soft drinks, but they still couldn't drink coffee.

In truth, I was always slightly fascinated about Mormon beliefs even before I knew about the salacious history and the conspiracy theories. John, my friend, had a great family that was very close knit. I spent a lot of time at his house. He was very giving with his friends, often inviting our teammates from the cross country team to come to the church after hours in the evening. I think his dad, who was also our biology teacher, had a leadership position in the stake. It had a small gym with a basketball court, and we would shoot around. Eventually, this stopped because I think someone with the church may have said something to his dad.

I often wondered, after reading the Book of Mormon, how his father reconciled his scientific beliefs with the writings of Joseph Smith, which seemed to me like a wonderful setting for a fantasy novel but pretty out there for a religion. In hindsight, in the larger scheme of things, I've learned that all humanity believes in things that with a completely logical view do not make sense, but are accepted for their lessons or, on an even more general scale, on faith.

Just after our senior year ended, John went away on mission. He didn't talk much about it to us, because I think he felt we wouldn't understand. He was gone for two years in Brazil, and I really didn't learn too much about his experience. Eventually, we all moved away. He ended up in Cowley, Wyoming, way up in the northwest corner of the state, and I was living in Milwaukee when he called and asked me to be his best man. However, there was a catch. Because I wasn't Mormon, I couldn't participate in the wedding at the temple. I caught the big grey dog from Milwaukee and rode it 21 hours to Billings, Montana where he picked me up and brought me down to Cowley, and I was best man at the reception. However, after that regular contact became semi-regular and then irregular. He now has a huge All-American and beautiful looking family of four kids in all, but there may be five.

Occasionally I see bicycling, shirt-tie-slacks wearing Mormon missionaries wandering around the "war zone" or inner city of Albuquerque, looking extremely out of place, which only adds to the mystery and intrigue of the religion to me. The first Sherlock Holmes story I read, A Study in Scarlet, involves a Mormon assassin wreaking vengeance. I have also recently read Jon Krakauer's book Under the Banner of Heaven, which explores a murder among the fundamentalist offshoots of the Mormons and places it in context with the history of Mormonism. Needless to say, it is controversial. I have also noted the arrest recently on charges related to polygamy of Warren Jeffs, a fundamentalist Mormon leader on the Arizona-Utah border who literally ruled Colorado City and Hildale with an iron fist. Reconciling the experiences I have had with strong, upright Mormons and the mysterious and dark underworld hovering about them has provided fascinating fodder for discussion and reflection.

However, one thing that cannot be disputed is the Mormons' pioneer spirit, which led to Salt Lake City's establishment. After facing very real persecution in Illinois and Missouri and watching their leader, Joseph Smith, killed, they decided that the only remedy was to follow their charismatic new leader, Brigham Young, on a trek of over a thousand miles across unforgiving wilderness and settle their own Zion, which they named Deseret, far away from everyone. Jack and Sal, for a good part of their journey to Denver, actually follow the remnants of the Mormon Trail through Nebraska. Perhaps the energy, courage and fortitude of the early Mormon pioneers infuses Sal subconsciously, and certainly, his destination in California is reality in large part because Mormon pioneers blazed the trail. While Salt Lake City sits quiet and rates less than a sentence in On the Road, it is perhaps symbolically as important as any other site along Sal's journey.

If you want to know more about Salt Lake City and its pioneers:

Brigham Young University (not in Salt Lake but a big part of the present Mormon story)
Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints
Deseret News
Salt Lake City Tribune
Salt Lake City Visitors Guide
University of Utah
Wikipedia: Brigham Young
Wikipedia: Salt Lake City

Next up: Reno, Nevada

On the Road: Creston, Wyoming

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on August 21, 2006

Unfolding the Map

I'm back, Littourati, from my vacation in California, and my mom says to tell you all hello! I had forgotten how beautiful the North Coast of California is during the summer. The wildflowers were out, the blackberries were practically falling off the vines, and the weather was beautiful! Now, we will make Sal's push to San Francisco, starting with today's entry in Creston. I hope you appreciated the preview map I left for you! Click on the image, of course, to see where we are!

Book Quote

"I was two weeks late meeting Remi Boncoeur. The bus trip from Denver to Frisco was uneventful except that my whole soul leaped to it the nearer we got to Frisco. Cheyenne again, in the afternoon this time, and then west over the range; crossing the Divide at midnight at Creston..."

On the Road, Chapter 11

Creston, Wyoming

Creston sits in a lonely place on the top of the world, and Sal passes through it in a blink of an eyelid. Suddenly, after climbing out of the Mississippi Basin, through the plains, and up the Rockies, the rivers suddenly flow with him toward the Pacific.

At the moment that Sal hits that point, let's freeze time. We'll just stop it. Sal's bus is suspended just like in a photo at this point along his journey. It's not necessarily the highest point -- he'll go over a higher point in the Sierras. Sal does not necessarily think it is very important, as he only gives it one line in the book. As he gazes out the window, he probably doesn't see much in the way of a community, if Creston looks anything then like it does now. Yet after all the miles, he has crossed the backbone of the United States, the Continental Divide, at midnight no less.

New Mexico, where I live, straddles the Continental Divide, and every time I drive over it, I get a little bit of a thrill and I'm not sure why. I know that I'm amazed that at that line, water begins draining toward the Pacific, instead of toward the Gulf of Mexico and that if I were a leaf dropped from a hand right over that point at a place where two hypothetical little streams emerge from springs on each side of the line, a little puff of wind would determine whether I land in one stream and head toward California, or in the other and roll on back toward the east.

It is also incredible to me that this country even has a "backbone." This place of once violent upheavals where rock came bursting out of oceans and plains and raised itself high above. Sal gets over the mountains easily, sitting on his bus and looking out the window at the scenery flash and Creston go by in a blink of an eye. But to the pioneers, those edifices of stone touching the sky over their heads may have seemed like yet another one of God's barriers keeping them from the promised land and the riches awaiting them. They may have even seemed like living beings themselves, blocking the sun's light early in the day, brewing up storms in their secret heights and throwing them outward, and finding other tricks to bedevil the travellers seeking to cross them.

I think that when any divide is crossed, whether it is emotional, physical or natural, we ought to pause and reflect for just a moment on where we have come from, and where we are going and how we feel about it in the now.

Okay Sal, you can go onward now, past midnight and down the nether side of the divide and on to the west.

If you want to know more about Creston...

You're probably going to have to go there. It is evidently very tiny, with very few structures about. It has no Wikipedia entry, and appears to be a place where both the railroad, US Highway 30 (Sal's probable route through), and Interstate 80 cross the Continental Divide. It sits at about 7100 feet. Here is one link, if you want to see what it looks like from the air on Google. Creston on Google Maps

Next up: Salt Lake City, Utah

On the Road: Omaha, Nebraska

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote:  First published on Blogger on June 29, 2006

Unfolding the Map

Sal reaches Omaha by bus, and is ready to start thumbing again. You, dear Littourati, can click on the image for the updated map if you wish.

Book Quote

"Then Omaha, and, by God, the first cowboy I saw, walking along the bleak walls of the wholesale meat warehouses in a ten-gallon hat and Texas boots, looked like any beat character of the brickwall dawns of the East except for the getup. We got off the bus and walked clear up the hill, the long hill formed over the milleniums by the mighty Missouri, alongside of which Omaha is built, and got out to the country and stuck our thumbs out."

On the Road:  Chapter 3

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha brings to mind an Indian, but not just any Indian. This Indian stared stoically in profile at the end of a television program that I watched every Sunday when I was growing up. The show was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, and I used to be captivated by the exploits of Marlin Perkins and his trusty sidekick Jim. With Perkins' voice narrating, almost quavering on the edge of old age, he and Jim, or more usually Jim, would find some fearsome jungle critter, tag it, and send it on its way, usually not without some sort of drama. If there was any wrestling to be done, Jim usually tackled the creature, holding it down while the sedative was administered or the tag applied. I remember that it used to come on right before the Wonderful World of Disney, and I liked it better than the other animal show, the name of which I can't even remember.

Omaha also brings to mind Omaha Steaks, which my mother happens to supply us with every few months or so. I'll come home, and big styrofoam chest will be sitting on the porch, inside of which is the remnants of dry ice, and frozen steaks, or pork, or ham, or burgers, and sometimes even a chocolate cake.

I suppose in Sal's mind, Omaha is the beginning of the real West, which he announces by pointing out the first cowboy he sees. Here, a number of American icons come together -- the Missouri River which winds across almost the entire Western half of the country, Sal's cowboy, the beginning of the open plains, and the name itself from an American Indian tribe. However, at the middle of the 20th century, the myth of the old West is rapidly fading. Where once 50 years before Omaha was truly on the edge of the wilderness, if not smack dab in the middle of it, by the time Sal comes through it it is a small city. Later on, Sal will briefly describe some Indians he sees, and his description of the "beat" cowboy gives an indication that the polish has worn off of what was once a new, untamed frontier. To Kerouac, "beat" meant many things according to John Clellon Holmes, author of "The Philosophy of the Beat Generation." (1958) It could mean a world-weariness, but it could also mean an emptiness of the sort which made one tired of the conventions and ready for new experiences. Here, in describing the cowboy, I take it to mean that he meant the former, a worn-out cowboy, fifty years too late and out of his element in a town that once would have belonged to him and others like him, wandering the streets like an anachronism.

To Sal, however, the plains beckon, and in his own beatness, the plains are a metaphor. They are wide open and seemingly unending, where new possibilities and experiences lie just beyond the horizon. In that sense, maybe Omaha still did lie on the edge of a new frontier in 1947, less physical and more of the mind, but still tangible and realizable.

To learn more about Omaha and the Missouri River

City of Omaha
Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau
Omaha World-Herald Mutual of Omaha
Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom
Wikipedia: Omaha

Coalition to Protect the Missouri River
Missouri National Recreation River
Wikipedia: Missouri River

Next Up:  Grand Island, Nebraska

On the Road: Council Bluffs, Iowa

Click on Thumbnail for Map

Note:  Originally published on Blogger on June 28, 2006

Unfolding the Map

I'm going to wax eloquent on suburbs, today, Littourati. Make yourself get a drink, make yourself comfortable, sit back and click on the image if you wish to see the updated cartographic record of our journey.

Book Quote

"We arrived at Council Bluffs at dawn; I looked out. All winter I'd been reading of the great wagon parties that held council there before hitting the Oregon and Santa Fe trails; and of course now it was only cute suburban cottages of one damn kind and another, all laid out in the dismal gray dawn."

On the Road: Chapter 3

Council Bluffs, Iowa

I've never been to Council Bluffs. About the only thing I know about Council Bluffs is this description in On the Road, and the fact that Council Bluffs shares a roller derby team with Omaha. Yes, that's right. Roller derby, that girl-on-girl full contact sport on skates that you may remember from the 70s. It has exploded in popularity in the past 2-3 years. Council Bluffs has the "Rolling Thunder Derby Dames," which also represents Omaha.  (Editor's note:  As of 2010, it appears the Rolling Thunder Derby Dames are no more.)

But I digress. My topic is suburbs. I wonder if Jack was aware that 1947 was around the time of the explosion of suburban America? As returning GIs came home and began looking for places to live, the crowding of the cities was inevitable unless something else was available. Suburbs were the answer, with affordable housing away from the sprawl, traffic and dangers associated with the big cities, family friendly but still within commuting distance to workcenters in the city centers.

I've lived in a number of cities now: Milwaukee, San Antonio, New Orleans and now Albuquerque. In each area, I did not live in the suburbs but within the city limits. In each, my experience of the suburbs has been different and I find myself torn as to how I feel about them. One thing I don't like about the suburbs is my perception of their "sameness." It is as if the suburbs choose to remain in an America untouched by diversity. Houses tend to have the same overall look, more so if they are built en masse by a developer. Here in Albuquerque, many people live in Rio Rancho, which is growing at a pace that one day may make it the largest municipality in terms of population in the state, but on my few trips out there, I have visceral feelings about streets laid out with houses that have the same general design, the same garage facing the street. I once asked a friend, who was driving with me out there, "Why were we so afraid of communism?" I meant it! We were told we'd have no choices, and that we would be forced into uniformity under communism. In driving through a development in Rio Rancho, I decided we didn't need communism to get what we feared. And we accept it!

In New Orleans, Metaire is the suburb to the west. Many people go to Metaire because it offers cheap apartments and chain stores and eateries. As a result, the business district of Metaire, and many other suburbs that I've seen, consists of the same bland chains. Sure, a Target is good, and a Burger King is good. But block after block of big box stores and 10 McDonalds within a five mile strip? And the aesthetics of these strips -- they are built for traffic, not pedestrians. Stores and chains are set back behind big parking lots as traffic zooms on by. You can go to any suburban area and find the same exact thing. Once again, the uniform sameness we once so feared.

In San Antonio, we reached a point where people began to flee the suburbs. The city continued to grow outward and outward, to a point where now people are concerned about the land needed to recharge San Antonio's aquifer, which is being paved over at a dizzying rate and does not allow the water to soak into the earth. People actually flee outward, trying to escape those strips and chains, hoping to find Nirvana at the edge of the wilderness. Instead, as more and more of them go there, they find the strips and the chains follow them.

I like living either in the city, or in the country. The in-between is not for me. The cities offer me variety, diversity, and excitement. The country provides me with rest, relaxation, and quiet. The gray area of the suburb does not give me any solace, but makes me feel uneasy. I think that Jack (and Sal) perhaps had this visceral reaction as well, being city boys, but didn't quite realize that within a few short years, the suburb would be the rule, not the exception.

If you want to learn more about Council Bluffs or suburbia

Council Bluffs: Iowa's Leading Edge
The Daily NonPareil: Council Bluffs Newspaper Online
Wikipedia: Council Bluffs

Levittown: The Prototype Suburb
National Geographic: The New Suburb?
YouTube: Music video - Subdivisions by Rush
Wikipedia: suburb

Next up: Omaha, Nebraska