no rules, no fences, no referees

Recently I tweeted an article I wrote about the Old West. Many people have weighed in on what the American frontier was really about. I think many miss a key point which, at least in a literary sense, ties Westerns, Science Fiction, and Fantasy together.

Here's one paragraph from my article, “Is the Mythology of the Old West Dead?”  . 

“The West, outer space, the future, or a make-believe land represents a new beginning in a fresh place away from home—the shrugging off of disappointments and a chance to start all over again. The romance and adventure of frontiers draws people desperate to escape the travail of their current existence. We've seen this in real life with the migrations to the New World and the Old West, but today many people satisfy this longing vicariously with fiction. If you're poor, your family makes you miserable, you've committed an act that offends society, or wanderlust has gripped you, then the adventure and limitless opportunity of a frontier beckons like a siren's call. Emigrating to a frontier means you get a do-over in a land with no rules, no fences, no referees.” 

House of Corn, Stone Presidents, and a Sioux Triumph

Mitchell Corn Palace

We recently moved from Arizona to Omaha and are still getting to know the neighborhood. Friends—and sometime relatives—wanted a road trip to check out the northern hinterlands. We blasted through Iowa to get to South Dakota to our first stop in Mitchell. We came to see the world renown Corn Palace.  Each year, the town decorates the outside of the building with artworks made entirely from corn cobs. Pretty cool. Or at least cooler than a big ball of twine.

K Bar S Lodge

After gawking at the ethanol cathedral, we speed down the road to spend the night at the K Bar S Lodge, which is in the shadow of Mount Rushmore. The huge lodge closes at the end of the month and guests were sparse. As we wandered the buildings, we kept an eye out for a tyke on a trike or a pair of scary twins. I never spotted a worrisome apparition, but the next day at Mount Rushmore, I spotted Gary Grant strolling around in a dark suit and pristine white dress shirt. We found Mount Rushmore to be an impressive feat of art and engineering and the park service has done a good job of presentation.

North by Northwest

The Knuckle Saloon in Sturgis

Lunch found us at the Knuckle Saloon in Sturgis, host city to the seventy-eight-year-old motorcycle rallies. We saw only one lonely rider, but the food at the saloon was good and the ambiance iconic.

Sheridan Inn a bit before we arrived

In the afternoon, we drove to Sheridan, Wyoming and stayed at the historic Sheridan Inn. This hotel didn’t seem haunted either, despite one of the long-term employees having her ashes buried inside the wall of her room. The photographs on the walls are reason enough to pay the inn a visit. After breakfast, we drove to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Here we found ghosts and restless spirits aplenty. Little Bighorn is a sobering experience that reminds us that there are two sides to every story.

Art work detail at Little Bighorn Battlefield

We returned by way of Sheridan and stopped for lunch and a shopping spree at King's Saddlery. If you’re ever in this part of the country, King’s is a must stop. It reminds me of the tent in Harry Potter that looks small from the outside, but goes on forever inside. This is not a tourist store but a serious place to buy ropes, tack, and appropriate attire for horseback riding. If you want something western, whether it be leather goods, belt buckles, clothing, jewelry, art, dishes, books, ropes, or whatever, you can find in at King’s.

Kings Saddlery

On the way home, ate breakfast at Wall Drug and took the 240 loop through the South Dakota Badlands. Due to thousands of signposts, Wall Drug is as hard to find as a fly in a cow pasture. It’s worth the trip, however. Good breakfast, cheap coffee, and lots of western art and artifacts. After breakfast, we sauntered through the Badlands. We saw very few cars, but we did make a sharp turn and almost ran into a Rocky Mountain Big Horn sheep. I stopped the car, wondering how much damage those curved battering rams could do to my side panels, but luckily he seemed more interested in eating the vegetation alongside the road. The Badlands landscape is impressive and when it’s uncrowded, you can feel connected to some bygone era. If you make this trip, late October is perfect … unless it isn’t. Weather during late autumn can be unpredictable, but we had it near perfect. Good luck to you, as well.

Just before we scooted home, we made a stop at Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. We stopped at the Visitor Center, and then went on a guided tour of Launch Control Facility Delta-01. Both are must-sees, but the Launch Control Facility requires a reservation. These nuclear weapon delivery systems are now thankfully in the back of our consciousness, and hopefully will remain there.

This road trip was my second favorite. My favorite is the Grand Circle. It’s a shame more people don’t hit the road nowadays. The expansive countryside of the West has awe-inspiring landscapes, a fascinating history, and friendly people eager to help a tenderfoot.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles—A Travel Memoir

                   

"And by the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea -

have a POINT. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener!"

My wife and I are on an extended vacation that traverses five states and a couple of countries. (Can you vacation in retirement?) We started with meeting high school friends in Carson City and then my wife’s brother in Garnerville, Nevada. Since many of the Steve Dancy novels take place in and around Carson Valley, I always enjoy visiting the area to get ideas and check up on how Jenny is doing. From there we flew to San Diego for a week of surfing and beach-style laziness.

After SoCal, we were supposed to return to Omaha for a week, but schedules got messed up, so we stayed home only overnight before flying to New York. Well, not exactly. Seems SouthWest had a computer glitch that turned every airport in the nation into serpentine lines of anxious travelers trying to figure out a new way to get from point A to point B. Due to family commitments, we had to get through this goo of snarling humanity or miss our opportunity to see all six grandkids together. Unfortunately, when we got to the front of the glacial line they told us the only available flight to New York was two days in the future. Bummer. Our son saved the day by booking us a car to drive us to Chicago for an early morning flight the next day. As we tooled along the highway in splendid exasperation, he even got all six of us flight reservations—my wife and me, my daughter, and her three kids. Since it was seven in the evening, our driver assured us he could get us to Chicago by 3:00 AM.

After a few hours’ sleep at an airport hotel, the six of us boarded a crowded flight to JFK. As a special treat for our 50th wedding anniversary, the kids had rented a house in South Hampton. Unfortunately we arrived too late for the train or jitney, so once again we piled into a mini-van for a sluggish ride out of New York City on a Friday night.

Now things came together beautifully. We arrived in time for a late grilled dinner in the backyard. The grandkids, together again, went bonkers. They laughed and ate and played and swam and generally made us feel old. A drink took the edge off, another put us to bed.

The world looked different after a good night’s sleep. We had four days ahead of us to do nothing but try to keep up with six kids under twelve years old. We even went surfing. Crummy wind-blown waves, but it was fun having three generations in the water. I lost a bet with my grandson that I would catch the better wave, but we had only wagered an ice cream cone, so I had enough money for the rest of the trip. The experience reminded me of Warren Miller’s admonition that “you only ski better than your kids one day in your life.”

All good things must come to an end. On Tuesday evening, we took the jitney back to New York. Our travel hobgoblin had not retreated into the woodwork. After leaving the Jitney, we flagged down a cab to take us to our timeshare. (Hotel costs hampered visits to see our NYC grandkids, so a few years ago we bought into a timeshare-like arrangement.) The cab driver’s mouth dropped open when he saw all the kids and enough luggage for Duchess Kate Middleton. Then he started dancing in place and begged me to allow him to drive over to McDonalds to pee. Having been there myself, I said yes. I didn’t know McDonalds was ten blocks in the wrong direction. It was late, we were tired, and our cabbie took us on a prolonged detour (meter off, of course.) I didn’t complain because we were piled in well beyond the legal limit for a single cab.

Our next travel adventure was beyond inconvenient, it was dangerous. In Times Square we signaled for an Uber, but a pirate pretended to be our car. Dumb us, we didn’t verify the driver’s name before jumping in. Trapped in gridlock, a small gang of teenagers started banging on car hoods and then threw Pepsi on our driver’s car. He immediately jumped out yelling and took after the boys. They jeered and threatened him, so he returned to the car and I saw him pull a cheap steak knife out of the driver’s door. Oh Shit! He brandished the weapon and the boys went on to harass sane drivers. When he finally dropped us off, he delivered the coup de grâce by demanding $30 for a twenty block ride. I had already seen the knife, so I paid him sans tip and we bailed out as fast as we could.

I have a chocoholic granddaughter, but instead of venturing back to Times Square to visit the Hersey store, we decided to take a train to the mother lode of all things chocolate, Hersey, Pennsylvania. By this time you would think we had learned our lesson and stayed put. No way. Except for jostling crowds at Penn Station, comatose Amtrak employees, rude train passengers, WAY-overpriced snacks, and a first-time Uber car that ran around in circles because our driver didn’t have a clue where to find the biggest amusement park in Pennsylvania and felt looking out the window at big signs was a sign of weakness or something. The trip was as pleasant as an emergency trip to the dentist. I exaggerate … a bit. The good news is that once we arrived, everything went like clockwork and we had a great couple of days wolfing down chocolate and getting the bejesus scared out of us on rides engineered by sadists.

When we returned to New York Penn Station, I lost it with a driver who yelled at my daughter on the phone because we couldn’t find him. He kept telling her that he was parked right behind the police. I asked him to look around and tell me where he didn’t see police. He had no answer.  After our sullen journey, I over-tipped because I felt guilty for yelling at him, only to discover that my daughter also tipped him heavily to make up for her rude father.

We celebrated our 50^th anniversary with the kids early because for some odd reason, school now starts in mid-August, and what we really wanted as a gift was to see all of our kids and grandkids together. On our actual anniversary, we decided to do our own private celebration in Paris. What seems like a long time ago, I ran an operation in Paris. My wife joined me on many business trips and it’s a city with a lot of memories for us. Because our schedule got shoved forward, we are now waiting in NYC for our flight to the City of Lights. After our travel experiences so far, I wonder about flying over vast amounts of very cold water.

As I write this, I am sitting quietly in my timeshare. My daughter and her family have returned to Omaha. Our other grandchildren are still on Long Island. We see little of our son in the city because he works day and night.

We are alone. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. We don’t travel again for another week.

I’m bored.

Back From a Fun Trip to Peru

My wife's photo of Machu Picchu

I like traveling to places my wife and I both enjoy. She loves history and art, while I prefer to see how people in other countries live today. This makes Egypt and China two of our favorite destinations because she can gaze in wonder at the pyramids or walk the Great Wall, and I get to witness a completely different culture.

Peru falls into this category. The 14th Century Inca ruins fulfill her need to touch and feel a culture long gone, and I get to enjoy the lively and complex Peru of today. I kidded her by saying she liked dead Peru, while I liked live Peru. That's an over-simplification, of course, but it's not too far off the mark.

Another Peruvian benefit is plenty of exercise ... at high altitude. When I got back to sea level I felt energized with all that oxygen.

Peru was wonderful. Friendly people who know how to preserve their heritage.

Oh well, vacation's over. Better get back to writing.

Celebrating a Birthday in Gardnerville, Nevada

Historic U.S. Route 395

For my birthday we ran up from San Diego to Gardnerville, Nevada. We stopped overnight in Santa Clarita to pick up friends, so it feels like a party. It’s a beautiful drive up U.S. Route 395. High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart was filmed in Lone Pine, Charles Manson was jailed in Independence, Bishop lays claim to the oldest rodeo in the country, Mammoth remains my favorite ski resort, Lee Vining is named after a saloon patron who shot himself in the most private of parts, and Bodie makes other ghost towns appear stunted. Schat’s Bakery alone makes the long drive worthwhile. This doesn’t even mention the stunning scenery. All that open beautiful land makes you wonder why everyone huddles on top of each other in Los Angeles.

Gardnerville is in Carson Valley, south of Carson City. The whole region feels peaceful. Homes are spread out, friendly people abound, traffic moves swiftly on the single thoroughfare, and majestic mountains loom in every direction. It’s a great place to live or visit.

Except … I can’t believe the amount of mayhem I’ve invented in these precincts.

Several Steve Dancy Tales take place in Carson City and Virginia City. Whenever I visit, I’m reminded that I wrote about another time. The Carson Valley of today seems quiet and subdued, but when Mark Twain wandered these environs, the region could truly be called the Wild West.

If you want to experience the history of this region, Roughing It by Mark Twain and An Editor on the Comstock Lode by Wells Drury provide first-hand accounts of Virginia City in its heyday.

Wells Fargo 1880 Rules for Stagecoach Passengers ... And a Few of My Own

Still From John Ford's Stagecoach

In the Old West, stage travel took patience and stamina. Wells Fargo published a set of rules for passengers meant to make an unpleasant experience at least tolerable. Deadwood Magazine suggests these same rules might make modern travel more civil.

1. Abstinence from liquor is requested, but if you must drink, share the bottle. To do otherwise makes you appear selfish and unneighborly.
2. If ladies are present, gentlemen are urged to forego smoking cigars and pipes as the odor of same is repugnant to the Gentle Sex. Chewing tobacco is permitted but spit WITH the wind, not against it.
3. Gentlemen must refrain from the use of rough language in the presence of ladies and children.
4. Buffalo robes are provided for your comfort during cold weather. Hogging robes will not be tolerated and the offender will be made to ride with the driver.
5. Don’t snore loudly while sleeping or use your fellow passenger’s shoulder for a pillow; he or she may not understand and friction may result.
6. Firearms may be kept on your person for use in emergencies. Do not fire them for pleasure or shoot at wild animals as the sound riles the horses.
7. In the event of runaway horses, remain calm. Leaping from the coach in panic will leave you injured, at the mercy of the elements, hostile Indians and hungry coyotes.
8. Forbidden topics of discussion are stagecoach robberies and Indian uprisings.
9. Gents guilty of unchivalrous behavior toward lady passengers will be put off the stage. It’s a long walk back. A word to the wise is sufficient.

In the interest of travelers everywhere, here are a few rules of my own:

1. Play nice with the flight attendants—the rest of us want them in a good mood
2. Use drugs and liquor lightly … or so heavily you pass out and leave others alone
3. Turn off game sounds
4. If you’re going to hog overhead storage, at least don’t wear a put-upon expression
5. Armrests are community property—remember what you learned in kindergarten
6. If you can’t remember the last time you bathed, it was too long ago
7. Drop the F-word and add please and thank you to your vocabulary
8. Air travel is not a nesting opportunity—resist the urge to haul along heaps of stuff
9. Forget Mr. Rogers—you really aren’t special

Now that I’m on the subject, I’ll tell you about my most memorable airplane incident. I was stuck in a middle seat, which always makes me cranky. The man in the aisle seat came aboard and stowed his briefcase in the overhead. Suddenly, the woman in the window seat shoved me and ordered me to let her out. Before I could move, the woman yelled at the man that he had laid his briefcase on top of her fur coat. He appeared startled at her assault but politely said she couldn’t take up the whole bin by laying her coat length ways.  She immediately shoved me again and demanded to get out. I struggled to get into the aisle, but now the man blocked my exit. Yelling went back and forth and all I could think about was that I had to spend five hours crushed between two warring parties.

Just before the flight attendant worked her way to our row, the man yelled, “Lady, I can tell you what you can do with that fur. You can—”

“Don’t you say it,” she yelled back.

It looked like nothing could defuse the situation, and then a passenger about three rows back yelled, “Hey lady, the last time that fur was on an animal, it was laying in the dirt.”

The whole plane burst out in laughter. The chagrined woman retook her seat and never uttered another peep for the entire flight. I read in blissful silence.

What makes a hero —Character or Activity?

Hondo by Louis L'Amour

In 1949, Joseph Campbell published The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell studied myths and stories down through the ages and came up with twelves steps in a hero’s journey, starting with normalcy or status quo and ending right back at status quo. The Matthew Winkler animated video illustrates Campbell’s definition of the journey. Campbell made a brilliant set of observations about the striking similarities of heroic sagas told throughout time and in every culture. (Steve Dancy complies with Campbell's theoretical journey.)

Campbell also breaks some new ground in describing the universal need for heroes, albeit in a language foreign to mortals.

The first work of the hero is to retreat from the world scene of secondary effects to those causal zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside, and there to clarify the difficulties, eradicate them in his own case (i.e., give battle to the nursery demons of his local culture) and break through to the undistorted, direct experience and assimilation of what Jung called “the archetypal images.”

Say what?

The Hero With a Thousand Faces gives the impression that the journey itself makes the hero. It might be more accurate to say that anyone who prevails through all of the steps elevates himself or herself to heroic status. Most people retreat at Step One: Call to Adventure.

I believe heroism is more a question of character than events. Mark Twain agrees with me. He wrote:

“Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.”

Raymond Chandler also had a character-driven definition of a hero:

…down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.

The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.

Joseph Campbell is popular in academia, but perhaps it's possible to get a better description of a hero by asking one of those storytellers who have passed these tales down from one generation to the next.

The More Things Change ...

I moved to Omaha last year, so I found this 1877 article from the Omaha Herald interesting. For those who loath TSA, tiny seats, and surly airlines, take heart, travel was far worse in the good-ol’-days.

Here are a few of the Herald’s tips for stage travelers.

• Don't growl at food stations; stage companies generally provide the best they can get.
• Don't keep the stage waiting; many a virtuous man has lost his character by so doing.
• Don't smoke a strong pipe inside especially early in the morning.
• Spit on the leeward side of the coach.
• If you have anything to take in a bottle, pass it around; a man who drinks by himself in such a case is lost to all human feeling.
• Don't swear, nor lop over on your neighbor when sleeping.
• Don't ask how far it is to the next station until you get there.
• Never attempt to fire a gun or pistol while on the road, it may frighten the team; and the careless handling and cocking of the weapon makes nervous people nervous.
• Don't discuss politics or religion, nor point out places on the road where horrible murders have been committed.
• Don't linger too long at the pewter wash basin at the station.
• Don't grease you hair before starting or dust will stick there in sufficient quantities to make a respectable 'tater' patch.
• Tie a silk handkerchief around your neck to keep out dust and prevent sunburns. A little glycerin is good in case of chapped hands.

The article ended with a good piece of advice for modern travelers.

Don't imagine for a moment you are going on a picnic; expect annoyance, discomfort and some hardships. If you are disappointed, thank heaven.

I thank heaven every time I'm not seated next to Del Griffith!

Looking for a Father's Day gift?

The best gift is a vacation … and the least expensive vacation is a book. A novel effortlessly transports the reader to another place and time. With a good book, dad can take a fifteen minute vacation or while away an entire afternoon. Either way, he returns feeling refreshed and more content with life.

Gift books don’t have to be fiction. A respite with a nonfiction book about a special interest can also be relaxing. The great thing about books is that there are numerous ones for every interest, hobby, sport, or enthusiasm. If for some reason, your dad can’t get away to fish, golf, or whatever, he can frequently find a few minutes to read about his favorite activity. A good book allows him to indulge himself and possibly pick up a few pointers.

There is another reason I like to give books as gifts: I can write something personal on the flyleaf that won’t get thrown out like an old greeting card.

The most important thing is to remind your father that you love him. The perfect book is far more personal than most gifts because it’s aimed directly at what you father enjoys. Put some serious thought into the right book to show you really tried to please him.

Here are a couple previous blog postings about Father’s Day.

Father's Day Tribute
What to give for Father's Day?

P.S. It's Saturday. Forgot to shop for a Father's Day gift? It's not too late. Support your local independent boookstore and get dad something he'll really enjoy.

Idle Away!

Okay, this is what I do while waiting for other people to put the finishing touches on Jenny's Revenge. The new Steve Dancy is coming soon, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy my amateur filmmaking.

Honest Westerns ... filled with dishonest characters.

Birthdays Used to be Fun

Arthur: “Do you want anything?”

Hobson: “I want to be younger.”

Today is my birthday. My present is a trip to Hawaii to surf in calm waves in warm water and visit my brother and his wife. It will be fun. The trip, that is, not necessarily my birthday. When I was a kid, I wanted birthdays to come sooner because with enough of them I could become a freewheeling adult. I discovered adulthood didn't include as many privileges as I expected, but birthdays remained great fun. At least for a few decades. Now ... not so much. Instead of blowing a party horn, I catalogue my aches and pains. In truth, I’m grateful to be relatively fit, with a great family and loving wife. 

My biggest problem is remembering to get up from my writing chair to get some exercise. I become so engrossed with my characters, I sometimes have to cause a distasteful dispute so I can leave them to their own devices. When I return from a long walk or an hour of surfing, my characters’ tempers have abated enough that I can get on with the story. I know you think I’m kidding, but …

I'll leave you with my life’s goal. I want to be the first person over one hundred years old to break the four-minute mile. This may sound tough, but I intend to train for an entire decade to achieve this goal. It will be hard and consuming work. Thank goodness my ninetieth birthday is still far off in the future. 

Ski Slopes and Ghosts Galore

I just returned from a week of skiing at Heavenly overlooking Lake Tahoe. Judging by the price of lift tickets, there’s gold on them thar hills. Warren Miller used to say your knees had only so many bends, so you might as well spend them skiing. I agree, but we needed a day to rest up after racing down slope after slope to get our money’s worth, so we took a day trip to the ghost town of Bodie, California.

Bodie, California

If you really want to feel a ghost town, I suggest you visit one in the dead of winter. We had the fortune of exploring Bodie on a clear day, with no snow on the ground, and temperatures in the mid-sixties. We had the unearthly emptiness all to ourselves. Eerie.

Bodie General Store

Bodie General Store

Waterman S. Body discovered gold at this remote location in 1859, but the real heyday for the  Bodie mining camp occurred in the late 1870s and early 1880s. According to the guidebook, “By 1879 Bodie boasted a population of about 10,000 and was second to none for wickedness, badmen, and ‘the worst climate out of doors.’ One little girl, whose family was taking her to the remote and infamous town, wrote in her diary: ‘Goodbye God, I’m going to Bodie.’”

Restrooms closed for the winter,
so we had to go native

I like ghost towns, especially when allowed to explore on my own. You can learn a lot about how people lived in bygone days. Bodie has fairly intact homes, churches, a general store, school, barber’s shop, fire house, a hotel with restaurant, and saloons aplenty. The gymnasium equipment includes a punching bag, pull-up bar, weights, and other paraphernalia. One of the biggest and most impressive buildings is a miner’s union hall. All this with nary a ranger in sight ... at least not one away from the comfort of his vehicle in the parking lot.

The next day we returned to Heavenly. Unfortunately, we didn’t have this particular mountain to ourselves. Lots of people, loads of people, all zipping around unaware of the poor ghosts eager for callers just a couple of hours down the road.

My favorite ghost town is Candelaria, Nevada, the opening location for The Shopkeeper. In the book, I called the town Pickhandle Gulch, which was actually a suburb of Caldelaria.

Candelaria, Nevada
(aka Pickhandle Gulch)

Author photo of Candelaria

To Each His Own

Some author’s dread poor reviews from readers. I like to hear what readers think and find I learn more from critical reviews. Besides, what some readers find objectionable, other readers enjoy. I never had a better example than today when I received two Amazon reviews that had exactly opposite takes on a major plot element of The Return.

Click to enlarge

Marilyn says, "Not as good the previous books in the series. Get Steve Dancy back to the West where he seems at home."

While another Amazon Customer wrote, "Enjoyed the Western theme, along with the Edison involvement. New York gangs added flavor that made this a great read."

No author can please every reader and it's career suicide to try. Don't ignore poor reviews because they can help  you become  a better writer, but keep your focus on the total weight of  all of  your reviews.  Every writer will get a few bad reviews, so take them with a grain of salt. 

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters

Escape from Death Valley

Death Valley is the hottest place on earth. The valley has amiable place names like Dead Man’s Pass, Funeral Mountain, Coffin Canyon, Hell’s Gate, Devil’s Hole, Suicide Pass, and my favorite—Dripping Blood Cliffs. This is rugged terrain. Or, as a local newspaper reported in 1907, "it has all the advantages of Hell without the inconveniences."

It’s even true that you can fry an egg on the sidewalk, but the rangers are tired of cleaning up the mess and suggest tourists instead fry their eggs on the hood of their car.

Good thing for us that it’s January. The daytime temperature only reached the mid-seventies and nighttime required a sweatshirt, a large fire, and a beverage suitable for sipping. We had a great time and I learned quite a bit about the region.

Everyone loves the story of Walter Scott, known far and wide as Death Valley Scotty. Scotty was a flimflam man who despite being discover as a fraud, successfully ingratiated himself to his rich mark, a man named Albert Mussey Johnson. Johnson was so enthralled with the con man that he supported Scotty for the remainder of his long life. Scotty told great stories and entertained the Johnsons and their innumerable guests. Most people conclude that if you’re glib enough the world is your oyster. I took away a different lesson. As a cast member of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Scotty knew the lure of Western mythos. Johnson, on the other hand, was a longtime wannabe cowboy. Scotty didn’t just tell stories, he delivered the Old West right into Johnson’s Death Valley parlor.

The whole episode reminded me of the western frontier's power of renewal. The chance to start a new life is the real reason tens of thousands abandoned their home for the Old West.  Here’s a quote from an Article I wrote a few years ago: Is the Mythology of the Old West Dead?

“The West, outer space, the future, or a make-believe land represents a new beginning in a fresh place away from home-the shrugging off of disappointments and a chance to start all over again. The romance and adventure of frontiers draws people desperate to escape the travails of their current existence. We've seen this in real life with the migrations to the New World and the Old West, but today many people satisfy this longing vicariously with fiction. If you're poor, your family makes you miserable, you've committed an act that offends society, or wanderlust has gripped you, then the adventure and limitless opportunity of a frontier beckons like a siren's call. Emigrating to a frontier means you get a do-over in a land with no rules, no fences, no referees.”

To me, this is the real lesson from Walter Scott and Albert Johnson. Johnson had been diagnosed to die young and had lived his life indoors accumulating wealth as a Chicago businessman. He loved the idea of a Wild West and Scotty delivered it for him. In addition, the dryness of Death Valley gave him a longer life and relief from his incessant pain. Of course, Johnson built his home—Scotty’s Castle—with all the citified luxuries of the early twentieth century. Scotty's Castle was both a mirage and oasis safely tucked away in a barren wilderness.

As John Wayne said, “The fascination that the Old West has will never die."

Home on the Range in Nebraska

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,

Where the deer and the antelope play;

There seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the sky is not cloudy all day.

I woke up this morning in my new home to discover the silent night had painted the landscape white. That’s the thing about snow, it’s sneaky.

I grew up on the beach in Southern California when the state deserved to be called golden. I thought snow was something you drove to so you could slide down a hill on a sled, skis, a piece of cardboard. For a couple years in the distant past, I lived in Ohio. This was my introduction to weather that forgets to announce its arrival. When I threw up the garage door to find my driveway covered in snow, an expletive escaped my lips. It meant I had to shovel the driveway and sidewalk before I could leave for work. Bummer.

Heavy rain gives you fair warning
Quest Center, Omaha, Nebraska

Nowadays, I’m retired except for writing, so I enjoy snow. I’m also enjoying Nebraska far more than I expected. I knew I’d like seeing the grandchildren nearly every day, but the state itself has been pleasantly surprising. There are great people in Nebraska and far more geographic diversity than I80 would lead you to believe. Coming from Arizona with its deserts, mountains, and everything in between— including a canyon of grand proportions—I expected dull flatness. Not so. Omaha, my new home, rambles gently through pleasant rolling hills.  In fact, my home looks out over knolls that show off fresh snow like a dandy might flaunt a newly purchased wardrobe.

But you don’t have to believe me. Monty McCord posted this video about Nebraska on Facebook. Stunning images. My only question is: where is all that white stuff?