Posted in Blog Info / Up-dates • blog updates • opinion

GOING TO THE DOGS

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by Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Raes five boysMy husband and I have lost our minds. We recently decided to add to our family.  No, we’re not that crazy (or young).   In February we will become parents to a 12 week old Cavalier King Charles spaniel. The picture at left shows the litter at 8 days old. We don’t know yet which one will be ours, but I’m hoping it’s the smart one.  I am aware of the pitfalls of a new puppy – we can say goodbye to sleep, sanity and our clean white carpeting. On the other hand, if “Puppy Breath” was sold as perfume it would be a best seller.

I haven’t owned a dog in 25 years so I thought I should become familiar with the modern dog world. Conveniently, PetSmart was sponsoring its annual Holiday Pet Festival near us this past weekend. It offered an opportunity to see (and pet) dogs, peruse the latest dog supplies and hopefully pick up some tips.  And it was free.  The perfect storm.

The festival was held at West World, which is a HUGE exhibition center where they hold the Barrett-Jackson car auction and other large events. I figured they would cordon off a small portion of it for the dog soiree. But as I entered the building it became clear that I am horribly, crushingly, out of date when it comes to the dogs and the vast array of “stuff” available to them.

Twenty-five years ago my dog had a collar, leash and feeding bowls.  I fed her whatever canned dog food was on sale at the supermarket.  On a good day she got a piece of a hot dog or whatever scrap happened to hit the kitchen floor.  Apparently my  laissez-faire approach to dog ownership would now warrant an emergency call to the SPCA.

The “fesitval” made it clear that today’s dog requires vitamins, special organic, gluten-free food, freeze-dried liver treats, harnesses, and a bed that would have to pass muster at the Ritz.  And though not required, it was strongly suggested that if you love your dog at all you should purchase a dog massage, a day at the doggie spa, blinged out collars and sunglasses.  I won’t even go into the ridiculous costumes being offered but really…some of these outifts would embarrass Lady Gaga.

All in all it was a fun day.  There were small dogs and large dogs, and dogs that looked like they wanted to be anywhere else:

small dogs

large dogs

bored dogs

But my favorite was the dog who decided, right in the middle of the arena, to “do it’s business”.  Big time.  And guess what breed it was?  A Cavalier King Charles spaniel.  I think I’m going to need a bigger shovel.

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Things Not Heard From Passengers After A Flight

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by Bob Sparrow

  •  “I wish we could go through security on our way out of the airport too”
  • “I didn’t realize how comfortable those middle seats were”
  • “I just never seem to get tired of sitting on the tarmac”
  • “I wish that guy in the seat in front of me could tilt his chair back a little further”
  • “Yum, I’ve got to get this recipe”

      Most of the time I write about the destination, but this week it’s about getting there.  I’ve done a fair amount of air travel, both business and pleasure and I must confess that I’ve probably not uttered any of the above phrases.  But there is one thing that I utter after every flight – read on to find out.

     The truth is after 2,000,000-plus miles in the not-always-friendly skies, I still think air travel is amazing.  It still blows my mind to think that I can get on an airplane in California, sit in a chair traveling 600 miles an hour 35,000 feet above the ground, eat, drink, sleep, completely ignore a person sitting inches from me and within a few hours I can be in Connecticut.  I actually flew to Connecticut a couple of weeks ago attending a sorority meeting . . . don’t ask, I’m still trying to explain it to my wife.  Anyway, I may be fairly alone on this one, but I think airlines get a bad rap.

     I’m always amused by self-important business executives whose flight has been delayed and they are demanding some answers.  These are the same people who haven’t started one of their own meetings on time – ever.  The reality is that as a society our punctuality bar has drifted fairly low and actually I think the airlines do a better job than most at being on time.

     Admittedly, I love to travel, so I don’t see airplanes and airports a necessary evils – I see them as parts of the process – it’s probably that ‘life’s a journey not a destination’ thing that helps explains my lack of disdain for the airline industry.  Yes, I know you’ve read stories about passengers being held on tarmacs for hours without peanuts or vodka, or someone being violated during a pat down, but the reason you’re reading about them is that they are news – they are very rare occasions given the fact that there are somewhere between 85,000 – 90,000 flights in the world PER DAY!

    I actually enjoy being in an airport, because if I’m in an airport it means I’m going somewhere, and I love to go somewhere; with the possible exceptions of the dentist and back to Home Depot for the fourth time to get the part that actually fits.  Most airports today are full-service – you can get a haircut, practice your golf swing, and a ‘friend of mine’ told me that you can even get a massage with a happy . . . meal.  I’ve even heard of people who, if they have a few hours between flights and there is an International terminal, will go there just to eat something foreign and to listen to different foreign languages – OK, that was me on my last trip.

     Of course when I was traveling a lot and was up-graded to first class most of the time that chair was a Bark-A-Lounger with a personal valet, but I ride in ‘steerage’ now and still enjoy the ride.  I always get a window seat because:

  • I love the view – I’ve seen great aerial shots of Yosemite, the Rockies, the Mississippi River, the Alps, the Grand Canyon, the Everglades, the Statue of Liberty, even the North Pole.
  • I have a good bladder and don’t typically need to get up during a cross-country flight and sitting in the window seat keeps me from getting up for those with a bladder that is not as flight-friendly as mine.
  • I can lean up against, sleep or drool on the window instead of the person next to me.
  • My knees and elbows are still healing from the beverage carts that have banged into me when I used to sit in an aisle seat.

      Additionally, I know when I’m in my seat, I will not get a phone call, I will not be asked to take out the garbage or fix that leaky sink – in short, I will not be bothered.  And instead of those dogged eared Sky Malls to leaf through and magazines where the crossword puzzle is already partly done (incorrectly), today we have ‘Apple gadgets’.  I don’t need to carry books or magazines with me, just my iPad, and of course, I have my computer for . . . computing, but the most important electronic accoutrement I carry is my iPod.  Not just because it affords me a rare opportunity to just sit and listen to some of the 12,000 songs on it, but it allows me ignore my neighbor.  I know that doesn’t sound very . . .well, neighborly, but I’m sure you’ve all experienced the person who sits next to you and says, “How you doing?” and before you could answer they’re telling you how they’re doing, where they’ve been, where they’re going and who’s supposed to meet them when we land. So when I sit down I put in my iPod earplug my neighbor assumes I’m busy – sometimes the iPod isn’t even on.

   So, what do I always say after a flight?  As I pass the cockpit on my way out . . . I always say “Thank you”.  Because if I’m saying thank you it means that my perfect record of number of landings equaling the number of take offs is still intact, and I have the pilot to thank for that.  I’ll admit that flying isn’t always peaches and peanuts, but even if I’ve had a bad experience I’m still amazed by that chair that goes 600 miles per hour 35,000 feet above the earth.

Posted in Holiday observations

WALKING IT OFF

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

As my brother so accurately wrote last year, Thanksgiving is our family’s favorite holiday.  After all, we are related to five of the 17 families that came over on the Mayflower.  After I discovered this bit of history I deluded myself into thinking that our DNA is hard-wired to love the holiday commemorating them.  But the cold, hard truth is that we love this holiday because we love to eat.

We are all big eaters in our family.  There is never an “old maid” left on the  hors d’oeuvre tray and “thirds” are for the light eaters.  We are the family that inspired expandable waistbands.  We do have standards – we do not eat jellied cranberry sauce and no one belches at the table.  So far.

And yet we are not so slovenly that we have no self-respect.  No sir, we are all pretty good about exercise and trying to stay in shape.  For years I wore a pedometer to ensure that I walked 10,000 steps every day.  So in anticipation of Thursday’s annual bacchanal, I went to walk.about.com which has a handy little feature that lets you check all the food you’ll eat on Thanksgiving and then covert it to calories.  I thought that could be an interesting exercise, forgetting that when it comes to food, ignorance is bliss.

A glass of wine?  Check.  A celery stalk stuffed with bleu cheese?  Why not?  Okay, I’ll opt for one cracker with a slice of Stilton.  How much could that add?  On I went, from the turkey to the mashed potatoes to the requisite green bean casserole .  My total calorie count? 3,365!!!!

Then the intrusive, vindictive, people-with-too-much-time-on-their-hands snoops at walk.about.com felt the need to let me know with laser-like precision exactly how many miles and steps it would take me to burn off all those calories.  Turns out I need to walk 34 miles or 67,300 steps to wear off my dinner.  From a scheduling standpoint,  I need to cram 6 1/2 days of walking into Thursday.  If I start walking in downtown San Francisco I couldn’t stop until I reached Santa Clara. Fortunately Stanford Medical Center is on the way – perhaps I could drop in for a gastric bypass.

But here’s the worst part, I lied when I took the test.  One cracker with cheese?  I so frequently hog the snack table that my family nickname is “Hoover lips”.  I consider mashed potatoes to be health food and, frankly, I think it insulting to the cook if I pass on all the pies and whipped cream.  Even though the “cook” is Costco.  My real calorie count is probably north of  6,000.

So when everyone gathers on Thanksgiving to eat, watch football and talk about the nation’s pending financial crisis, I will sadly find no room for compromise.  Despite the obvious risks and danger, I will be jumping off the caloric cliff.

Posted in Holiday observations

Veteran’s Day

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 by Bob Sparrow

     If you’re reading this on Monday morning it may have just reminded you that yesterday was Veteran’s Day.  If you’re reading this after Monday, you may have just been reminded that you missed Veteran’s Day – it’s easy to do.  I’m going to give our blog followers the benefit of the doubt and assume that they were well-aware of the holiday because if you’re reading our blog then you’re among the most intelligent people on the planet.  I don’t know about you, but I heard more than once over the weekend things like, “Is Monday a holiday, what is it Columbus Day or something?”  Veteran’s Day is probably our least known about and remembered federal holiday.   Why is that?  How has it become so easy to marginalize a day that we all should remember and celebrate?

     The history of Veteran’s Day perhaps lends itself to its enigmatic reputation.   The holiday was created as a celebration of an armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at the end of World War I in 1918 at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, thus Veteran’s Day is November 11th.  However, the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending the war, wasn’t signed until June 1919, but our government didn’t let the facts of history get in the way of the creation of a new federal holiday.

     When I recently asked people to explain Veteran’s Day, they mostly said something like, it’s a day to celebrate our veterans.  I think the name gave it away.  When I ask them what they are going to do to celebrate, they usually just looked at me funny and said, “Celebrate?”  Some will say solemnly something like “We’ll celebrate by remembering those who gave their lives for our country.”  I’m tempted to remind them that that is Memorial Day, but I don’t.  After hearing a lot of confusion about this holiday, I decided to compare Veteran’s Day with other holidays in terms of how we celebrate them or what is associated with them and see if there wasn’t some way to get Veteran’s Day on the same level as some of our more ‘popular’ holidays.

        •  Martin Luther King Day – recognizing civil rights
        • Valentine’s Day – flowers, candy, dinner for your ‘sweetheart’
        • St. Patrick’s Day – wearing green and drinking
        • Easter – going to church, hunting for eggs, eating ham
        • Memorial Day – remembering out fallen warriors
        • 4th of July – fireworks, barbecue, parades
        • Labor Day – celebrate the worker, last barbecue of the summer
        • Halloween – scary costumes and candy
        • Thanksgiving – turkey and football
        • Christmas/Chanukah – religious, food and gift giving
        •  New Year’s – drinking and making resolutions that we never keep

      So it would seem that in order to make Veteran’s Day more popular, like our other holidays, we need to create more customs around it like traditional garb and food.  Perhaps on Veteran’s Day we should all dress in camo gear and pop open a can of c-rations to feast on.  It also might be nice to commit to memory the words of Alan Alexander, who said, “A veteran is someone who at some point in his or her life writes a blank check to the United States of America in an amount up to and including the loss of his or her life.”

     Thank you to all who have served – we owe you a great deal.

Posted in opinion

THE NEW ELECTION POLES

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

As I write this we are two days away from the election.  Or, as we say in our house, 48 hours away from re-gaining control of our telephone.  I know we’re not alone in this.  It seems people everywhere are complaining that robo calls have disturbed dinner, naps and even Monday Night Football.  Do you think it’s possible that the machines actually do come alive in the wee hours to plot the most effective ways to torture us?

Most of the calls tout a politician’s virtues.  Or is that a self-cancelling phrase?  In any event, in all the years I’ve been voting I have never received a call from a polling company.  This is truly remarkable given the number of polls that have sprung up.  Remember when Gallup was the only poll?  And remember when nobody paid attention to it?

In an attempt to get a jump on the 2016 race I am thinking of some new polls that people might actually care about.  In my opinion, here’s what I think the pollsters should be asking:

  • The Fishing Poll:  How many whoppers or exaggerations did the candidates tell this week?
  • The Stripper Poll:  How many contortions did the candidate bend himself into so he could disown former positions contrary to his current positions?
  • The North Poll:  How many promises were made to deliver gifts to everyone: Social Security, Medicare, small business, shovel-ready jobs, your old Aunt Sally and her dog – all without any increase in taxes?
  • The Barber Poll:  Which candidate has promised that government/unions/big business/John Edwards all need a haircut?
  • The Flag Poll:  How many times have you hoisted the white flag of surrender in an attempt to get the ads, speeches, attacks and the robo calls to STOP?

I’m only dreaming here – I’m pretty doubtful we’re going to get asked any of these questions.  But this much I do know: regardless of who wins the election, this country will carry on.  Despite what the ads say, no one individual, not even the President, can wreck it.

As for me, after Tuesday I’m going to sit back and enjoy the peace and quiet of my house.  No longer will I fear the telephone.  But the computer?  That’s a different story.

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Catalina, 26 Miles, The Four Preps and Earworms

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by Bob Sparrow

    My most recent ‘road trip’ took me off the road and on the water, to Santa Catalina Island.  It is a very interesting island, to say the least.

  • It has a casino where gambling is banned
  • It has a herd of Bison left behind after a film was shot
  • The main town, Avalon has a 3rd Street, but no 1st or 2nd  Street
  • The local post office doesn’t deliver the mail
  • But the local cabs deliver pizzas

      You may know the island from the song ’26 Miles’, made famous by the Four Preps in 1958.  I’m warning you right now, if you remember the song and you go to Catalina, that song will be playing in your head – THE WHOLE TIME YOU’RE THERE!  I believe that’s called an ‘earworm’ – it felt more like ringworm.  Like most people my age, I remember some of the lyrics to the song, but not all of them, so I ended up humming the words I didn’t know.  Out of frustration of this song being on ‘replay’ in my head for three days, I decided to look up the real lyrics.  It is said that the cure for earworm is to finish the song and I couldn’t finish the song until I looked up the actual lyrics.  So I did.  I was not surprised to find that these 1950 classically banal lyrics were . . . well, classically banal as well as factually inaccurate, starting with the title.

Catalina Island is 22 miles from Los Angeles, 33 miles from Long Beach and 34 miles from Newport Beach – it is not 26 miles from any port.

‘Water all around it everywhere’ – Isn’t this a little superfluous?  Isn’t an island, by definition, a land mass that has water all around it – everywhere?

‘I’d swim with just some water wings and my guitar’ – The song was written by Four Prep members, Bruce Belland and Glen Larson, two mature Southern California young men.  I think we get a clue to their desperation when they suggest that they’ll swim 26 miles (or whatever) to find romance and that they’ll use water wings to do so.  Two men swimming to Catalina with water wings really doesn’t call up an image of the kind of men women would be looking to hook up with, even in the 50s.  But if for some reason they were not able to navigate the 26 miles in water wings . . .

I can leave the wings but I’ll need the guitar for romance.  This seems to suggest that if their little sister had borrowed their water wings for the weekend, they could leave them and use a guitar to get over to the island.  Acoustical guitars are made of wood and can be fairly buoyant, and perhaps even act as a floatation device, but the guitar would have been rendered unplayable after upwards of 8-10 hours in salt water.  So these ‘Preps’, who apparently were striking out with women at home, were probably not going to have much better luck on Catalina.

I’d work for anyone even the Navy, who would float me to my island dream . . .   This plan seems a bit half-baked and completely irrational, but that really doesn’t surprise us at this point, does it?  Joining the navy would probably mean a four-year commitment and training who knows where.  After basic training their chances of getting deployed to Catalina would have been non-existent.

Forty kilometers in a leaky old boat, any old thing that will stay afloat   Finally the boys have the right idea here by looking into a boat; the fact that they’d settle for one that is old and leaky speaks volumes about their nautical acumen.  Why they’ve switched to the metric system for measurement here I’m not sure, but forty kilometers is equal to a little more than 24 miles, still leaving them far short of their chosen destination.

While looking at the logic of the lyrics was a bit unsettling, finishing the song did indeed rid me of my earworm.  How was Catalina?  Very enjoyable, so enjoyable in fact that I’m headed back there to spend the New Year’s weekend – at that time I’ll try to give you more of a flavor for the island itself, assuming I can get that damn song out of my head.

 PS: I actually like the song and The Four Preps

Posted in Blog Info / Up-dates • opinion

THE UNDECIDED

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

We’ve been hearing a lot the past few weeks about the “undecided” voter in the presidential election. At this point it seems that most people have made up their minds about which candidate will screw up the country for the next four years. But there remains a significant percentage of people who are unable to make a decision, even though there are pretty big differences between the two candidates. The other night a major broadcaster was skeptical that anyone could still be undecided. He obviously does not work with the public.

Nine years ago, after retiring as a bank executive, I decided to take a job one day a week doing something fun. So I signed on at the local yarn shop. I hadn’t worked with actual customers since college and, for the most part, it’s been fun. The average client walks in, chooses a pattern and some yarn, and walks out happy. Sometimes a person asks for help and after a few basic questions the right project is selected.  It’s all done within 30 minutes.

But then we have the “undecideds”. They typically walk in and say “I have no idea what I want to make.” Okay, I’ll say, let’s narrow that down – a sweater, hat, golf club cover? Perhaps some steel wool so you can knit yourself a washing machine, I joke. But I am speaking to the wall. No pattern is quite right, no texture is appropriate, no color just the right shade. The quandary over a skein of yarn is beyond comprehension. A long time ago my brother, Jack, taught me this: the important thing about a decision is to MAKE one.

My favorite example of an “undecided” was when a tourist came in one day, completely befuddled. She asked me if I had a yarn that would match her brown coat. She somehow assumed that I would know exactly what her brown coat looked like. I wanted to say, “Lady, I don’t even know you, much less your brown coat”. But after an hour of searching for yarn, gnashing of teeth (me) and tentative murmurings (her), she made a selection. I’ve often wondered if the brown coat was happy.

I really worry about these people once they leave the store. If they have this much trouble picking out yarn, how in the heck to they make more critical decisions? I shudder to think of these people picking out something more permanent, like carpeting. The texture selection alone must give them the vapors.  Colleges for their kids?  They must have to start when they’re in kindergarten to reach a decision in time.

But you don’t have to work in a yarn store to experience these people. They are the ones in the front of the line at Starbucks, completely undone by the choices. Tall or grande? Foam or whip? The choice between bold or mild is enough to send them into an apoplectic state. These unsure souls are the reason that the wait is usually interminable.

So, back to the election.  Apparently in some states there are so many “undecideds” that the whole darn state is considered to be a “swing” factor in this election. As far as I’m concerned these people are getting what they deserve: a barrage of negative, mean-spirited campaign ads. But I have news for the campaign managers. If an “undecided” can’t choose between red or blue yarn, choosing a President of the United States is a reach beyond their grasp.

Posted in Blog Info / Up-dates • Uncategorized

THE UPSIDE DOWN BUCKET LIST

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by Suzanne Sparrow Watson

     Every time I pick up a newspaper or a magazine lately it seems there’s an article about someone working on their “bucket list”.  Boomers everywhere are compiling lists of things to do before they die: climb Mt. Everest, sail around the world or buy a red Corvette.  My brother has done an admirable job of checking off his “to do” list; most of his feats require a lot of conditioning and some derring-do.  Except seeing the General Patton Museum – that just took a high tolerance for boredom.

     I used to have a bucket list.  Actually, it wasn’t so much a list as an item.  I only had one thing I wanted to do – hang glide.  For thirty years I’ve watched hang-gliders with admiration. I was in awe of their fearlessness and their obvious gold standard medical plan.  But in the last year or so I’ve finally come to the realization that I won’t be jumping off a cliff anytime soon.  For a while I thought I might take a page from George H.W. Bush’s skydiving book and go tandem.  Now I’ve decided that unless I get that same cute Army Ranger to hang on to, it’s just not going to happen.

     So earlier this year I decided to flip things around.  Instead of a bucket list, I started to compile a list of the 10 best events that I have already experienced.  In other words, I started an Upside Down Bucket List.  My only rule was that nothing on the list could be “obvious” – like a wedding day.  Given that I have a hard time remembering what I had for dinner last night, it has taken me months to recall 10 events worthy of the list.

     I started off with five items that were major moments.  Those were easy.  The next five took more thought and retrospection.  I was surprised when something as mundane as a movie or listening to someone else’s adventures would spark a memory of something I’d long forgotten.  I would jot down events as I thought of them and then mull over whether they were worthy of the final five slots.  It was lost on me that no one else was ever going to see this list – my obsessive/compulsive nature took over and I needed it to be perfect.  Perhaps one of my activities should have been to visit a good shrink.

     Of course, dredging up memories causes some not so great days to be recalled too.  Like the time I fell down an entire flight of escalators at a BART station (everything in tact except my dignity) or when I walked in late to a wedding and realized after 10 minutes that it wasn’t my friends’ wedding (ever tried to skulk out of church quietly?).  Those days definitely did not make the list but for a moment I did think about compiling a list of my 10 most embarrassing days.

     After months of thinking and reminiscing, I have finalized my Upside Down Bucket List.  Final for now anyway; I’ve reserved the right to add and delete as my memory allows.  It’s interesting to take a step back and review it.  I’m not sure exactly what it says about me, but my list divides into three categories:  Adventure, Family, and Personal Achievements. I won’t bore you with the list but I can assure you that each item brings back great memories – whether it was challenging myself physically, a great conversation with my dad, or an unexpected success.

     It’s been a fun experience.  It was harder than I thought it would be but it also more rewarding.  Each time I look at the list it brings a smile to my face or a boost to my confidence.  So I’d encourage you to do it – it’s a great way to remember the good times.  And a lot safer than leaping into thin air with some flimsy wings strapped on your back.

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Death Valley – Why?

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by Bob Sparrow

    When I told people that I wanted to go to Death Valley, they asked why?   I wasn’t really sure.  I had heard that it had recently reclaimed the honor of the hottest place IN THE WORLD, wresting the title from Libya – 134 degrees!  As I prepared to make the trip I knew from watching the temperatures that it wasn’t going to be that hot, but I wondered what life in Death Valley under such extreme temperatures was like.  I thought it would be interesting to write about the extreme heat and how the flora, fauna and humans survived it.  I thought I’d be using the term ‘buzzard hot’ many times.  I was even going to bring an egg along to fry on a sidewalk.  To be honest, I thought I would mostly make fun, or at least make a number of ‘hot jokes’ about this seemingly god-forsaken place.  Those who have been there know the reality I was about to learn.

     I hit the road at 5:00 a.m. and got into Baker at 7:30.  I used to think that Baker was in the middle of nowhere, until I turned onto Highway 127 and headed north – Baker became a thriving metropolis.  After driving less than an hour, I thought I was in that giant warehouse in New Mexico where they filmed the ‘fake moon landing’.  There was nothing in the distance but Mojave Desert for as far as the eyes could see – no other cars, no road signs, not even a shoulder on the road, just a narrow two-lane road winding through the desert.  It’s a place where you really have to trust your car not to break down.

     I soon came upon Dumont Dunes (left) – real live sand dunes, just like you see in the movies, but without the camels.  My car is not an All-Terrain Vehicle, but I pretended that it was and drove off the road to get a better look at the dunes. (photo below, yes that little speck is my car).  At the junction of Highway 127 and Highway 190, I arrive at the bustling burg of Shoshone, population 31, I didn’t see one of them.  I was hoping to get gas here, but as you can see from the picture below, the car in front of me was taking quite a while to fill up, so I moved on .

     As I got closer to Death Valley the names of the towns and points of interest reminded me of just how hot it was getting outside – Furnace Creek, Hell’s Gate, Dante’s View, Stovepipe Wells, Charcoal Kilns, Burning Wagon Point.  I arrive at the Death Valley Visitor Center to get recommendations for what I should see and do.  At the top of the list was Scotty’s Castle (top photo) – another 50 miles to the north.  I got back in the car and got back on the road – it was 11:00 and the temperature just broke 100.

     The story surrounding the building of Scotty’s Castle in the middle of nowhere is a fascinating one.  Built in the 1920s, this architectural wonder featured a one million gallon swimming pool, an elaborate heating and air conditioning system which was way ahead of its time, an innovative hydro-electric power system driven by a desert spring that still delivers 300 gallons of water per minute, AND a solar panel, yes a solar panel built in the 20s!  Just as interesting as the house itself is the story of the two key characters responsible for its construction – Albert Johnson, the wealthy, Cornell educated engineer who longed to be a ‘cowboy’ and Walter Scott (Scotty), a con man who left home at the age of 11, moved to the desert as a teenager and eventually started selling shares of bogus gold mines to wealthy easterners, Johnson being one of them.  How they formed a life-long friendship is something you’ll have to read on your own.

      After Scotty’s Castle I had to get to Badwater; it’s just a field of encrusted salt, but it’s the lowest place in the Western Hemisphere – 282 feet below sea level.  Part of the reason I wanted to get to this historical location was just to breathe the air; I thought if high altitude creates thin air which is hard to breathe, then low altitudes must create ‘thick’ air – which logically would be easier to breathe.  I’m here to tell you I couldn’t tell the difference between sea level air and below sea level air.

     My most memorable drive was coming back from Badwater; a loop off the main road appropriately called Artists Palette, it is a narrow, one-way drive cut through the mountain that shows colors you’ve never seen before – it is surreal.  It underscored to me the most surprising part of my desert experience – the sheer beauty of the place, and I was told that the springtime is really beautiful.  Everywhere I drove there were beautifully colored mountains on each side of me – chocolate brown to cream-colored, cobalt blue, sage green, every shade of red and orange.  And they all changed hues from sunrise to sunset.

      I then drove out to Zabriskie Point just before sundown and my photos just don’t capture what one feels when taking in everything that nature has done to this terrain.

     Death Valley – why?  The shapes, the textures, the colors can be seen nowhere else on the planet; it should be renamed the Painted Desert – it is truly magnificent.

Posted in opinion

Papa Hemingway’s Place

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Each year my husband and I think about where to spend our vacation. We gather brochures, drool over pictures of exotic places and then end up going to Sun Valley, Idaho. Each September since 1988, like lemmings to the sea, we return to that idyllic spot. Mad cap adventurers we are not.

We used to beat ourselves up about this – we should see more of the world, yadda, yadda, yadda. But each year when we arrive in Sun Valley a great sense of peace comes over us and we know that we are in the right place.

Sun Valley is in some respects a typical resort town. You can buy lots of cheap t-shirts and baseball caps with bears on them. And the prices? Definitely aimed at tourists. It took Starbucks 10 years to get a permit to open here and it remains the only “chain” in town. If you can’t live without your Big Macs or Whoppers, this is not the place for you.

Celebrities flock here, in part because the locals are totally unimpressed with them. Visits by Tony Hawk and Lindsay Vonn cause more excitement than Bruce Willis or Bill Gates. The celebrities who come here are more relaxed and friendly than you might imagine. My husband once spent 20 minutes talking to Arnold Schwarzenegger about California’s tax problems in the local coffee shop. Obviously that was not a fruitful conversation.

Perhaps the celebrity most closely associated with Sun Valley is Ernest Hemingway. It was there that he relaxed, and wrote, beginning in 1939 until his suicide there in 1961. He holed up in a room at the Sun Valley Lodge to write arguably his best novel, “For Whom The Bell Tolls”. As one walks the hallways of the Lodge, there are numerous pictures of him hunting, fishing and, not surprisingly, drinking. Some of the bars he frequented in town are still in business; they are what would be colloquially known as “shit-kicking” saloons. It’s not hard to imagine him sitting in one of these dark corners, whiskey in hand, observing human behavior. It’s rumored that one night, well into his cups, he staged a mock bullfight down the middle of the bar.

The picture shown at the top of today’s post is of a sign that sits at the busiest corner in town. It is comprised of 10,000 tiny pictures taken of Hemingway during his years in Paris. It overlooks the new town square and gives the impression that “Papa” is still participating in all the local festivities…and gossip. Further down the road is the cemetery where he is buried (pictured below). Aside from the occasional tour it is usually quiet, the only hint of traffic is the occasional flower or note placed on his grave from an admirer.

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Our favorite Hemingway spot is the memorial that was erected in his honor, built just east of the Lodge in 1966. It consists of a tall granite base topped with a bronze bust of his head. It is perched amongst a grove of his beloved Cottonwood trees, overlooking the beautiful Trail Creek with the mountains in the distance. Here is a picture of his “view”:

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It is inscribed with the words that Hemingway spoke at the funeral of a friend, but projects his own feelings as well:

Best of all he loved the fall,
the leaves yellow on cottonwoods
leaves floating on trout streams
and above the hills
the high blue windless skies
…Now he will be a part of them forever.

Whenever I read those words I feel justified in our trip there each September. After all, if it was good enough for Ernest Hemingway, it’s certainly good enough for us.