On the Road: Sacramento, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote:  First published on Blogger on September 24, 2006

We've hit the central valley, Littourati, and are almost within sight of San Francisco. But first, something about California's capitol. Click on the image to see our progress.

Book Quote

"...then down the hills to the flats of Sacramento. I suddenly realized I was in California. Warm, palmy air -- air you can kiss -- and palms. Along the storied Sacramento River on a superhighway..."

On the Road, Chapter 11

Sacramento, California

Sacramento is the capitol of my home state, and a city I really don't know much about, even though my sister currently lives and works there. Why is this? I think that part of it was my upbringing in rural northern California. One thing that becomes apparent upon a visit to California is that the length of the state allows for very different experiences of environment and cultures wherever you are. You can find urban California, rural California, even redneck California. I grew up in "its sometimes scary where you walk in the woods because some bearded solitary pot grower will shoot you" California. And it becomes apparent when you talk to Californians that they live in their own little microcosms.

Besides that, Sacramento is probably the least flashy of California's urban areas. The downtown is nice but not very impressive. It doesn't have the chic- and plasticness of Los Angeles, nor does it have the countercultural flair of San Francisco. Sacramento is probably California's plainest city, almost perfect to house the massive state bureaucracy. It is very uninteresting to those used to more high-profile California places; even the governor, Schwarzenegger, only goes there when he has to.

However, Sacramento, from the reports of my sister, has a lively music scene, and a laid-back kind of urban atmosphere. The heat in the summer, often triple digits, means that there are few venturing outdoors, but in the winters when the temperatures are cooler (and providing it isn't raining cats and dogs) one will see a cross section of California. It is home to Sacramento State University, a large campus that draws from around the state.

Of course, Sacramento does have a storied tradition about it. It grew up in the gold rush, starting at Sutter's Fort, and was the often the first major stop for those who happened to make it across the Sierra Nevada and into the Golden State. During the gold rush, miners spread out from the city into the streams where they hoped to make a big strike. They built Sacramento by spending money there, enriching Sacramento's coffers as they bought supplies for their expeditions.

In the late 1940s, when Sal passes through in On the Road, Sacramento was much smaller, and probably had a kind of big-small town feeling about it. Of course Sal didn't stop, his eyes firmly fixed on San Francisco, and I'm not sure what he would have found there if he did.

My own experiences in Sacramento have been mostly benign affairs. I usually hang out with my sister in her little downtown apartment. Occasionally we go to some of her favorite places to eat. Unfortunately, she's never taken me to her favorite clubs to see her favorite local bands, but that's mostly been because of my schedule. Like Sal and Jack, when I get to Sacramento, my eyes are usually fixed on some other goal -- like getting to my family's house on the coast, or going down to meet some friends in San Francisco. That has left little time and motivation to explore Sacramento myself.

In a sense, that's the history of Sacramento -- individuals who live there who know and value its secrets and are perfectly willing to let others, their eyes fixed on some other goal, pass through unaware of what they may be missing.

If you want to know more about Sacramento

City of Sacramento
Sacramento's Music History
Sacramento State University
Sutter's Fort
Virtual Museum of Sutter's Fort
Wikipedia: Sacramento
Wikipedia: Sacramento River

Next stop: Oakland Bay Bridge

On the Road: Truckee, California

Click on Thumbnail for Map

Note:  First published on Blogger on September 10, 2006

Unfolding the Map

We've just entered the state of California, after climbing out of Nevada into the Sierra Nevada range, and Sal is almost to the ocean and San Francisco! But first he has to get a little bit of that mountain air. If you want to see the map, I shouldn't have to tell you what to do with the image. You already know that trivial piece of information. Go on...do it!

Book Quote

"...then up the Sierra Nevada, pines, stars, mountain lodges signifying Frisco romances-a little girl in the back seat, crying to her mother, 'Mama when do we get home to Truckee?' And Truckee itself, homey Truckee..."

On the Road, Chapter 11

Truckee, California

When I was young, up to age 4, my family used to make a regular winter trip up to Lake Tahoe. I don't remember much about these trips, other than that it involved a long car ride and car sickness on my part. When we would get there, my family would do various forms of snowplay, such as sledding, but I would usually complain that my feet and nose were cold. At night, my mom and dad liked to go to the shows occasionally, leaving me with a babysitter.

After I was 4, my family never really made trips up there any more, and I didn't really remember much about it. It wasn't until I was in college that I actually got back to the Lake Tahoe area. My girlfriend and I, with a number of other college friends, went camping. We were woefully unprepared, it started raining, and well...we got very wet.

Truckee is near the place where the Donner Party took refuge that cold winter in 1846. I was always told that my mother's family had a connection to the Donner party -- something about a baby that was being brought along with the expedition to be reunited with her parents. The baby wasn't eaten, and actually survived the trip. This baby was related to us somehow, but I could never get the particulars and often wonder if it was just some family legend with a loose connection, if any, to fact.

One memory I keep about the area is the fresh, clean smell of the alpine environment. I really treasure that smell, especially if the day is cool and crisp. I don't often have a chance to get in such a place, though the Sandia Mountains outside Albuquerque where I live is one place where I find it occasionally. We took a trip to Telluride, Colorado two years ago and I was able to scratch my itch there. My sister got married a year and a half ago in Lake Tahoe in October, and I looked forward to being immersed in that scent again, but forest fires in the region left a pall of smoke over everything.

I wonder if Jack, coming through Truckee, took a deep breath of the air? Sal says nothing except to call Truckee "homey," and he alludes to Bay Area folk having trysts in mountain lodges. I know that the air, the mountains, the place would make anyone feel alive and virile. I wonder if Jack felt the same way in the briskness of the mountain air, and the clean and fresh scent, and reveled in it?

If you want to know more about Truckee and the Lake Tahoe area

Town of Truckee
Truckee Donner Chamber of Commerce
Wikipedia: Truckee

Facts about Lake Tahoe
Wikipedia: Lake Tahoe

The American Experience: The Donner Party
The Donner Party (including logs)
Wikipedia: The Donner Party

Next up: Sacramento, California

On the Road: Reno, Nevada

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on September 5, 2006

Unfolding the Map

Sal doesn't stop, and Jack doesn't mention much, and I've never been there so we're taking a gamble with Reno. But in the spirit of Jack, we should gamble as much as possible. As always, click on the image to see the map.

Book Quote

"...then out to Nevada in the hot sun, Reno by nightfall, its twinkling Chinese streets..."

On the Road, Chapter 11

Littourari Intersection

Blue Highways: Reno, Nevada

Reno, Nevada

Okay, I've never been to Reno and the only real thing I know about it comes from reruns of Reno 911, which I'm supposing doesn't give a very accurate picture of the place. Sal doesn't stop there but passes through on the bus and uses a very strange phrase to describe Reno. I'm not sure what the heck he means by "its twinkling Chinese streets." But an interesting thing occurs when you type "twinkling Chinese Streets" as a quotation into Google -- underneath the young kid from Reno on MySpace who uses it in his profile (and proclaims "I'm not afraid of you and I will beat your ass" in capital letters), and underneath the woman who seems to have posted On The Road in its entirety on her site, you come across a whole bunch of sites that also appear to be postings of various parts of On the Road, until you click them and are taken right to a porn site. Then, if you look closely, you will see intersposed in Jack's words on the Google page various X-rated words. Somehow, I don't think Jack would have minded that too much.

I have one story about Reno, however, that has come through my family. My mother and father got married there. Not only did they get married in Reno, but they eloped there, with the the California state police alerted to pick them up.

Here is the way that I heard the story. My mom wanted a church wedding (Catholic) but my father didn't. They agreed to elope. My mom was supposed to take care of her sister's children while she and her husband went out on a date. She called her brother's wife to come over and take care of the kids on some pretext. My father drove up, she got in, and off they went to Reno. All hell broke loose when my mother's family found that she was gone. After all, even though she was out of high school and legal, it was the 50s. Police were called, and an alert was sent out over radio. Somehow, my parents eluded the trap and made it to Reno, where they were married in one of those quickie wedding chapels. They then called back to my mom's family. Allegedly, my mom's brothers threatened to kill my father when he showed his face at home, but that all seems more bluster and custom than for real, because they were all friends otherwise. So as far as I know, my father never got a beating at the hands of my uncles. And I'm sure the honeymoon was spent taking in shows, throwing money away at the casinos, and doing what couples do on honeymoons.

That's all the connection I have to Reno. And Jack's was just as slight, it seems. A bus ride past the Chinese streets, and on to California.

If you want to know more about Reno

City of Reno
Reno.com
Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority
Reno Gazette-Journal
Reno Wedding Chapels
University of Nevada-Reno
Wikipedia: Reno

Next up: Truckee, California

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