Laura’s place

We left San Francisco at about nine yesterday (it is now morning, in a motel in Elko). The first leg of the trip was uneventful, except for the stupid sun being on my side the entire time which made it impossible for me to see my computer screen in order to write the first draft of the first installment of my new project. I might as well tell you about this project I saved for this trip: I have a book of Child Ballads (English and Scottish ballads collected by Francis James Child in the 1800’s), some of which I know. My dad first introduced the idea of turning these ballads into comics. It’s a perfect project for this trip because I won’t have internet while on the road and I can have all the time I want alone with Celtix (script writing program) and my Child Ballads song book. I’ve gotten started on Barbara Allen and I’ve finished my first draft. Barbara Allen is a totally joyfully happy story about a guy in love with a girl, but the girl isn’t in love with him, so he dies, and then she feels guilty and she kills herself. Oh, it’s all flowers and rainbows and sunshine with this one, it is.

Anyway, we stopped over for lunch near Donner Pass, which made me wonder if we were going to run out of food on this trip and have to eat each other, which is not a pleasant thought when eating lunch. We had sandwiches and tortilla chips and salsa, and we filled up for the next part of our trip which would take us to Reno to get some more bio-diesel. The bio-diesel people in San Francisco were kind enough to tell us where the next bio-diesel station on our route was, but the people at Reno didn’t know where any more stations were, so that was dissapointing.

Let me tell you this now, you couldn’t pay me to live in Reno. For no amount of money would I live there. It’s all concrete and wire fences and gas stations. There aren’t any trees, just dry little patches of bush, and it’s already HOT there. Summer hasn’t even begun and it was boiling! It didn’t help that the car was black, and so obsorbing instead of reflecting more light that I would have liked, so the car got pretty hot as well. It was then I started downing the contents of the giant orange water bottle and I finished it in less than an hour. It didn’t help prevent my headache though, because my head hurt by the time we got to Winnemucca.

Winnemucca is across a desert of absolutely nothing, which we had to cross to get there from Reno. We did see a few trains though, so that was cool. It was kind of exciting driving alongside a train (though the train was so far off it looked like a toy), and thinking, wow, we’re really driving halfway across the country, aren’t we? We seemed to be in a giant bowl, with steep hills surrounding the flat, barren desert land thing. It was kind of pretty in a way, but still dull and dry.

We got to Winnemucca, and it wasn’t much better. A few casinos, antique shops, and still really hot. We got some smoothies and took a walk. It was quiet, and peaceful…I mean, where the houses were, not the casinos, because the flashing lights kind of made me dizzy. While I couldn’t imagine growing up in a town like that, and the very thought horrified me, dad told me writers often rented houses in small towns so they could write without being tempted to go out, because there wasn’t really anything going on anyway.

We got back on the road and decided to find a motel in Carlin–the town named for the comedian, I think–so we could check out this historic trail thing or whatever in the morning, but when we got to Carlin we couldn’t find any restaurants that weren’t also saloons, except for one, but we decided it would be best to keep moving. Carlin was remarkably small, and not a bit funny–which makes me wonder why it was named after a comedian–, so we drove right through it in, what, ten minutes. Less, maybe. I don’t know because I was engrossed in my book “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud, and I highly recommend it, by the way.

We got to Elko, which is slightly bigger, at about seven, I think. There were about five more restaurants in downtown Elko than there were in Carlin. Downtown Elko remarkably resembles the suburbs. The first motel we tried was all full–the lady at the desk said there was a mining convention going on, or something–so we tried the next one and were able to snag the last room. The man at the desk recommended a couple restaurants for dinner. It’s kind of funny, in this tiny, tiny town we saw three Basque restaurants, all within half a mile of each other. The one we went to was kind of dim, like an Italian restaurant, and the meals were ENORMOUS. It was good though. We got the “family style” dinner, which was soup (very tasty), salad (alright, I guess. Not my kind of salad), french fries (yum!), and the entree (we ordered the dinner steak, pork chops, and lamb chops). I only finished my dinner steak by giving half of it to my parents and sister, and I was still stuffed by the end of the meal. We were able to save a ginormous pork chop and gargantuan lamb chop for sandwiches the next day when we would be on the road. I’m looking forward to those sandwiches.

The motel’s beds weren’t very comfortable. I mean, the beds were, but the pillows were too flat and my neck is now stiff and achy. It was also warm, so I kicked the covers off and slept half the night without a sheet.
Well, my dad’s telling us to get moving so we can get to Yellowstone by tonight.