Winnemucca gets closer, and Bob and Sharyn, the end

The figurative me is still out there, hoping to make it to Winnemucca by Thanksgiving. The literal me is warm inside our home in Alameda, California. Neither me can find the rest of my notes from our trip to Wales. So here’s the last part of my sister’s narrative for my parents’ 50 wedding anniversary:

Liz: After the honeymoon, Granddad and Sharyn had a reception in Oakland. Here’s what Sharyn had to say about that: I honestly can’t tell you if it was before Christmas or after. I honestly can’t remember. I’m sure my mother could tell you. My roommate, Joan, came down and was one of my bridesmaids. Who else, My sisters, I guess that was about it. Our two fathers were both Bishops, so hundreds of people came to that reception at the Oakland Chapel on McArthur Boulevard. It’s now the Evergreen Baptist Church. And I remember Denny and Ronnie standing outside telling people that they couldn’t come in if they didn’t have presents.

Brittany: According to the newspaper, the reception took place on December 22. Grandmother Higham did most of the work. She said, So we had a big bash down at the church on MacArthur Blvd. It was a nice wedding. We did a lot of decorating, between my friend and me. According to Linda, it kept Grandmother really busy. She said, It was a weird, busy exciting time. I remember Mom and Dad were so busy that we didn’t get our Christmas tree until Christmas Eve. That was unheard of in the Higham Family. We usually got our tree in the beginning of December, so we could enjoy it all month. But that year, Mom and Dad went out and got the tree on Christmas Eve. It was very abnormal.

Tammy: Linda really enjoyed the reception. Here’s what she remembers. The party for Sharyn and Bob was very cool, it was wonderful. You have to imagine, the oldest daughter of the bishop in Oakland marrying the oldest son of the bishop of Lafayette, everyone wanted to go. It was a wedding monster. There were probably 1200 people there, at least 1,000. Linda also said, I remember distinctly that I had the feeling I was losing my second Mom. Sharyn was 10 years old than me, and she was a really fun big sister. Of course, I loved Bob, Bob became my big brother.

Chelsea: By the way, if you were wondering what Linda wore at the wedding, you could refer to the newspaper article: Miss Linda Higham, sister of the bride, will be the bridesmaid. Miss Bradbuy [maid of honor] will don a ballerina-length gown of aqua taffeta, and Miss Higham, a pink gown of the same design. Their nosegays will be of carnations.


Justin: The reception made a big impression on Granddad. Here’s what he said: Nothing to be said about the reception. It was just a standard Mormon thing: Except one thing has changed, we had the gifts. You would display all the gifts on a table. Well, now this is just considered crass. It’s how you did things. People would come and admire the toasters.

Kate: We asked Leslie what she remembers. Here’s what she said. I’ve racked my brains. I really don’t remember much of anything. I was just a little girl, only six years old. All I remember is running around the rec hall. She couldn’t even remember what dress she wore. Fortunately, the newspaper article covers that detail, telling us: Flower Girl Leslie Ann Higham will be in a frock of aqua taffeta.

Devon: But Leslie does recall something about that time. I remember Franks and his girlfriends. They would sit in the front seat of the car and Kiss, and I would be in the back just dying of embarrassment. It was the most awful thing, and they did it just to tease me. But I don’t remember Bob and Sharyn doing anything like that.

Nick: Frank, who was 18 at the time, has vivid memories of the reception. He said, I showed up. I was there. Actually what he really remembers was the effect of the wedding on Christmas. Christmas was really sparse that year. Mom and Dad were really too busy, and al the money was going to the wedding. I didn’t really mind though.

Sean: Merrill was also very helpful. He said, Of course I was only three when Sharyn and Bob got married so I don’t remember much. He was actually about 10 years older than that, but then, Uncle Merrill was never good with numbers. Doug, who really was only two when Sharyn and Granddad got married, says he really can’t remember a thing.

Nick: Well, thanks everybody, that was very helpful. I guess that pretty much answers all my questions about how Sharyn and Granddad met. Does anyone have anything else to add?

Liz: Well, naturally, Grandmother wanted to put in a last word. Here’s how she summed the whole thing up. Bob has been a good son-in-law. Every spring he comes out here and puts a flower garden in my backyard. And Sharyn is a good daughter. She is always checking up on me.

Jeff: So that about says it all. Congratulations, Sharyn and Granddad, on making it through 50 years. And thanks for sticking with it because if you hadn’t none of us would have been here.
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I have walked 787,949 steps in 68 days. That is 377 miles since I left my home. I will be in Winnemucca in 10 miles.

The figurative and literal me came down with the H1N1 flu, and could not walk for a couple of days. The literal me wondered how much more miserable this flu would have been had the figurative me out on the desert was an actuality.

After recovery, I started playing catch up in my life, and did not have time to write, despite completing the five mile walk each day. So here’s day three of my sister’s narrative of Bob and Sharyn’s wedding adventure:

_______________


Chelsea: Grandmother had to work hard to put on the wedding. She made al the dresses, did all the planning, and even threw an engagement tea. Here’s what Sharyn said. We came home for Thanksgiving, and my mother had this engagement tea for me, and she had the whole thing to do herself. And she made my wedding dress. And between the time that I was at Thanksgiving and she fitted it on me, and when we got married on December 18 I had lost so much weight that she had to take it all in.

Sean: Incidentally, Frank says that trip at Thanksgiving was memorable. He said, There were 9 of us packed into Bob’s car to come home for Thanksgiving, and we got a flat tire in Carlin. It was the middle of the night, and Bob had to hitchhike to Battle Mountain to get the tire fixed. No one will ever forget that trip.

Tammy: The newspaper article described Sharyn’s dress in some detail: New Mrs. Larsen will be attractively gowned in lace over slipper satin, styled ballerina-length with a full skirt and fitted bodice. Her fingertip veil falls softly from a Juliet cap. She will carry a white orchid surrounded by carnations.

Kate: Here’s what Sharyn recalls about the wedding. As for the wedding itself, I remember going very early to the Salt Lake Temple, in the morning, and I had not taken out my endowments. Bob had, because of the mission thing. And we went through a session, and then we were married. It was a long morning,. I don’t remember the afternoon, but I think we were out fairly late. And then Bob’s folks hosted a reception at Priscilla’s in the Eagle Gate Apartments, for the Salt Lake people. And that was very fancy, with string quartets and things like that.

Jeremy: The newspaper article said this about the Salt Lake reception. The newlyweds will greet close friends and relatives during an evening reception at the home of the bridegroom’s aunt, Mrs. Frank Evans, 105 E. South Temple.

Devon: At the end of it, Sharyn said, I was just in a daze. I was so tired. And then we packed everything in the car and went down and stayed in our apartment in Provo. Then we drove the next day to St. George, and I remember that we spent a night in Santa Barbara.

Basil: Granddad had this to say about their wedding day> We had a Salt Lake reception. I can’t remember much about it except packing the stuff into the car. Then we went to Santa Barbara and up the coast on our honeymoon. It was great. We drove up Highway One to Santa Barbara. And it was one of these glorious California clear winters.

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I have walked 786,786 days in 67 days. I have walked 372 miles since leaving home. I will be in Winnemucca in 15 miles.

Getting Closer to Winnemucca--And More Bob and Sharyn

As the figurative me continues the long march, I continue the narrative written by my sister for my parents’ 50 wedding anniversary. We pick it up where Bob and Sharyn have met. Bob was supposed to go on a mission for our church, but…

Basil: But Granddad never went on a mission. Here’s what he said happened. The Korean War was pretty much full blast by then. And my dad was then Bishop. I put in the papers to go on a mission, and I got a call to go to Guatemala. In those days they didn’t worry about whether you knew the language. They just put you in an airplane and sent you to wherever. So the mission home was like only a week. Barney Gardner from the Berkeley Ward and I went to the mission home. We were both in the same draft board, which was Richmond. The Richmond draft board would not honor the agreement with the church to have two people from each place go on missions. So they insisted that we should go in the Army.

Nick: So no one knew quite what to do. Granddad got some advise from Gordon B. Hinckley, who was in charge of affairs with the draft board. According to Granddad, his advise was to just climb on the plane and go to Guatemala. It didn’t make any sense to me because you’d get yourself arrest the second you got home. It’s like fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft. So as a result, they decided that Barney made a better test case because his dad wasn’t a bishop. So he was sent on a mission, and the draft board came and put him in the Army. So the advise sent to me was to go down and enroll in school.

Liz: And then Sharyn said: So we decided if he couldn’t go on a mission, we wanted to get married. We said we’d like to get married in June. My mother said, Oh, but it takes a while to get ready for a wedding. Just come home in June, and we’ll do this and this and this, and we’ll get ready for a wedding in August. And we were saying, you know, June’s a pretty long time. We’d really kindda like to get married. So anyway, Bob’s father used to come to Utah on recruiting trips for Shell. He’d interview young chemists, and such. And my mother sent him up with strict instructions to negotiate this thing. And so we talked. I guess he watched us together for a while, and he finally said, Well, would you be willing to wait until Christmas? My mother was just furious. But she came through with flying colors.



Jeff: Granddad’s version pretty much collaborates this. I guess the story there is that Sharyn’s mother wanted us to delay the wedding until the following September. We wanted to get married in June, we didn’t want to wait all summer. And so she sent my dad out to take care of the situation. Then he said, Well, could you wait till Christmas. He blew the whole thing. Sharyn’s mom was furious.

Brittany: So was Grandmother Higham furious? In October of this year, we asked Grandmother what she remembered about those days. Here’s what she said. When they first announced they were going to get married, I thought they were much too young, much too young. We tired to talk them out of it, but they weren’t being very reasonable. Both their fathers were bishops, so they asked if they could elope, but the bishops said no. Then, even my mother took Sharyn’s side, so I had to give in. Of course, my mother thought I was too young when I got married. They were so much in love. Bob acted very grown-up. He was quiet, so we never knew what he was thinking. Of course, we knew Bob’s family so we were happy to have the two families united.

More adventures for Bob and Sharyn to come. Until then, know that I have walked 749,185 steps in 61 days. I have walked 350 miles since leaving home. I will be in Winnemucca in 36 miles.

More on the Road to Winnemucca, and the Bob and Sharyn Story

As I walk across the desert, thinking back to our 2003 trip to Wales, I seem to have lost my notes for some of the trip. As I was, however, looking for those notes, I ran across a piece my sister wrote for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration. It’s appropriate that put this story in this part of the narrative, as the beginning of their story took place out here in the Nevada desert.

My sister called her narrative, “Of Widespread Interest: The Wedding of Bob and Sharyn Larsen December 18, 1953. The narrators are the grandchildren of Bob and Sharyn.

Jeff: I ran across an interesting news article the other day. The headline really caught my attention. It said, Sharyn Higham is the Bride of Robert G. Larsen. The article started like this: Of widespread interest is the marriage of Miss Sharyn Higham to Robert G. Larsen, Jr. Parents of the lovely bride are Mr. and Mrs. Francis Cope Higham, Oakland. Mr. Larsen is son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gordon Larsen, Lafayette, California.

Tammy: That really is of widespread interest, Jeff! Then what does it say?

Jeff: Vows were solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple Friday morning. President Robert D. Young officiated. Immediately following the wedding the bride’s grandmother, Mrs. Willard B. Farr, 1457 E 13th South honored the couple with a wedding breakfast in her home.

Nick: Cool. I wonder how Granddad and Sharyn meet:

Sean: It’s funny you should ask, Nick, because our researchers have been studying those issues surrounding the courtship and marriage of Sharyn and Granddad for a number of years. We think we now have, if not the definitive answer, at least a close approximation of how the events unfolded. Jeremy is going to read what Granddad had to say about meeting Sharyn. This is from Granddad’s oral history, taken down in 2001.

Jeremy: My parents and Sharyn’s parents were in a group called the Club, and the Club was for the purpose of studying the scriptures, according to my father, and then playing Rook, because they couldn’t play cards.

Nick: What’s rook?

Jeremy: I have not idea. Then Bob said, This thing went on for a long time, and they got to be very good friends, all members of the Club, and we’d go to picnics together and so on. Sharyn’s folks had joined when they moved into Oakland. And so I was told that I should get to know Sharyn up at the Y. Which I did.

Liz: Sharyn told the same story like this, in her oral history, taken down in 2003: A friend of mine from Stockton lived with a girl from Berkeley named Dorothy Harker, who introduced me to Bob. All I remember about it is that she said, his parents are in the club, too, you know, the Rook playing club that parents belonged to. And I couldn’t have told you who the person was that she introduced me to that night. I had no memory of his name, of his face. When it got to be Thanksgiving, we were looking for a ride home. And Glen Harmon was the source of the ride home. Dorothy knew him well enough to ask him. And Bob was on that trip. And that was were he made an impression on me. He always says, I’d met you before that.

Justin: Bob had more to say about that ride home. Glen Harmon had a 1939 Mercury. And he decided we’d all go home for Thanksgiving in this Mercury. So we did. It was really cold. We took seven people in that car. And the temperature in Elko was a hideous minus 14 or something. The car’s heater would heat the big of the person sitting directly in front of it, and LaPrele went 17 hours without moving, so she could have the heater.



Brittany: And Sharyn said this: We’d stop occasionally to get something to eat or something to drink, and to go to the bathroom, and she never left that car. And I remember, there was a point at which the girls were whispering and the boys were whispering, and so we all knew what we were whispering about, so we all just giggled together about it. But oh, it was cold. We got to know each other. Well, we were so crowded, we would have anyway. So that was where I really met Bob.

Chelsea: So after Thanksgiving, they both went back to the Y to take finals. Here’s what Sharyn had to say about that: He invited me to go to a movie during finals week. I agreed to go, and I remember, the girls in the dorm were just absolutely appalled that I was doing this. And he stood me up. He claims he doesn’t know why. To this day he claims that he doesn’t know why. But I was so mad.

Devon: After that, Sharyn didn’t want to talk to Granddad again, but he had brought a car up to Provo at Thanksgiving, and was giving her a ride back to California for Christmas, so she couldn’t stay mad at him. Here’s what Sharyn had to say about Christmas: When we got home, I had my boyfriend here named Dick Hatfield, the boy I’d left behind. And they always had a big dance on Christmas night, in Berkeley. And Dick didn’t ask and didn’t ask, and I was getting peeved. Cause I thought he was taking me for granted. Indeed he was. And so Bob called me up and asked me to that dance so I went with Bob. Dick immediately asked me out for New Year’s Eve, which was what I had in mind.

Kate: Dick Hatfield stayed in the picture for a while. Then Sharyn said, One day I realized that it was Dick Hatfield’s brown eyes that were grabbing me, and that this was probably not a very good reason to marry somebody. And then Dick’s family was transferred to Cleveland about midsummer. And then it was after that Bob and I got serious. But Bob was supposed to go on this mission to Guatemala. He even had his missionary farewell. Bought his hat.

____________

Will Bob go on his mission? Will Sharyn wait for him? What brought this couple together? You will have to wait. Until then, know that I have walked728,885 steps in 60 days. That is, I have walked 345 miles since leaving my home in Alameda. I will be in Winnemucca in 43 more miles.

The literal me has the beginning of a cold as the figurative me walks out here in the desert toward Winnemucca. The literal me hopes that this cold comes and goes before we leave for Europe in a couple of weeks. Both the figurative and literal me will ignore it as I walk, and think about Wales in 2003. We have at last made it into London, and are working our way to our hotel. I fell instantly in love with London. The story picks up there.

Importantly, London has help for its new lovers--especially those who come from the Western United States. We were informed on the ground at cross-walks which way we needed to look. We would look that way. It was really helpful. As we later found out, other places would do well to help us out by placing similar markings.

In our trek to find our hotel, we asked a few people on the street for directions. We quickly learned something; directions in the U.K. are bad, almost as bad as the directions received in Kauai. In Kauai, the directions are, “Go up past the green hill and turn right through the river of trees.” These directions would make sense, I guess, if you had lived on the island for your entire life. But of course if you lived on the island your entire life, you would not need landmarks for directions. In the U.K., people do not use vague landmarks for directions. Instead, people have varying meanings on what constitutes straight, left and right. Straight can mean a left or a right or backwards, or anything else but what I would consider straight. Left often means right. Right has no precise orientation on a compass. Not only do the directions vary from my understanding, but there is no agreement among those living there as to what direction is what. It can become very confusing. So after a little bit of this directionless direction, we became, especially in overly tired, stinky state, a bit agitated. Finally, Dorey asked at a Starbucks about how to get to our hotel. They said it was left at the next corner. At the next corner, we took a right, and voila, were there. Where we were was pretty spectacular, indeed.

Oh, a cliffhanger. More later. I have walked 717,940 steps in 59 days. This is 339 miles from my home in Alameda. I will be in Winnemucca in 49 miles.

On the way to Winnemucca and finally into London

More on the way to Winnemucca. I may have a cold, but I refuse to let this possible illness stop me. Rather, I will pass the time walking by pondering on our trip in a few days to Europe. In so doing, I will continue to go over our trip to Wales in 2003.

To pick up the story, we were walking to the Heathrow Tube station. We finally reached it. We stood in a line at the underground station to purchase our tickets. It was at this moment that we discovered that lines in the U.K. are a mere suggestion, rather than an orderly way to proceed. People cut in front of me, went around me and other ignored me as they went to purchase their own tickets. Such line cutting happened repeatedly during our trip, and toward the end of the trip, I was going native.

By the way, I cannot damn those line cutters in the U.K. very much. I have increasingly noticed similar line cutting in San Francisco--especially on BART. In fact, on BART, people act like I am invisible. I find this failure to see me rather remarkable, as I am anything but a small human being. Yet they look past and through me in their rush to get to their seats. So I suspect that we in the U.S. will quickly catch up with our U.K. cousins in just the latest example of the fall of western civilization. I blame George Bush for this, too. Okay, not really, but I do blame Ayn Rand. But that is analysis for another day.

After wading through the line cutters, we were able to purchase our tickets and headed to our train. I have always been a voyeur, especially a backyard voyeur. This probably started when I started riding BART shortly after it opened 30 years ago. I love looking from the trains into the backyards it passes, making up stories about the people who live in the houses as looked at the clothes lines and bbqs and cement patios, and children toys. The London Underground lets the imagination go equally wild, as it passes the miles of graffiti and soccer pitches and rugby fields and government built apartment buildings.

As I sat there, staring out the window of the Underground, I was struck once again how young a place the Western United States is. I know that this thought is a banal cliché, yet it is apt. I further know that part of this thought is an illusion. The Western United States is simply brighter than other places. Pete Rose when asked what he would remember about playing inn Candlestick Park did not mention the winds, the fog or the cold. Rather, he said that he would remember the high bright skies of the afternoon games that made every pop-up an adventure. The brightness makes the whole Western United States seem clean and new. So it is part illusion, part reality that makes one think that the western United States is new.

London looks old. Not in the tired sense. Rather it is old in the sense of grace. Even its poorest places appear to have the grace that one obtains over a long life. This grace is enhanced by the grey skies and black buildings, definitely the colors of an old person, and definitely not the colors of the Western United States.

I was also amazed at how world-wise London is. As I rode on the train, I must have seen people of dozens of nationalities and religions get on and off the train. I saw Asians, African, Hindus, Moslems. Across from us on the train were a couple men speaking some strange tongue. At first, I thought it was Italian, but then I thought it was German. Then I wondered if my French was now so far gone that I could not even recognize it when I heard it. I was trying to read their bags, but could not see the tags. Dorey later said that she surmised that they were speaking Finnish, as their bags had Finnish tags them. After riding the train into London, we spent the rest of our time trying to guess where people were from based on their accent. We were disappointed when we heard an American accent, believing that they were invading our trip.



We changed trains at the Green Park Station, and, taking the Jonathan and Dorey show on the road, walked up a couple of other sets of stairs (and dropping things out of our bag) before reaching our new train. We then rode down a couple of more stations, and exited at the Waterloo station. We rode the elevator up and immediately, I had my new mistress. My first of the town was outside the tube station looking at an old building. I have not idea what I was looking at, or why. I just knew that I was in love.

We tried to head to our hotel so that we could start our exploration of the city. We knew going into London that our time there was going to be short--wholly inadequate. We were have only a few hours at best. We knew it was going to be shorter if we could not find our hotel. We thus started our trek.

_______

And thus ends this part. At least we have made it to London. I have walked 695,241 steps in 57 days. I have walked 329 miles. I will be in Winnemucca in 58 miles.

On to Winneamucca--But Still At The Heathrow Airport

Out of Lovelock, on to Winnemucca. Strangely, to my eye, the east side of Lovelock looks a lot like the west side of Lovelock. So as I march on in this desert, I return to our trip to Wales in 2003.

To recap, in the last part, we had arrived at the Heathrow Airport, and I went on and on about Secret deodorant. We were then ushered through immigration, and then picked up a few pounds at a money exchange at the airport. After getting our bags, we were left with that “whomp--what do we do now” feeling. See, not only can I write the Russian novelist’s view of our trip (i.e., long and then some), I can also write the Sparknotes version of the Russian’s novelist’s view of our trip. We pick up the story here.

Dorey has never really had to worry that I would step out with another woman. She knew pretty early on that my real love affair was exploring great metropolitan areas. A few years after we were married, Dorey noted a change in me as we drove from our place in Canyon Country to the Bay Area. She saw that as we came to the sign that indicated that we were entering Alameda County, my spirits raised visually as I pondered wandering through San Francisco again. From at least this instant, she knew that I was in love with city life.

I can pinpoint the instance when this love affair with the great cities began. I was seven. We were living in Concord. Bob and Sharyn took the family to San Francisco to eat in Chinatown. It was June or July. It was one of those foggy, cold San Francisco evenings that I have come to love. We were, as people did when the visited the City at the time, wearing something close to our Sunday best. We parked several blocks away from Grant Street, and started toward the restaurant. As we walked, a tall African-American gentleman came out of an apartment. He was wearing a short, white raincoat which had a belt. He entered a small, red sports car, and drove away. Shortly after this, a young, blond woman wearing a very short dress stepped out of the same apartment building. I decided at that moment that much was going on in cities that deserved further investigation.

I have been investigation cities ever since. In fact, of all my visits to cities, I have disliked only two--Los Angeles and Portland. I had a hankering to dislike Los Angeles before I ever entered the place. It was, after all, the city of the Dodgers. I rightly felt that if a city could support such a bunch of losers as the Dodgers, it did not deserve my affections. After visiting it, and living there for a couple of years, I found that the Dodgers deserved Los Angeles. Both are soulless, spineless, entities. In fact, the best description that I have ever heard about Los Angles is that it is 1000 suburbs in search of a center. Which is not to say that there are things which are not special about Los Angeles. (See, I hate the place so much, I have to use a double negative even to praise it). Watts Tower is a fantastic, wonderful structure. The Norton Simon Museum is a great, if underrated, art museum--if anything in Los Angeles can be underrated. I loved the shots of the hidden city in 500 Days (of Summer). But most of the place is glamour without substance.



I did not, I must admit, give Portland a fair shake. We traveled to that city in February a few years ago over the President’s Day weekend. It was dark the whole weekend. The City’s greatest aspect is its rose garden, which was pretty bleak in February. Powells Bookstore was great, but lots of ungreat places have great bookstores. So maybe I would like Portland more if I visited it in June. But then again, great cities are great even in their worst of times. I have been to New York City in February, and still think fondly of that trip. I have been in Salt Lake City several times in the bad weather, yet found it alluring with its wide streets and memories emerging from my DNA. I even liked Minneapolis in December, because its coldness defines the place and its people. We were in Boston in 88 degree heat with 100% humidity; such only caused me to develop a body heat for the place. So while anyplace can show off at its best times, Portland simply disappeared that February weekend. So I doubt that a June visit would change my mind.

To say that I fell head over heals in love with London at first blush should not be surprising, given my love for cities. What is surprising, though, is how fully smitten I instantly became. I felt alive immediately on my arrival with the excitement of a young man on a sexual conquest. Dorey, of course, noticed my wandering eye, and immediately developed a jealously usually kept for the other woman. We would have, I am certain, left London as soon as we came, but for the fact that Dorey has her own love affair with cities.

It did, however, take a while to get into the city from the airport. As I explained, we were experiencing that moment of crisis that comes on every trip as we passed the customs, and entered into the main terminal. It was such a feeling of being lost, hopelessly so, that I am often tempted to get into the fetal position on the floor of the airport. I am not alone in this fear. I read Trip Advisor forums a lot. I would estimate that one out of every four entries is a question about how to get from the airport into the city. It is the big fear.

Just as I was about to go into a full blown panic attack at the Heathrow Airport, crying to the heavens that we were strangers here and that we needed to go home, we spotted a visitor’s information booth. Dorey approached the booth while I practiced my hyper-ventilation control techniques. A few minutes later, Dorey approached me with instructions about how to take the underground from Heathrow to our hotel in London. We decided to go forward with our trip.

It was a long way forward. It is about a mile walk from the terminal to the underground station at Heathrow. And we had an overstuffed suitcase, and two carry-ons, and had to face several flights of stairs before reaching the underground. It would not have been the most pleasant of walks in the most pleasant of circumstances. It was made all the more unpleasant because we were exhausted, smelly and nervous. On the stairs, thing fell out of our bags. We blocked the stairs as we tried to pick the stuff up. One guy smirked at us, giving us the look that said, “Tourist.” I know that look well, as I use it daily on people walking the streets of San Francisco. I was not happy to be on the receiving end of a smirk.



Dorey and I were not very kind to each other at that moment. We were not happy to be other people’s comedy relief. The traveling Jonathan and Dorey show is not something I aspire to be part of. Nor does Dorey. In fact, I think at the third set of stairs, I saw Dorey’s hand on the cell phone, ready to break up the act permanently by calling the divorce lawyer. Much to my relief, she found that her cell phone did not work in England. So we remained wedded, if not blissfully so, as we completed the walk to the underground.

_________

Wow, we may get out of the airport yet, but I doubt it. I have walked 682,432 steps in 56 days. I have walked 323 miles since the figurative me left Alameda. I have 63 miles until I reach Winneamucca.

Lovelock, Nevada There I Go

The figurative me has made it to Lovelock, Nevada . The literal me as been through Lovelock too many times to count, and I am glad that only the figurative me is currently there.



According to the City of Lovelock ’s webpage, the City was named after a Welsh man, George Lovelock. George was born, interestingly enough for those of you following this narrative, in Swansea , Wales , in 1824. In a few days, I will report on our trip to Swansea , Wales . He left Wales with his wife in approximately 1847, going first to Australia . After working in the Copper mines, he went first to the Sandwich Islands and in 1850, moved on to California . In California , he worked around the central valley building houses. In 1860, he moved on to Nevada . In 1866, he bought the squatter rights to 360 acres. This plot had the oldest water rights on the Humboldt River . He built a stage coach station and built an irrigation canel. When the railroad came in 1868, he gave the Central Pacific Railway 88 acres of land which the Company named Lovelock. The railroad company was supposed to give George a block in the town. Those good old robber barons, however, reneged, and charged George $500.00 for half a block. After that, he made some money in mining. See, you can take the boy out of Swansea , but you can’t take the Swansea out of the boy. He lived until the age of 83.



Since the day of George, the town has moved from mining into agriculture, especially alfalfa. In fact, one website reports that a special bee strain was developed to pollinate the alfalfa. These bees do not live in hives, but individual nests. The female will live in any pre-existing hole. The author reports, “Thus soda straws left unattended when the females are feeling the mating urge, will be filled with nest and eggs. So will the corrugations in a piece of cardboard, and so will empty nailholes in a fencepost. One local man had to give up on his outdoor barbecue when the leaf-cutters insisted on nesting in the gas jets of the burner.”



Today, Lovelock has a population of 2,280. It is the county seat of Pershing County .



My own memories of Lovelock are few. Generally, it has not been a place we stop on either the way to or from Utah . Going east, we gas up in Sparks , and fly right by Lovelock. Going west, we hope to get to Sparks before stopping for gas. Plus, I sort of remember that there is very few fastfood restaurants in town. There is now, I think, a McDonald’s, but that is about it. So Lovelock is a place we wave at as we drive by.



There are two points, though. All across the desert, there are signs to a gas station, Two Stiffs Selling Gas. One would think that, with all these signs, that it would be an oasis in the desert–sort of like the Little America in Wyoming . Nope, it is a dump. It does not even have, a la Little America–50 cent soft serve ice cream cones.



Second, my mother reports seeing a guy at a gas station in Lovelock eating onions out of a bag just as if he were eating apples. She reports that these were Purple Onions, not green ones, but still...One wonders how much loving goes on in Lovelock if they eat onions out of the bag. (Ok, I extrapolate).



I have walked 670,886 steps since leaving Alameda 55 days ago. I have thus walked 317 miles to date. My next major stop is Winnemucca, which is 386 miles from my home, or 69 miles from Lovelock. To reach Winnemucca, I will climb north a little as I follow the I-80.

Two miles to Locklock and many more to Wales.

I feel a wind out here in the desert on my figurative walk to New York City. But I can see the bright lights--well, perhaps the sign of two old stiffs selling gas--up ahead. So I walk and think more on the 2003 trip to Wales.

After getting through immigration, we walked down a long hallway to the baggage claim. On the way, we past a money exchange. While Bob and Sharyn had given us a few pounds from their last trip to England, and although I planned to sue a credit card almost exclusively on this trip, I thought that we could use a few more pounds for those “just in case” times. So at the money exchange, we traded 60 pounds for about two pounds. Okay, the exchange rate was not quite that bad, but it was pretty horrible. I think that we were getting about 1 pound for a $1.75 U.S. The dollar had dropped over the months to this ridiculous level. As with everything that is wrong in my life, I blamed George W. Bush. He was, after all, our village idiot at the time. Admittedly, a lot of things that were wrong in my life bear no seeming causal relationship to George W. Bush, but he was a handy target. I mean, who has time to discover all of the causal relationships for all of my problems. And as to this outrageous exchange rate, he might just be the reason. Of course, exchanging money at the airport is one of the stupidest things one can do, because as with most things at the airport, it costs more to do it at the airport than anywhere else in town. As Jerry Seinfeld has said, “Where do these people at the airport live? Does a bottle of aspirin cost $13.00 in their neighborhood?” But then again, I was concerned that we could not get from the airport to London without more cash, so what was I to do.

Dorey immediately became enamored with the British coinage and legal paper system. You may remember a Seinfeld episode (two references to Seinfeld in two paragraphs--do you think I need a hobby other than watching television?) where Elaine and her boyfriend are in Europe. Her boyfriend is fixated with the currency of each country, especially Norway’s coin system. “This is one kroner, this one with the hole is a two kroner,” the boyfriend kept saying. Dorey was much the same. She spent about three minutes staring at the various coins. From that point forward, she was able to count out change for everyone as if she had been dealing with British coinage her entire life. I on the other hand could never quite do it. I could handle the paper money, but they also have coins for one and two pounds. I could never adapt to these or other coins. I often just held out my hand to the sales clerk, hoping that the clerk would remove the proper change from my hand. For all I know, I lost millions of pounds following this system of paying for things. Shortly into the trip, I decided that Dorey would be responsible for the real money, and that I would be responsible for the credit card. Somehow, I suspect that was Dorey’s scheme all along.

As long as we are on the topic of money, I should explain one more thing. One quickly gains an illusion in a foreign country that the money is not real, and that the piper will not have to be paid. Hence, in a foreign country, one will spend as if one is spending Monopoly money. It is not, I can assure you, Monopoly money, and that the piper will have to be paid. We spend months paying off the piper in spades.



After getting our money, we picked up our suitcase. We had packed in one suitcase, knowing that while we were there, we would have to get a second bag for the goodies. We then walked out of the airport, without having to take our bags through customs. This was a very odd moment to me. In the U.S., you always have to take your bags through customs. Here, they just let us through without a second glance. A wonderful system.

At about that moment, it hit us. It always hits you at some point on vacation, unless you are vacationing someplace that you have been numerous times before. But here it hit us with a whomp. It is the feeling of “we are someplace foreign, and we have no idea how to get where we have planned to go from where we are currently.” In this situation, I always try to act so cool, looking as if I have done this thousands of times before. I tend to watch and see what others are doing and follow them. I of course have that uniquely American Male disease of being unable to ask a question. Happily, I travel with Dorey, who is the world’s friend.

_____

I have walked 659,246 steps since leaving my home in Alameda 54 days ago. This is, I have walked 312 miles. I will reach Lovelock in two more miles.

I still have few miles to Lovelock. So more tales on our trip to Wales in 2003. And no, I don’t make in out of the Heathrow Airport in this chapter.


I have never been a very patient person, and there are two times when I am particularly impatient. I am in a minority on the first of these times. It is in restaurants between the meal ending and the service staff returning my credit card as payment. Many if not most people enjoy the opportunity to the few moments, giving them the opportunity to savor the meal. I hate this time. After I have finished my meal, all I want to do is get out of the restaurant and onto something else.

While I may be in the minority in my dislike of post-meal restaurant waiting, I know that I am in the high majority in my second big dislike of waiting period. It is the time between landing and disembarkment at the airport. No one likes this period. People fork over thousands of dollars so that they can be in first class and hence the first one off the planes. The plebes among us (myself included) come up with strategies to work our way off before others. This generally involves sitting in the aisle seat and the accompanying dissatisfaction of being hit with food trays as the flight attendants run up and down the aisles. I, who does not like being touched very much, can’t stand it when those trays or bodies going to the bathroom, run into my elbow. It is this dislike, and not the great views, that I usually choose to sit in a window seat. Given the choice, then, I must suffer for a few moments of waiting to leave the aircraft for the pleasure of not being beaten or bruised on my exiting of the plane.



The wait is particularly hard at Heathrow Airport, one of the largest and busiest airports in the world. It took literally fifteen minutes from touchdown for the plane to arrive at our gate. It then took another five minutes for folks to open the door. Given that we were a full plane, it took us another 10 minutes to disembark. I became concerned that my general impatience would cause me to lose it before I could leave the plane. The only thing that kept me for going berserk was the thought that if I lost it, I would be denied entrance into the U.K., and put on the first plane back to the U.S. And I feared on the return trip, I would be given an aisle seat--thus having the worst of all possible worlds. So I kept it together, and sauntered out with the rest of my fellow passengers as calm as a summer’s day.

We walked off the plane and in immigration. My experiences at other immigrations have not always been the most positive of experiences. When I was 13, my grandmother took my sister, Kris, and me to Mexico and Guatemala. At the immigration room in Guatemala, some young army guys went through my suitcase in a very thorough fashion. As they should have, for I had something hidden in my suitcase. Nothing illegal, mind you. Nothing illicit. Just something embarrassing. On that trip, my mother and my traveling companions were walking outside the door of our house to go to the airport. Literally, as we were two steps outside the door, my mother gasped, saying, Jon, I forgot to buy you deodorant.” I at age 13 had never thought a lot about deodorant, and could not see what the big deal was. My mother, however, must have noticed on our way to the car for our trip to the airport that sometime during that summer that my sweat glands opened up and I was stinking to high heaven. Then she said, “Well, we don’t have time to stop. Just run back and grab mine.” I did so. And as I did so, I was mortified. You see, her deodorant was the most feminine of all deodorants. Its baby blue packing and its name, Secret, just lets one know that there is nothing manly about this stuff. After all, real men are happy with their body odors as they indicate hard work, virility, and well, manliness. They would never go for a deodorant that explicitly stated that body odors were supposed to be a secret. Rather, men go for deodorants which say, “I know that real men have body odor, but you can’t get women with body odor, so I have to mask my real smell.” Yet I could not find any manly smelling stuff that day, and so grabbed the Secret, put it into my bag, and vowed never to let anyone know about my little secret of carrying the Secret.



And I did okay in my ruse until we arrived at Immigration in Guatemala. Immigration in Guatemala was just a bunch of 19 year olds with machine guns and a sense of empowerment brought on by the fact that they could look through other people’s stuff. I think that they were particularly empowered by the fact that they could for once humiliate a young American male--perhaps an act of revenge for the 1954 CIA backed overthrow of the democratically elected government which left most of the men in Guatemala psychically emasculated. So they really went through my stuff, and of course, found my well hidden secret, the Secret. One of the guys pulled the container out of the bag, and called a couple of his comrades to look at the bottle. All three opened it, smelled it, and then pointed to me and laughed. I am certain that they called me a “fag” in Spanish. They then threw the Secret to a fourth guy, who also laughed at me. Finally, they felt that America had finally been taught its lesson, and I was allowed to go through Immigration. To this day, I on behalf of America am humiliated.

To add salt to the wound, Dorey for the entire time of our marriage has used Secret as her deodorant. At times, when my Irish Spring or Musk or other manly deodorants have disappeared or dried up, I have had to use Secret. I smell like a feminine flower the whole day, forcing me to relive my Guatemalan Immigration experience yet again. (Dorey informs me that she recently changed deodorants, now using Dove. If America can overcome the indignity of Viet Nam, I on behalf of America can perhaps now overcome the indignity suffered at the hands of Guatemalan Immigration officials so many years ago.


With this experience and its residual fear firmly in my mind, we approached the Immigration Official at Heathrow Airport. Going through immigration was kind of a disappointment, though, in an odd sort of way. In the Immigration line, I kept have a conversation with the immigration official. He would have asked me, “What is your purpose in the U.K.? To which I would have responded, “Fulfilling a lifelong dream.” I had him replying, “Welcome to the U.K., and may all your dreams come true.” (Actually, in writing and reading the paragraph, it looks to me as if it were dialogue written by a man who uses Secret deodorant. I really should keep my internal conversations to myself).

Nothing like this happened. One could tell by his accent and appearance that he was not born in England. Rather he appeared Indian. I smiled at the notion that an Indian was the first person to meet in England, indicating the truth that England is a multi-ethnic culture. We gave him our passports. “Is this your first trip to the U.K.?, he quite nicely asked. We told him it was. While he stared at us for a moment, I don’t think he was really too concerned about letting us into the country. Rather, I think he was stealing time at work to write another paragraph of his long, unpublished and unpalatable novel about the anomie of being an Indian immigration official in the U.K.

However, beyond not asking us what our purpose in the U.K., was, the guy failed from a public relations point of view. He did not welcome us to the U.K., or wish us to have a good vacation in his country. Rather, after he stared at us for a couple of more seconds, he slapped our passports with a couple of stamps. “You can go on,” he said wearily.

And at that, we were in. At that moment, I became very happy for Dorey. Other than a couple of quick trips to Canada, which we all known don’t really count, Dorey was in a country other than that of her birth for the first time.

_____________

I have walked 645,753 steps in 53 days. I have, then, walked 305 miles since I left Alameda. I will be in Lovelock in 9 more miles.

How Come I'm Not In Lovelock (Or Wales) Yet

We haven’t even left the San Francisco airport yet on our trip to Wales in 2003. But then, again, even though I have walked 52 days, I still have not made it to Lovelock.

So more of the Wales Trip:

That Thursday morning, the airport was as unpopulated as I have ever seen it. We stood in line for a few minutes before being ushered to a very pleasant and efficient woman at the American Airlines counter. When she saw that we had to travel through O’Hare, she immediately checked the with the counter supervisor about weather conditions in Chicago. Possibility of a snow shower, she was informed. She put us on an earlier flight so that we could catch our connection without a concern for the delay. We walked down to our new gate and discovered that our plane, scheduled to depart in 15 minutes, was not at the terminal gate. Dorey walked around the airport to find food to eat for breakfast while I pulled out the Merl Reagle crossword puzzle book. As I state there being defeated yet again by Mr. Reagle, I listened to the flight attendants who would accompany us to Chicago.

I have noticed that whenever you have two or more flight attendants in the same small space, you will be privy to a first class whine session. These guys whine more about their jobs than any group of lawyers I know. They whine more about their jobs than any group of municipal employees I know. Andy they even whine more that any group of Mormon missionaries that I know. Okay, maybe not as much as the Mormon missionaries, but they are pretty dang close. And our group of four gals and one guy that morning were certainly doing their share of whining that morning. “The airline is cutting too far back on the number of us,” one said. A few minutes later, without noting the seeming contradiction, this same attendant said, “I can’t get enough hours.” The rest of them sort of agreed, or brought up their other complaints. I sort of went into the “moan, complain, moan, complain,” mantra that I have adopted to stop listening to others moan and complain.

Our trip to O’Hare was uneventful. A heavy cloud cover blanketed the earth, and it was not a day to view the country. So on the trip, we ate a very dry sandwich, a few carrots, and a brownie out of something known as a Bistro bag and watched Spy Kids in lovely 2-D. Spy Kids 3-D was not much of a movie, but I could see how the visuals would be spectacular in the 3-D format.



I immediately checked the weather on landing at O’Hare. I have had one of the worst experiences in my life there. It happened over 15 years ago, but it still haunts me. I was to travel to Indiana to attend the deposition of a doctor in an asbestos related cancer case. The person having the cancer was to die at any moment. In any event, I left the West Coast on Monday morning, planning on flying to O’Hare and then onto Indiana. We had an unexpected landing in Iowa, where we sat for two hours waiting for the runway in Chicago to be cleared from the snow of an early winter storm. We then landed in Chicago, only to be informed that we could not fly onto Indian because of the storm conditions. I tried to rent a car to drive to Indiana, and then tried to rent a hotel room in Chicago, both without success. I spent the night at the O’Hare Airport. I was able to catch an early flight into Indiana the next day. I must have looked pretty haggard. When I arrived at the deposition, the other guy mistook me for the guy who was to die in a few days.

Happily, it was cold but clear in Chicago, and we could expect that our plane would get out on time. We walked around the O’Hare airport a little bit, and then went to eat in one of the restaurants. I selected a particular restaurant for a particular reason. About a year ago, I was given the assignment of trying to decided if there was coverage for an insurance claim made by this restaurant chain. In brief, the restaurant claimed that following the September 11, attacks, it lost money at its airport restaurants. It further claimed that the airports were ordered closed by civil authorities, a ground for coverage under its business interruption coverage existed. In fact, while the FAA ordered the airspace closed, we could not find any order closing the airports per se. The restaurant simply lost money because no one was going to the restaurant because the airspace was closed. Can you imagine going to an airport restaurant for any reason other than because you are stuck in an airport for a few hours? So we denied the restaurant’s insurance claim. I was right, but felt kind of bad that there was no coverage for this insurance claim. So when I saw this restaurant at O’Hare, I took your mother there to eat, hoping that my $22.00 would somehow make up some of the $22,000 the restaurant lost following the September 11 attacks. After eating (by the way, the food was only fair, and so now I don’t feel half as bad as I did about my coverage opinion), we walked around and then went to sit at our gate to read a newspaper and wait the couple of hours we had to wait.

At some point, I went to the bathroom. In O’Hare, there is a cool toilet seat cover mechanism. There is plastic covering on the seat. You wave your hand in front of the sensor, and the plastic moves so that you have a fresh clean piece of plastic to put your checks on. I was so impressed that I went back to the bathroom a couple of times just to watch this magic seat cover move. I can by such a five year old at times. Anyway, in one of my absences, Dorey, shockingly, struck up a conversation with a fellow passenger waiting to board the plane. I have always been amazed at Dorey’s ability to just talk to complete strangers. I would never speak to anyone, and even if I knew them, would not speak a lot. She will speak to anyone--bank cashiers, people in lines in grocery stores, folks in airports. I don’t know if she has a real talent in this area, or whether I am so socially inept that I don’t recognize this is how the whole world does it. Dorey says the truth is that she is much more comfortable speaking to complete strangers that to people she has known for a long time. There is no pressure to be clever or remember past events. So she just has a good time learning about the particular person or making jokes about current circumstances. Dorey’s new best friend was a woman in her early 60s from Scotland. She had been in Chicago visiting her son and family, including three grandchildren. She had to return to Scotland because the rest of her children still resided there. At that point, Dorey and this lady stood to stretch their legs, and I was not able to catch more of their conversation.


Shortly thereafter, a young man came to sit by us. He was from northern Wales, and had been in the U.S. for a week on a business trip, visiting three states in five days. He tried to explain what he was selling, but I , being a computer dinosaur, could not understand it. He had to get home for a party that his girlfriend was throwing the next night. He had never heard of Laugharne, but said that we would like visiting Swansea. At last, our plane was ready to board. We would our seats--two together sitting by an aisle, and sat down. While it was about 8:45 p.m. in Chicago, it was only 6:45 p.m in our time, and I was not tired. We watched a movie or two, and a BBC television sitcom, “My Family.” The show has an overbearing wife and mother, a father and husband who tries to keep peace at all costs, a daughter who is away at University (but home for the Christmas holidays), a son who is stupid, and a son who is smart. In this episode, the son brings home an old man for Christmas dinner. The family leaves the old man at home after dinner while they go to the pub. The old man, of course, rips them off. It was a pretty standard sitcom, but amused me no end.



At some point in the evening, I fell asleep, and caught at least a couple of hours before the pilot woke us up to tell us that we would be landing in a couple of hours and they wanted to feed us before they landed. I don’t know why they just did not let me sleep. At about 10:45 a.m., we landed, having begun our travels 16 hours the day before. We were smelly, but we were in England.

______

There--I at last have us out of the San Francisco Airport, and into England. I am still not in Lovelock. I have walked 630,282 steps in 52 days. I have walked 298 miles since leaving Alameda. I will be in Lovelock in 16 miles.

More on our trip to 2003 trip to Wales as the figurative me walks toward Lovelock:

At last, our December 4th departure date arrived. Our plane was scheduled to leave at 12:00 noon from SFO, but we were advised to get to the terminal three hours early. This timing seemed like overkill, but what the hey, it feeds my inherent nature to be early to everything. We had planned on getting to the airport by testing the new BART line which goes directly to SFO. However, over the Thanksgiving weekend, I read in the paper that some bank as a promotional gimmick was going to be providing free BART rides for all comers during the morning commute hours on December 4. I could envision overcrowded trains with little men pushing all the patrons onto the train a la the Japanese commute trains because of this little promotions. I could see our luggage being left on the Oakland 12th Street station. I decided that we should probably avoid a whole lot of cheap people taking a free BART ride. We thus called Bob, and arranged to have him take us to the airport.

We dropped Kate off at seminary at 5:59 a.m. that morning, saying our goodbyes. I decided that I should take Ariel to the dog park so that she could get one last run before we left. As usual, I was more concerned about my dear little greyhound that I was about Kate. Kate is a very independent gal. Plus, I can communicate (sometimes) with her. I could at least explain where we were going and when we would be back. I hoped that Ariel would remember me after our absence.



At the park, I spoke with Jim, the owner of a whippet named George that Ariel terrorizes, and another dog named Birdy. At Birdy’s request, no dog pays attention to her but for George. Jim was a deep sea diver who repaired ocean oil rigs. In this job, he had been around the world on several occasions. He no longer, then, has any yen to travel. But in all his travels, he never made it to the United Kingdom. It was not for the lack of opportunity, as he was contacted on numerous occasions to repair oil rigs in the North Sea. He steadfastly refused, telling me that the North Seas were simply to choppy and dangerous for him to be willing to drive there. He said that five to six divers are lost there each year. So in his retired state, he does not travel, but said that if he had to travel, it would be to Great Britain. I told Jim that we could stuff him in our luggage.

This suggestion led to our discussion about stowaways in the wheel wells of airplanes. I seem to remember reading as a kid about Cubans who used to climb into the wheel wells of planes bound for Mexico. Usually a couple of these guys would fall out of the wheel well and die when the pilot put down the wheels prior to landing. Jim said that was about the only distance that one could travel by plane in the wheel well as the planes going from Cuba to Mexico did not get enough altitude to get into the upper cold atmosphere. A person who rode a jet which travels at 36,000 to 38,000 feet would drop out of the wheel well as an ice cube. I said that beyond this, the stowaway would probably die from the lack of oxygen. I was thinking about those guys who climb Everest. If they ascend the peak without oxygen, they have to spend five weeks at the base camp getting acclimatized. How could the stowaway not die from the lack of oxygen at a height higher than Everest.

Jim, the diver who supposedly knows a few things about this, disagreed with me, but could not explain why I was wrong. All of which led me to think about the wonders of pressurized cabins on jets. Everyone has heard about the Wright Brothers and Mr. Curtis, but no one has heard about the developer of the pressurized cabin. Yet it is this pressurized cabin that made commercial travel feasible. Happily, as I pondered this matter, Ariel finished her run, and I was able to go home and wait for Bob.



I did not have to wait long. I had just sat down to listen to Dylan Thomas’ reading of his “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” to get me fully in the mood for our trip. Mr. Thomas, early in his narrative, says, “I can’t recall if it snowed six day in a row when I was 12, or 12 days in a row if I was six.” After this line, I heard Bob knock on the door. We loaded our one suit case into Bob’s beat up car, and took our 45 minute drive to the airport. That trip was uneventful but for Bob telling us that he had heard about a study of people forced to listen to Christmas music for several days in a row as part of their jobs. These people become more aggressive and violent than the average person. I was glad that I had not listened to more of Thomas’ story that morning or I might have developed a deep case of air rage.

___________

I have walked 618,398 steps in 51 days. I have walked 292 miles since leaving Alameda. I have 22 more miles before I reach Lovelock.

More on Lovelock, and Why Wales?

As I cross the desert, I think of our trip in 2003 to Wales as I ponder our trip our trip in a few weeks to Europe. I have already provided the end of that trip, but I guess that I should probably start at the beginning. So here’s the beginning of our 2003 trip. By the way, the pictures are not of Wales. In 2003, our camera chip would hold about 10 pictures.

“Why Wales?” That was the question that we were most often asked when we told people that we were thinking of going to Wales for a week in December. People would say, “I would think of going to England, Scotland or Ireland, but I have never thought about going to Wales.” Even Wales itself seems to ask one, “Why Wales?” Its tourist website and booklets about itself are rather short and uninformative. And our answer to the question was equally short and pithy. “Why not Wales?”

And just as of course, the answer to the question to “Why Wales” is a bit more complicated than our pithy response. The more complicated answers begins about 11 months ago. Actually, the answer to the questions begins 50 years ago, as Dorey decided that she would be born in December 1953. (Okay, let’s not go on about the possible theological and biological problems with that last sentence, but accept it at face value). Her 49th birthday seemed to me to be a difficult one for her. I don’t think that problem was turning 49 per se, but that the next year she would turning 50. Her feelings on turning 50 were such that I was concerned that she would, on her 50th, turn an uzi on anyone who dared wish her a happy birthday. To help preserve her and others’ eternal salvation, I thought it best that we get out of the town on that day.

To answer the why were going out of town does not, of course, fully answer the question of “Why Wales?” And that one a bit trickier. As you know, a couple of years ago, we bought a timeshare week at the Marriott resort on Kauai. We had planned to spend our week at Kauai this past October, and reserved our spot there a year ago last October. In January, however, I started looking at airfares to bring four people to Kauai. I am not going to Hawaii with Kate without bringing one of her friends. It’s amazing, but it’s easier to take eye rolling from two kids than it is from one.



All of which reminds me of a story of my cousin, Jenny. When she was about 15, her parents took her to Hawaii for a few days. They were staying in downtown Honolulu. They decided to go out for dinner at a restaurant that was a few blocks down from their hotel. They further decided that rather than pull the rental car out of the garage, they would walk. Jenny was incredulous that they would do something so déclassé as walking from the hotel to the restaurant. Now walking in Honolulu is not a rare event. Everyone, locals and non-locals alike, walk everywhere, especially downtown. And given the usual wonderful weather, why not walk? So thousands of people were walking around as Frank, Linda and Jenny were walking the few blocks to the restaurant. Jenny was so embarrassed by this decision to walk, though , that she walked about five steps behind her parents murmuring the whole way. My uncle Frank said Jenny was written out of the will at that moment, and she has only recently been readmitted.

When I first heard this story about the time of your sister’s birth, I did not have a true understanding of its meaning. I do now. And because I understand its true meaning, I was not going to go on a vacation with Kate alone. So in January, as I priced the plane tickets to Hawaii for four, I suffered some sticker shock. It would cost approximately $4,000.00 just for us to get there. That was more than I wanted to spend on the whole trip. So I decided that we should trade our timeshare week for a week somewhere closer to home. Trading a timeshare week is of course much harder than how they make it out to be when they are selling the timeshare week. During that time, they simply tell you call up, and wham, you are going to the Costa del Sol rather than Hawaii. Reality is--well, frankly, I still don’t understand how trading a timeshare week works, but in January, our week in Hawaii suddenly became a week in Williamsburg, Virginia. Oddly enough, we had another week any time the timeshare high priests had available anywhere in the world. I began checking out what they had available anywhere in the world, and the selection was not great. At the end of the list was a spot in Laugharne, Wales, which would cost us only $199.00 for the entire week. Wales, I thought, that sounds interesting, and it will be getting Dorey off this rock and onto a new one for the first time in her life. So Laugharne, Wales, became our destination for Dorey not to celebrate her 50th birthday.


Wales is a homecoming of sorts for us. We have ancestors from Wales, but we don’t know from where. Israel Evans was conceived in Wales. He was, however, not born in Wales, but his birth records indicate that he was born at sea. His family, we guess, was part of the Wales Methodist migration to the United States in the 1700s, most of whom settled in Pennsylvania. The Methodist thing did not quite work out for old Israel, as he became a tavern keeper in Maryland. Anyway, old Israel had a son, David Evans. David Evans converted to Mormonism in 1833, and by 1834, he was part of the Zion’s Camp march. David was also living in the Haun’s Mill area at the time of the massacre. He crossed the plains and was sent to lead the colonization in Lehi, Utah. He was the bishop of Lehi forever. Going back to Israel, we are uncertain who his parents were. Someone on the church website said that his father was Thomas Evans. However, this same record states that Thomas was born in the United States. It would not make sense to have Thomas being born in the United States, but having a son born at sea on the way to the United States. Stranger things have happened, but this does not make sense to me, and think whoever posted the family tree on the website is simply wrong.



Anyway, in January, we decided why not Wales, and spent the next 11 months getting passports and plane ticket, and reading everything we could Wales. Happily, even the travel writers have a problem with Why Wales, as there are only about two travel book on Wales. We read them both.

More tomorrow. Since I began this trip, I have walked 607,043 steps in 50 days. I have walked 287 miles since leaving my home in Alameda. In 27 miles, I will be in Lovelock, Nevada.

Walking across the desert, I continue to ponder our upcoming trip to Europe. And then I think back to our first trip off of this rock, and our wonderful day in London on the end of that 2003 trip. I wrote to Christian, who was on missionary for our church at that time, the following letter:

All good things must come to an end, and our time in the native land, Wales, had to come to an end on Saturday morning. We awoke at 5:30 to shower and place things into our bags before heading back to London. It was drizzling as we headed down the golden staircase, past our bakery and restaurant one last time. I think that I would have cried, but I was too nervous about missing our bus. We had heard the on Saturdays, the bus from Laugharne to Carmarthen had a tendency to be late, so we were relieved when it showed up only a minute late. We were the only people on the bus as we headed into the dark to Carmarthen.

When we arrived in Carmarthen, we walked across the parking lot to wait for the bus that would take us to Swansea, where we would change buses for London. We had only about 3 pounds left, so I left your mother with the bags and went to look for an ATM. This was kind of a stupid move, I concluded, as it was dark, and I was in a strange city, and I would be carrying cash. But I really wanted some cash. So I found a bank, and it spit out the money–it’s an amazing world--and I headed back to where your mother was waiting. Nothing was amiss.

Shortly thereafter, a man in a bowler hat came over. He asked if this were the bus to Bristol. We explained that we did not know where the bus was going ultimately, because we were headed to London and had to change buses in Swansea. He said that must be the bus that went to Bristol, then. His conclusion did not necessarily follow to us, but oh well.

He then said that he wasn’t going to Bristol, but that his wife was. She was waiting in the car for the bus, but he just wanted to get out and talk. Man, could this guy talk. His wife probably kicked him out of the car so she could have a few minutes of peace. He was a farmer. He asked us when we were returning to the States. When we told him that we would be leaving the next day at about 2:30 p.m., he said that we would be flying over his farm about 2:48. I told him that we would wave.



He said that he had been to the United States on two occasions, the last time about 25 years ago. He had visited, of course, Florida. (Is there anyone in Wales who has been to anywhere in the States besides Florida?) It was 25 years ago that he was last in Florida, but had a wonderful time there. His wife was going to see her parents who lived in Bristol. Her parents were elderly and somewhat sickly. On and on he went. I listened with about half an ear. Strangely though, usually I don’t like the incessant talkers, but I really kind of liked this guy.

His wife wandered over and we were introduced. In a couple of minutes, the bus came, and we all boarded. I think that the wife wanted us to sit near her, but the seat around her were taken. We moved further back in the bus. We rode the hour to Swansea in relative silence, and exited the bus. She wished us a happy Christmas as we left. What a nice thought.

We found the line for the bus to London, and began our 30 minute wait. I went into the shopping center while your mother waited with our stuff. I was trying to find some breakfast foods and a newspaper. A drug store was open, and I bought a couple of odd ball things to eat and a paper, and headed back to your mother. Our bus was just coming up, and people, as they do in the UK, were ignoring the established line. For the first and only time, I saw someone get mad. “Look,” the guy taking our tickets said, “You are going to have to line up behind these people if you want to get on the bus.” He meant us. I felt vindicated.

I don’t know if it was because we were tired or because we had, in our short week’s time, become accustomed to Wales’ face, but the trip back into London was nowhere near as memorable as the trip from London to Wales. We sat and read the paper, and tried to sleep. The bus stopped at the same rest stop. We walked inside.

At that moment, I knew that we were back in civilization. There was a sign in front of the Burger King, announcing free refills of Diet Coke. I became teary and hugged the sign. Alas, we did not have time to take advantage of western culture’s greatest achievement–the free cola refill–as we had to get back on the bus. But I knew I could find one somewhere.

We arrived back in London at about 2:30. We picked up a cab, and headed to our hotel, The Marriott Park Lane. I thought that the Country Hall Hotel was nice. Amazingly, this hotel was even nicer. From our room, we could see all the world, or at least all the world traipsing through London that day, from our hotel room, which overlooked Hyde Park.

After checking in and getting comfortable, we decided to go walk the streets. I had seen the original Hard Rock Café when we were in London the Friday before, and knew that if any place would feed me endless diet Cokes, it would be this place. We asked the concierge where the place was, and he said that it was a five minute walk from the hotel.

We walked in the direction that he pointed. After about 10 minutes, we still had not arrived at the place. We had, though, passed many fine hotels and restaurants and car dealerships with beautiful cars. I reminded your mother that she had the prior Friday promised me that Astin-Martin in the showroom. She denied ever making any such promise, telling me that I was so tired on Friday that I must have dreamed the whole promise. In fact, I could not recall if she made the promise in a real dream or a “real” dream.

We were still walking about 20 minutes after leaving, and were about to give up on the trip. Finally, we saw someone with a Hard Rock bag, and asked them how much further. “About two blocks,” the person replied. For once in our experience, a Londoner was not lying about directions. We hit the place in a couple of minutes.

The upstairs of the place was a bar, where they were having a private party. The downstairs, however, was just the restaurant. We were seated within minutes, and our server arrived a couple of minutes later. “Diet Coke,” I moaned. “I have spent the last week in Wales, and I need a Diet Coke.” She seemed to understand. She was a Asian looking gal with an obvious American accent. We asked her where she was from. Florida, of course. There must be a cultural exchange program between the UK and Florida. Now I understand what culture one can obtain in the UK, but what culture does Florida have to exchange it with? She brought the drink, and then a bad hamburger and fries, and we ate, watching and singing along to the music videos being shown. I was once again a happy boy.

After eating, we exited the restaurant and went to the separate Hard Rock Café shop. We bought Kate a shirt and a shot glass, and picked up a shirt for you. You thus have another present in your box.

We wandered back to our room, pondering an eternal truth. Why does it take longer to go somewhere when you don’t know where you are going then it does when you where you are going? Even though we took the exact reverse path back to our hotel from the Hard Rock that we took from the hotel to the Hard Rock, we were back within 10 minutes. I think that your mother was part of the reason for the decrease in time, as she hustled me past the Astin-Martin dealership. As to the other reasons, I guess the answer lies in Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.

Back in our room, we wrote you and Kate a short note on the hotel stationary, and looked around at our accumulated stuff. I decided that there was no way that we were going to make it home, even though we had picked up a Rugby bag in Wales. We needed one more small bag. We again headed to our friend, the conseigor. We bought a couple of stamps from him, and then asked where there was a place to pick up a back pack. He said that there was a shop right around the corner. Into the shop we went, and came out with a cheap backpack.

We decided to head to a movie that night. The theater was a few blocks over. Unfortunately, most of the films being shown that night were shows that had already played in the U.S., and had finally made it over to the UK. One movie, however, Love Actually, was a British made movie. We went to that one.




This is not, for at least one reason, a movie that Mormon missionaries should see. It has the of the least sexy nude scene in the history of the movies. That the scene was not sexy was intentional. Other than that, the movie was wonderful. In brief,--.no, there is no way to tell you about this movie in brief. Rather, it is the story of eight or nine couples who either get together or fall apart during the few weeks before Christmas.

The most poignant story in the movie was the story told about a middle aged husband and wife. The man, played by Alan Rickman, is the boss of a graphic design firm. His wife, played by Emma Thompson, is an upper class stay at home mom with a couple of kids. A few weeks prior to Christmas, she finds a wrapped package which she thinks is for her. We know that it is a necklace to be given to the man’s office girlfriend.

The woman is excited as she wonders what it could be, as for the past Christmases he has given her a scarf. A few days before Christmas, the man and the woman are wrapping presents for their kids. Joni Mitchell is playing in the background. He says to her that he can’t believe that she still listens to this rubbish. She tells him that Joni Mitchell taught her how to feel.

On Christmas Eve, the woman can’t wait to open the present, acting much as a little child. The present is not the necklace, but a compilation of Joni Mitchell songs. She realizes that he has given the other gift, the one that she found in his pocket, to someone else. She goes off to cry, and in the background, a new version of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now plays.

The song is significant. If you have never heard it, its chorus is, “I’ve looked at love from both sides now, from give and take, and still somehow, It’s love’s illusions I recall, I really don’t know love at all.” Mitchell probably first wrote and recorded this song when she was in her early 20s. I don’t mean to demean your age, but I know very few people who in their early 20s can sing this song with conviction. They simply have not had the experiences, the heartache, the joy and the pain, to look at both sides. In Ms. Mitchell’s new cover, she sings with a deeper, richer more poignant voice. Now in her late 50s, you know that she can and does sing this song with conviction. It’s simply a wonderful scene and a wonderful song.

Shortly after this scene, the woman confronts the man, telling him, in Biblical fashion, a parable, and asking the man what he would do if this were him. He realizes as she tell the parable that she knows about his affair. He apologizes. She does not accept, but instead tells him that he has by this act of betrayal made a mockery of her life. It’s a painful moment, as you ponder how you have betrayed and made a mockery of the one that you have loved the most. She asks him what should she do. Before he can answer, her children come running up to her, and she turns away from him, and puts on a happy face for them.

At the end of the movie, we see the man getting off an airplane at the Heathrow airport. The woman and the children are waiting for him. After the man has hugged the children, he gives the woman a kiss on the cheek. The woman’s face is wan and puffy, and you know that she has spent sleepless, crying nights during his absence. He asks her, casually, but then again, not so casually, how she is doing. She says, in a fashion neither convincing to us nor to the man, that she is ok. She has decided that even though he has made a mockery of her life, she will continue to be with him, at least for the children. To do otherwise would have her make a mockery of her own life. The family heads home together, but you know that it will never be the same now that she has been exposed to both sides.

In the hands of a lesser actress, this story would have been awful–a soap opera. Emma Thompson is too good, too smart, of an actress to play it that way. It is instead poignant.

Other story lines are lighter, and some our downright amusing. Hugh Grant plays the prime minister who, after telling off the American President, does a little dance to the Pointer Sister’s Jump. Good stuff.

The movie house was also great. When we went to buy our tickets, we were asked if there was anyplace in the theater that we would like to sit. I said something like best available. Unlike American movie houses, then, in this theater, we had assigned seats, with an usher to lead you to the seat.

The movie let out at about nine. It was dark out on the street as we walked back to the hotel. Christmas lights covered the streets, making London, or this part of London, simply beautiful. I crossed against one light, looking the wrong way, of course. A couple of cars apparently nearly hit me. I did not see them. A couple of kids walking the other way were shaking their heads as they passed by your mother, who had wisely not followed me. “He’s Superman,” one of these guys said to the other.

We made it back to our room in time to watch the last show of The Big Read. Tonight was the night that they were going to name England’s most favorite book. The five finalists were Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, the Philip Pullman books, a Harry Potter book, and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The people voted. They voted for Lord of the Rings. The commentators tried to be nice, but simple could not be. They would have all picked from this five Pride and Prejudice.

Since coming back from our trip, I have been reading books off the 200 books on the Big Read list. I have purchased the Lord of the Rings book, but I can’t make it out of the first chapter. It is awful.

Thus ends our Saturday. But a final post note. We found one of our yearly Christmas songs Christmas song. It’s Otis Redding singing “White Christmas” as you have never heard White Christmas heard before. It was featured in “Love Actually,” and when I heard it, I knew it had to be part of the Larsen song Christmas list.

So I ponder this, and walk and walk. I have walked 584,913 steps in 48 days. I have walked 276 miles since I left my home in Alameda. I have 38 miles until Lovelock.