Those empty highways..........when I was a kid (in the 60's) I remember one day when we were visiting my uncle and aunt on the highway maintenance station up Strawberry, we girls were out back playing in the sagebrush when somebody said "LOOK!!!!!", and we all looked on in amazement as a solitary car made its way west on the highway up toward Sacramento Pass. It was a rare thing, back before the Park was created. Most the time, if you did see a car, it was somebody you knew, and my cousins knew all the Baker inhabitants' cars on sight.
It is so nice when the highway is empty! Gayle, I love your story about the car going up to Sac Pass. We still know all the valley residents; cars on sight, that part hasn't changed, but there are definitely more cars traveling through these days.
February 22, 2010 at 5:08 PM
Anonymous said...
Keep pedaling Desert Boy. The gold is at the end of the road.
February 24, 2010 at 9:24 AM
[Image]Watching the Olympics has our competitive juices flowing. Plus Desert Boy got a cute athletic outfit from his great-aunt and the weather has been better. Mix all that together, and we are raring to go outside! We offered Desert Boy the sled for his Olympic practice, but he declined. I guess he didn't think we had enough snow to make it work. Or maybe he realized how Eurocentric the Olympics are. When thinking about this post, I was contemplating that we are watching the Winter Olympics, yet it is winter for only half the earth. For the other half, it's summer. Do the people in the southern hemisphere feel slighted? I think I would. What is Rio de Janeiro going to call the Summer Olympics when they hold them in winter? Hmm...deep thoughts... [Image]I don't have too many deep thoughts on this blog, but I figured it would be totally okay if Desert Boy was practicing for the Summer Olympics in winter, because after all it is summer on half the earth right now. And the sport he's practicing for is biking. It's still not apparent what kind of biking he'll be doing, but for now he's working on being king of the training wheel bicycle competition. [Image]On this particular day we forgot his helmet, but ever since then we've made sure he has it because he crashes so much. He's got a plethora of bumps and bruises to show off, and he proudly shares them as badges of his riding dedication. He's got strong little legs; the first day we took him out he rode nearly two miles. (He also walked a mile when he got stuck with Daddy in the South Meadow. Needless to say, he slept well that night!) Here's a short video of Desert Boy riding on the pavement that's not too far from our house. Getting to the pavement is a little tricky, but he's getting better at it. I wonder what the kids who live in the northern part of the valley do--some of them have to go over an hour to get to pavement. Yet they still have a school with grades K-12; those kids certainly have a different story about growing up than most everyone else in the U.S.
In this second video, you can see some of the beautiful mountain scenery near us. It's always nice to see snow on the mountains--and have our roads down in the valley clear!
posted by Desert Survivor at 7:46 PM on Feb 21, 2010
4 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formThose empty highways..........when I was a kid (in the 60's) I remember one day when we were visiting my uncle and aunt on the highway maintenance station up Strawberry, we girls were out back playing in the sagebrush when somebody said "LOOK!!!!!", and we all looked on in amazement as a solitary car made its way west on the highway up toward Sacramento Pass. It was a rare thing, back before the Park was created. Most the time, if you did see a car, it was somebody you knew, and my cousins knew all the Baker inhabitants' cars on sight.
February 22, 2010 at 1:33 PM
Anyway, point being, there's sure not much on that road at the moment, that a three yr-old can bike down it, lol.
February 22, 2010 at 1:34 PM
It is so nice when the highway is empty! Gayle, I love your story about the car going up to Sac Pass. We still know all the valley residents; cars on sight, that part hasn't changed, but there are definitely more cars traveling through these days.
February 22, 2010 at 5:08 PM
Keep pedaling Desert Boy. The gold is at the end of the road.
February 24, 2010 at 9:24 AM