Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Seeking advice.
I rarely admit this, though some of you know, I have a terrible weakness for advice columns. It started when I was a kid, reading Ann Landers in the newspaper everyday (and then Dear Abby when Canadian newspapers decided that the Landers column was too US-specific and switched the sisters – which was a bit of a downer since Landers was the marginally more progressive of the two). Although neither are writing any longer, the Dear Abby column does persist (written by “Abby’s” daughter now) and there are many more syndicated offerings out there on the Internet: Annie’s Mailbox, Dear Margo (written by Landers’ daughter), The Advice Goddess, Since You Asked, Dear Prudence and of course, Savage Love.
Daily, I read Dear Abby (out of long-time habit) and Since You Asked (not for the advice which is generally poor, but for the reader’s advice that floods into the letters section) – but on Thursdays I do the rounds of all – including Dear Prudence and Savage Love which only publish once per week. It’s the motherlode of advice days, and it always gets my mornings off to a later start than usual. I figure though, that as far as addictions go, this one is pretty damned harmless.
But it’s a strange one – yes? Wanting to read about the problems of others? Because the problems are far more interesting than the advice ever is. It’s the same impulse which fuels the watching of daytime talk shows with their endless misery parades. The need to feel superior over those whose problems you don’t share, or the need to be confirmed in the issues that you do share the odd time you stumble across a life somewhat like yours. Looking at the overwhelming letters that come into Since You Asked, the superiority/judgement impulse and the empathy response are about equally split among readers. Of course, this depends on the letter. Today’s letter about people who are having trouble keeping their house clean elicited far more judgement from readers than empathy.
I can admit to having both responses to the problems of others. It feels good to empathize, but it also feels good to judge – as both of these seem to indicate a security of place in the world. (Of course, we all know that judgement indicates a frailty of place more than anything – it just masquerades as strength). Of course there are much more benign motivations – curiousity, entertainment, a passive study of human response – but they aren’t the driving force that takes me back to these columns week after week.
Oh, the Internet – great facilitator of neuroses and angst – not to mention gossipy chatter. I’m just glad I’m not one of *those* people who feels the need to actually write to advice column. 😉
Death Valley travel tips.
Trying to prompt some writing about Death Valley, here are a few travel tips for those of you planning a desert sojourn.
Do:
- If you want a motel, stay at the Panamint Springs Resort. It’s cheaper than the others and independently owned (and it has free wifi).
- Try to find some backcountry camping opportunities – possible even with a standard car no matter what the park rangers tell you. Message me if you want to know where we had the best luck.
- Rent a high-clearance vehicle at least. We didn’t and there were many cool places we could not go because of rutting in the roads.
- Go in the winter months. January to March are the most bearable months in the park. January is not hot at all.
- Go during the week. The weekends find the park really busy, mid-week we had many days of seeing few people.
- Check out the pass to Panamint Valley and also the Wildrose-Trona pass – gorgeous, scary and narrow passes through the mountains on the western edge of the park.
- Go look at the Wildrose Kilns. They are over 100 years old and just a weird piece of history.
- Take a polarizing filter for your camera or you can’t really take photos during the day at all.
- Pick up a park guidebook. The park interpretation itself is not very good, but the “Explorer’s Guide to Death Valley” written by a couple of park naturalists helped us with lots of history, geology, and driving info we couldn’t find elsewhere.
- Choose spots to hike that aren’t on the official park maps. Less people, equally stunning.
- Drink lots of water. Even when it’s not warm out it’s really dry and dusty.
Don’t:
- Expect to use a cel phone anywhere near the park borders.
- Expect to find many working payphones.
- Bother with any of the Park Service campgrounds except perhaps Wildrose and above. Emigrant is nothing more than a gravel lot with some picnic tables right by the highway. Furnace Creek is right by the air strip etc.
- Assume there is nothing living in Death Valley. Training the eye to micro-life is key to understanding the desert ecosystem.
- Expect to find anything resembling decent food inside the park – restaurants or groceries. Bring your own groceries if you want to eat nutritiously.
- Expect to see the whole park in a week at any kindof relaxing pace. It’s huge.
Also:
Watch out for abandoned mine shafts if you go off the trails. Really, there are holes everywhere in the hills and they aren’t marked in any way.
Stumbling on re-entry.
It feels good to be home, albeit a little panicky with the living that has to be done between now and April. Lots of scheduled things, lots of meetings and elections and negotiations. Once I’m right back in it I’ll be fine, but here on the precipice of plunging back in, the pool appears bottomless. Procrastinating by upgrade only did me some good and now I am back to staring at the to do list and fretting.
Although I took many photos on my trip, I did absolutely no writing at all – finding myself continually in the company of others. This is not conducive to the process for me, and at the same time I found it a convenient excuse. When I was finally alone at LAX on the way home, I discovered myself afraid to put pen to paper because it seemed like too much of a commitment to document everything right then. Go figure – I’m suddenly afraid I can’t do a camping trip justice.
Really, I think it’s the fact that this was so much of an inner trip in ways I feel incapable of explaining and so to write anything seems false. Simply I would say that this is a landscape that prises one open in peculiar ways – a feature that has me in no rush to go back despite the beauty of the place.
Or perhaps it wasn’t the desert at all but going back to the US with all my missing dreams and friends about me – the ghosts who await on the long stretches of highway, at the junctions between one moment and the next. I am torn between wanting to visit the friends I do have left down there, and wanting to stay clear away for fear of having the missing ones at my side.
Time, yes. Time will finish this line of thought off. But in the meantime there is a busy life here that will absorb me once again as I sort my calendar and shake the dust from my shoulders.
Upgraded.
New WordPress, new K2 installed. A minor headache when I copied over some files wrong and broke my database but thank goddess for backups. The archives work properly again – finally. I have installed a Flickr plugin so you can see my latest six photos at any given time, and more obviously I’ve changed the header image. Post of the day coming shortly.
Death Valley in six days.
Somehow I managed to delete my post from yesterday while dealing with spam comments this morning. First day back in the office and I admit, I’m a tad out of it. For those of you looking for the photos – check out the Death Valley set on Flickr which contains the 75 photos I took while away that best reflect the trip in one way or another.
And now I am not sure what to write about the whole thing. You know without just saying, “the trip was good, I saw lots and had good visits with friends. etc etc.” I wrote nothing when I was away (which often happens when camping) and I am not quite grounded yet for writing much more than this (not to mention that I have mountains of work to attend to).
So it goes.
Red Cedar 