Off To The Racetrack

Death Valley National Park, California

We have reservations we grabbed at the last minute just a few days ago that will be taking us off the proverbial beaten path; it was a lucky score, considering this is the popular time of year to visit Death Valley National Park. An alarm was required to wake us before the sun returned, as we were at least an hour from our meeting point at Furnace Creek. A hot breakfast wasn’t going to be an option here in Shoshone with its one cafe that opens at 8:00; good thing we came prepared. With the essentials out of the way, we were underway.

Death Valley National Park, California

Leaving ourselves plenty of time to dawdle for the sake of taking photos, we took a quick left on Jubilee Pass Road, which at 72 miles to Furnace Creek is slightly more than the 57 miles we had driven through Death Valley Junction outside the park but the path we’ve chosen is definitely the more scenic way even if it takes nearly twice as long.

Death Valley National Park, California

We reset the odometer as we turned away from Shoshone in the hopes that if we knew how many miles still lay ahead of us, we could better manage how many stops we could make along the way. In the distance is the southern end of the Panamint Range of mountains, which is also the western park barrier, but the taller peaks are further north. What we were most interested in was the amount of water we were seeing in this small pool.

Death Valley National Park, California

In the afternoon sun, the brilliant colors of the Amargosa Range come to life, illuminating the extraordinary variety of minerals that constitute the mountains on the eastern side of Death Valley here on the southern end.

Badwater in Death Valley National Park, California

Reaching Badwater Basin, we just had to get out for a short walk here at 283 feet below sea level. On a previous visit to Death Valley, we arrived well before sunrise and walked out what felt like forever but was likely well less than 2 miles of the 5-mile wide valley floor. Still, in shadow, we awaited the sun’s arrival and then walked back as the salt pan turned crispy, clean white with the sunlight slowly crawling along at our snail’s pace. Today, there’s not a lot of pure white salt out there, probably due to not having any rain of consequence in addition to the wind-driven sands that can hide that particular view of the salt.

Death Valley National Park, California

We are on the last stretch of driving before we park the car and jump into a jeep at Furnace Creek. Look to the left, and you can see the effect of the wind kicking up sand over the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.

Death Valley National Park, California

This was the view looking back south just as the air quality was starting to get really bad.

Death Valley National Park, California

Lucky us that just past the sand dunes things cleared up. We met up with Hal, our driver for the mystery tour I’ve been alluding to, got into the Jeep, and drove 200 feet around the corner to pick up lunch at a small gift shop and store. Loaded up with sandwiches, some fresh fruit, and a couple of cups of café de olla (some super yummy Mexican coffee), we were ready to continue our trek north.

Death Valley National Park, California

Our guide shares an incredible history culled from his adventures as a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, where he earned five purple hearts, his love of photography and Death Valley, a friendship with Art Bell, who was also from Pahrump, Nevada, and some wild adventures where he delivered Cessna’s, with extra fuel tanks, to Australia via a series of island hopping starting with Hawaii.

Death Valley National Park, California

While Hal still owns a helicopter to this day, it’s his intense love of this national park that seems to drive him. I doubt there’s a place in Death Valley he’s not visited. From his enthusiasm for the drive-through Titus Canyon, we now have something new to look forward to on a future visit to this corner of California.

Death Valley National Park, California

Our drive from Furnace Creek to the turn-off for our next stop is 56 miles, but we are finally approaching a very iconic part of Death Valley we’ve waited more than a dozen years to visit. We are excited to be here at this juncture, though we still have 27 miles of bumpy sandy road to cover, which is the reason we needed someone with a 4-wheel drive high clearance vehicle to get us out here.

Road to Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

Intention plays an important role in opening doors to finding surprises. Back on December 3rd of last year, I started an exercise that began with an empty spreadsheet. The idea was to best the number of travels we took back in 2004 when we hit a personal record of 22 excursions out of Phoenix. With 2022 around the corner, I wondered if we could squeeze more than that into this upcoming year. Knowing that we were going to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico over Christmas, I simply went out two weeks from that and figured a quick weekend trip to Los Angeles would be a good starting point to launch into bi-monthly travels.

Well, this is the second trip in that series that kicked off just two weeks ago, and it so happened that on our way back from L.A., Caroline brought up how one day we should figure out how to get out to Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, I’m sure she was thinking of this national park as she knew as we were driving south of it on the way home that we were visiting in two weeks. We already had the experience of knowing that our car was never going to bring us out there, so I told her to search for tours of the place. She came up with Farabee’s Jeep Tours, but I misunderstood the pricing, and so shortly before our visit, I figured we’d never be able to book the trip, so I didn’t even try.

Road to Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

This past week, just Tuesday actually, I decided to call Farabee’s and see if anything at the last minute might be available. To my great surprise, the Saturday tour out to Racetrack Playa hadn’t sold out, and there was someone available who’d take us. The point I’ve wanted to make here is that my exercise of setting 24 getaways created the mental space of anticipating just what we’d do on each of those, but without those mileposts ahead of us, would we have even considered options for any given upcoming weekend?

Another example came up yesterday on our drive north as we started discussing what we might do while at the Grand Canyon. I thought we’d consider the Hermit’s Rest Trail as we’ve never been on it, but it turns out that there are spots with enough exposure that people with acrophobia would be smart to take into consideration. Well, then, it’s a good thing I still have nearly two weeks to go before we get there. Do not leave everything up to chance; create intentions, put things into a document, and then explore how and what you’ll do once you think that thing might be worthwhile.

Caroline Wise at Teakettle Junction on the Road to Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

Eighteen years ago, on the 6th of July, 2004, Caroline and I, on a 118-degree day in the shade, drove down a northern dirt road entry into Death Valley. From Big Pine to Furnace Creek, our 105-mile 4-hour journey had us passing the famous Crankshaft Junction (click here to see that blog post). Today, we are now visiting the equally famous Teakettle Junction and we are thoroughly impressed that our adventures have brought us to this outpost.

Road to Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

There it is, Racetrack Playa, home of the sailing stones.

Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

For years, mystery surrounded how these rocks were sailing across this dry lake bottom. Of course, aliens must have played a role, but the truth was finally confirmed in 2014 that on winter days with just the right amount of rain, freezing temperatures that help form a thin ice layer and light winds, the conditions are such that even very heavy rocks have been filmed traveling at up to 15-feet per minute.

Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

We only have an hour or so out here, and while we could have been happy with a mere 15 minutes, we’d also like to remain all day just waiting for one of those little green men to materialize and nudge one of these rocks forward.

Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

This “elephant skin” that is the floor of the Playa is a massive series of hexagonal polygons formed in the clay. If you are interested in more details about the processes that have created this amazing environment, there’s plenty more info on the internet.

Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

The playa is nearly perfectly flat, with the north side rising only 1.5 inches over the 2.8-mile length of the lake bed.

Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

That’s right, these rocks can make turns, change direction, and even fall into each other’s tracks to travel with one another.

The Grandstand at Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

Welcome to the Grandstand, jutting right out of the northern end of the Playa.

The Grandstand at Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

We walked around it and over the saddle but were most impressed with the lichen growing on the northeast-facing rocks.

Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

Sadly, while I made efforts to only show Racetrack Playa in its perfection, some people do not care about how others will visit this remote site. Out of view are the impressions of tire tracks created by young men who feel compelled to drive out on the Playa, perform donuts, and race from one end to the other with no regard for the damage they leave or the time it takes for this complex ecosystem to repair itself. The vandalism by somebody’s off-road vehicle occurred in 2016, six years ago!

But drivers are not the only culprits, as I’ve read of photographers who’ll move rocks far away from their tracks to stop other photographers from being able to capture the same image in order to give their own photographs more value. We are a sad and tragic species with an education barely higher than the clay that makes up the ground here.

Good thing the earth doesn’t need us and has proven to humans that it has created everything that has real value, like dirt, plants, air, water, animals, and even us. Should we disappear from this environment, nothing would be lost except the harm we are able to commit upon each other and the ecosystems that support our lives. This incredible day is not another day for me to spend endless paragraphs lamenting the state of things; we are here for the glorious beauty that enthralls these two tree-huggers out to witness the extraordinary.

Road to Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

With that, we jumped out of the Jeep, ran over to the nearest Joshua Tree, and hugged it until we felt nature understood us.

Road to Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

We passed a woman on a bike earlier on our way to the Racetrack, and we just passed her again as we were leaving. Our guide stopped this time and asked if she needed anything, “Nope, but thanks for asking,” was her polite answer, and so we drove on, but not without thinking about this woman’s tenacity.

Road to Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California

Deserts are beautiful places of earth stripped of masks, thus allowing us to see the naked geological forms not obscured by forests or oceans. They could also be the place and occasion for stripping away our facades and allowing the desert within us to be seen and exposed. As people stand before a raw and punishing nature, there is no human status, elegance, or charisma that means a thing to the reality of desert austerity, unable to fathom one’s self-importance. We should be humbled by the incredible fact that we are alive, and if we are truly fortunate, we can bring ourselves to places not enjoyed by everyone.

Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley National Park, California

We are looking into Ubehebe Crater at a moment in the day when the bottom of the crater is in a dark shadow, not the best condition for photographs. This is our last stop of the tour into the north of Death Valley, and tragically, we only have about 15 minutes here before heading back to Furnace Creek, but now we know that there’s a paved road that brings visitors right to the rim. Next time, we’ll hike the perimeter or maybe even consider the steep trail down into the depths of this massive hole that was created by a steam-induced explosion.

Death Valley National Park, California

Well, that was stunning, astonishing, inspiring, wonderful, and a multitude of other superlatives that should be hauled out to paint our experiential memories of what the day brought to our senses. Now it’s time to bask in those impressions and try to cement them into our personal catalog of recollections.

Road east out of Death Valley National Park, California

This is the opposite view of driving into the sunset as we drive into the night.
If you want to know the outcome of tomorrow,
Pray consult the blog post related to the following day.

Leaving Town

Discount Tires in Phoenix, Arizona

Not even out of town yet and need to make an unexpected stop. Not that we were ready to leave yet anyway, but I seriously didn’t anticipate that we’d be having all four tires changed on our car today. This all started with a low tire sensor pressure alert as I started the car; with cold weather, it’s not surprising a tire would show low. I stopped at a nearby tire shop for more air, but as I went to remove a valve cap, I saw why that particular tire was seriously low: a nail was poking out of the sidewall. This changed the equation from just filling the tire to replacing it, but they didn’t have my size in stock and couldn’t have it in before 2:00. We were planning on getting out at noon, so this wasn’t going to work.

At Discount Tire, they have my size, but I’m also informed that my two front tires are low on tread. Okay, let’s change them all. That’ll be $1008, sir. Nope, that won’t work. Well, we have tires for only $530, but those won’t provide you with all the benefits of the others. That’s fine; I’ll opt for the inferior tires the manufacturer made that probably fail to meet the Department of Transportation requirement for road safety. For nearly the cost of one of those tires, we’ll sell you insurance that should you attract another nail; we’ll replace that tire for free. No, thank you. That extra cost of the insurance actually pre-pays that tire should I need this service, and this is only the second time in my 42 years of driving a car that I’ve had a sidewall puncture.

So, instead of taking things easy and heading to the coffee shop for that all-important first cup of the day, I’m sitting here in this lobby grinding my teeth at the $500 bill that arrives on the heels of learning that our rent is going up 32%. While I don’t typically complain about anything financially related, this is starting to feel like it’ll impact either our savings for retirement and/or our travel budget. These concerns, though, should not be addressed here and now in the hours before we leave for our weekend getaway, but again, here I am sitting in a lobby, forced to listen to The Joker by the Steve Miller Band and these insipid lyrics about loving some girls peaches and the dude being a midnight toker and I have nothing better to do.

Joshua Tree Parkway in Arizona on Highway 60

Like clockwork, we’re gone. Almost like clockwork, we were gone, but first, I needed to stop for lunch at In-N-Out. Part of my ambitious travel plans for 2022 with these 24 adventures out of Phoenix is that we don’t drive down the same roads from trip to subsequent trip. We need a break of familiarity and so while we drove to L.A. via Interstate 10 two weeks ago, today we are leaving via Highway 60 in the direction of Las Vegas. Not that we’re going to Vegas, hopefully ever again, but that’s the general direction towards which we need to point the car. Here on the 60, we pass a stretch of road referred to as the Joshua Tree Parkway.

Driving north in Arizona

Still on the 60 but now well north of the Joshua Trees, we start to wonder what the weather forecast says about things up this way, but it’s too late to give that much concern; plus, we don’t have great phone service to check anyway.

Driving north in Arizona

We’ve left Kingman after refueling both our supply of caffeine and gasoline. Should you wonder if I am so foolish as to take photos while I’m driving down the road? Heck no, I put the car in auto-pilot self-drive mode thus freeing me up to take photos, selfies, blog, take a nap, and ponder the big questions regarding life. I should also share that Caroline has steadfastly been reading In Search of Lost Time by Proust to us for a solid couple of hours by now, I think we might be down to the final million words soon.

Caroline Wise and John Wise at the Nevada Stateline

We’ve never taken a selfie in front of this state sign because the last time we were through here, this sign didn’t exist. The sign wasn’t there because the road wasn’t there. The road wasn’t there because the bridge was still being built. What bridge?

Hoover Dam in Nevada

See that giant shadow of an arch on the right side of the Hoover Dam and the rocks? That’s what we are standing on to take this photo. It’s the Mike O’Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge that was built as a bypass because the Highway used to go over the dam, which slowed traffic down considerably. I wish something would slow down traffic in Vegas, as that’s what we had to pass through after leaving the Hoover Dam and Boulder City area. Vegas traffic somehow feels worse than L.A.’s, which might have something to do with the fact that if Los Angeles has its fill of disappointed aspiring actors and musicians fleeing dashed aspirations, Vegas is chock full of people who’ve lost not only a lot of money, maybe all of it but likely their dignity too. With nothing to live for, they drive with a hellish death wish as they cascade forward in a frothy mess out of the chaos of failure and loss with little hope of recovery.

Crowbar Saloon & Cafe in Shoshone, California

Dinner was here at the Crowbar Cafe & Saloon, which will likely be where we eat dinner tomorrow night, too, and quite possibly Sunday breakfast. How our server convinced us to share that hot apple pie with ice cream when we were full can only be attributed to the idea that this is a holiday and other rules are at play when we’re out living it up. Plus, I don’t think we actually absorbed any of those extra calories because…

Hot Spring fed pool in Shoshone, California

…after walking back across the street in a howling wind and changing into shorts and not much else, we drove down the block to where this hot-spring-fed pool was available for our use. Being dry before getting into the very warm water, not hot mind you, we kept our heads above water and started wondering how we’d get out of this as the blustery cold wind was icy after spending time here submerged in the not-hot-but-pleasantly-warm spring. Just out of sight on the right is the pipe that delivers the water, and right next to it, it’s mighty warm, seriously cozily warm, but moving back to the center of the pool, it takes a moment to acclimatize and feel the warmth again. Caroline foolishly got her face wet and then complained about how the searing wind burned as it buffeted her sensitive, wet cheeks. Obviously, I simply needed to berate her how she shouldn’t do that and I’m now sure she’ll heed my admonishment the next time.

Getting out was a pretty ridiculous matter that risked us falling into hysterics because we couldn’t get over how cold the wind was on all this exposed dripping skin we were offering the gods of Did You Forget It’s January? Yes, I know I should have taken a selfie of us “in the water” because who’s going to believe we really braved this, but I swear that if we have a morning or evening where the winds are not trying to kill us, I’ll get a photo as proof that on a chilly winter moment, we know how to have fun. But how does this relate to that pie indulgence I spoke of? If you had been witness to this great dumb idea, you’d know that the amount of shivering involuntarily and violently performed by the vast amount of skin the cold wind was able to make us aware of owning, we easily burned off a quick 500 or 600 calories before jumping back in the car and turning the seat heaters on high.

Aiming For The Ledge

Cliffside Path by Frank Kehren

God damn, I’m angry about America as it appears to be swirling like a turd going down the toilet. Without a collective mind or compass, we are driven by greed propelled by fear, creating the appearance that America is on track to destroy itself. If the people of the United States were pissed enough to elect the man they did as President in 2016, the next election in 2024 is on track to deliver even worse results. My hopes that the last election would nudge us back onto a track of normal are quickly fading as my optimism’s spring runs dry.

I’ll try to tamp down the vitriol and spell out why I have such negative views of the future, though let me be clear: while I anguish over the future of the United States, I still have a favorable outlook for Caroline and me and our ability to enjoy our later years of life.

I’ve lamented time and again my disdain for the mediocrity being cultivated in the culture I’ve mostly grown up in. From my early days in Los Angeles during the 70s and my affinity for rebellion through music, film, literature, and sometimes appearance, and certainly, in my thinking, I’ve rarely relented in being critical of certain aspects of American life. Namely poor education, demands for conformity, intolerance, racism, violence, love of war, vapid celebrity worship, and love of money above all else.

The COVID pandemic slammed on the breaks, skipped the parachute, and crashed our global economy into a vast garbage patch somewhere out in the ocean. Like a plane on September 11, 2001, slamming into a high-rise, consumerism became the victim of a viral attack that is still claiming victims and only appears to grow worse in a cascade of economic terrorism.

For much of 2020 and into 2021, humanity entered stasis where things were in hibernation, maybe not on the political front as the powers to inflict intellectual harm were still hard at work, but economically, everyone worked, studied, ate, and vacationed from home who could afford to do so.

The U.S. Government and banking system immediately understood that 4 in 5 Americans would be placed in a perilous economic situation by the fallout of the pandemic and that an emergency cash infusion was needed to calm what could have become panic. On March 13, the President declared America to be in a National Emergency due to COVID-19, and then only 12 days later, the CARES Act was presented, which the President signed two days later. Rather than suffer the malaise caused by a full stop of spending and face a financial catastrophe with people defaulting en masse on rent and debt payments, the government quickly threw a multi-trillion dollar life jacket to everyone earning under about $120,000 a year. This equates to about 80% of our population that was considered at risk. See reference one below.

This $2800 per household or $1400 for individuals, along with a moratorium on evictions, allowed people to get things in order before they found themselves homeless or in default. Many people moved back home, took on roommates, started living in vehicles, or simply chose homelessness.

Two years later, businesses are clamoring to recover lost income. To that end, seemingly everyone is raising prices to offset the vast reduction in spending that occurred and has still not rebounded. This has been easily apparent just by looking at how many restaurants closed over the past couple of years, and many of the ones that were able to remain open are only seeing a fraction of pre-pandemic traffic.

As recovery started taking place, there’s been an absence of workers that have been blamed on the continuing pandemic, lucrative unemployment deals, laziness, and various other issues. The way I see it, as financial reality struck Americans and they altered consumption and lifestyles, they learned to live with less. During the height of the pandemic, many unemployed service workers turned to the gig economy in the form of food and package delivery. With recovery underway, I believe people thought these laid-off workers would run back to their $12-an-hour jobs, but they’d made too many changes to their personal lives and with the reality that their $1628 monthly take-home pay after taxes of a full-time job wasn’t going to allow them to afford the rent for a one bedroom apartment, electricity, water, trash, sewer, phone, internet, and food, which add up to a minimum expense of over $2000 a month. Of course, they could have taken on a second job as they were doing before things shut down, but now is not then.

Okay, so I’ve addressed low-income earners in those “student” jobs; let’s look at the idea of going to university.

With uncertainty about the future of jobs due to potential other pandemic shutdowns, the absurdity of going to college to incur a 10-year loan that will cost between $500 and $1000 a month for repayment only to get a job that might pay $50,000 makes for a bleak future. But I can hear people saying that $50k is a good wage; oh really? After-tax, that income is only $39k per year or $3,246 per month; now, let’s do the math. Rent for one bedroom is $1500, electricity $100, trash, water, sewer $40, health insurance contribution $140, phone and internet of $75, food for $368, student loan of only $500, transportation to this job of no less than $100 a month plus car insurance of another $60, and the fixed costs are a minimum of $2,883 per month allowing this new college grad to pocket $363 a month to pay for luxuries such as planning on having children, car repairs, saving for a house, dating, going on vacation, retirement, subscribing to Netflix, eating out, or going to the movies. I refuse to believe that $90 a week in disposable income is ever going to accomplish all that.

Inflation is out of control, with some costs such as rent not being adequately represented in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), but with rents moving towards an average of $1500 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in cities that have jobs, we will reach a breaking point where wages will not be able to keep pace with rising costs. It is as though we are operating on a theory that total annihilation must take place in order for a societal collapse to force a reimagining of how we do things. First, though, we’ll need a thorough culling of the seriously angry people who are most at risk from not being able to afford to live in this country; a civil war should propel that nicely.

We as a country cannot ask for sacrifice and investment as our rabid sense of individuality backed by incredible stupidity would never allow people to come together to create a unifying vision, which is exacerbated by the general public’s abysmal level of intellectual capacity. One does not act in one’s own best interest in America; we act precisely against that.

As we lemmings aim for the ledge, what could possibly stop us from tumbling over the side? State rights and the extremism that is currently our norm would halt a federal program to contain the price gouging. Bringing in outside workers would have us up in arms about immigration when Americans need jobs that are currently not filled. Getting people into university to allow us to add to professional jobs is a non-starter due to the costs of simultaneously paying to live in America, taking on more debt, and going to classes, not forgetting to mention that according to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below a 6th-grade level. See reference two below. Prose literacy is defined as: “The knowledge and skills needed to understand and use information from texts including editorials, news stories, brochures, and instruction manuals.” This begs the question of how over half of the population of the United States will ever be able to understand a college-level textbook.

This level of illiteracy and inability to learn complex tasks is putting America at risk of having an enormous segment of its population stuck in a dead-end where there is no economic future for them to afford the ability to live in dignity. Stop and think about this: 180 million Americans are operating at a level below a 6th grader. How is an advanced nation supposed to live in a democracy when a majority cannot reason beyond an 11-year-old?

During the past more than a year and a half, we’ve listened to the frustration of parents whose kids haven’t been attending school. They are said to worry about what the children are missing in their education, social skills, and potential for careers after not being able to attend in-person school for so long. Add the circus around supposedly teaching children Critical Race Theory (CRT), feuding about mask and vaccination mandates, and the threat of gun violence on campuses, and parents start to look at the perceived damage to their progeny through the eyes of the voter. Well, the Republicans are the ones who want those kids back in school free of masks, CRT, and vaccine mandates, and with no regard to a pandemic, guns, racism, or even questioning the effectiveness of our fractured, ill-performing excuse for an education they want things to return to something, a thing they likely can’t adequately explain.

With this, parents are admitting some ugly truths about who they are: children potentially contracting lifelong side effects from a new disease is okay, and racism has always been a component of life, so who cares about that? Plus, I don’t want my children calling me out about my own bias. Guns are a fact of life, as the 2nd amendment guarantees us, which means it’s inevitable that some kids will die; the way we live so far away from one another means our children don’t live in proximity to other children to have a social life (not that they foster one with face-to-face contact while they are gaming anyway), medicine has been politicized and we are now so afraid of unknowns that we’ll believe nearly anything else, and masks are a framework for mind control. Basically, we are showing our cards that we are a nation of runaway idiots.

Our problems are not really about what I’ve written above; this is about the parents and grandparents who are fundamentally under-educated for the convulsion moving through society brought on by the advancement of technology, the intellectual demands that arose from that, a system of unrestrained greed fostered in a speculative market surrounding housing, stocks, all things crypto, the changing opportunity found on a planet that became mobile and more global in our lifetimes. Then, add a worldwide stop to all travel, commerce, in-person education, banking, shopping, and medicine except for the most critical, and we have to recognize that culture is in upheaval. This doesn’t even stop to consider the ramifications of what’s on the horizon with the wholesale shift to electric cars, ships, and probably planes, along with energy systems that are rapidly evolving due to climate change. The myriad changes we are facing threaten to buckle the relative stability most of us in the West have grown up with.

Sadly, the wherewithal and knowledge of managing such a momentous global. cultural, economic, and educational change cannot move at the glacial pace we’ve grown accustomed to, but radical change will end up causing a whiplash that some will try to constrain due to their aversion to change. Fortunately, many of the changes are already baked in and will not be turned back, but instead of racing into the next set of challenges, there’s a likelihood that we’ll have to resort to the historical method of wrestling with profound change. In other words, war and mass death.

Education is the first thing that requires a full reset as we here in the United States are not teaching thinking (or reading, for that matter) but instead are squeezing individuality out of the herd that is massaged into a conformity soup where banality rules the day. We witness this every day, month to month, and year to year; it is our norm, and we give it a nod of appreciation as these are the people who are recognized as the most American, the true patriots known as the common man. They love guns, football, baseball, big cars and trucks, and big homes; they dress the same, eat the same, and think the same. Those on the outside of the norm are tattooed, addicted, alternative, LGBTQ, nerds, tree huggers, entrepreneurs, immigrants, and some of the most gifted when it comes to knowledge, acting, music, invention, and other areas that require immense skills that help entertain humanity.

America has long-neglected education in favor of the commodification of a workforce that can be tapped for enlisted military service, underpaid service industry jobs, blind consumerism, and a prison system that currently houses 2 million people but has processed 15 million Americans through its gears creating job security for the financial systems that benefit from that sector including police, courts, transportation, construction, food services, prison guards, prison-related clothing manufacturers, gang and community task forces, energy services, along with news media.

Education is the least likely facet of American life that will change in my lifetime because an abundance of under-performing people has always been the grease lubricating opportunities for wealth in all strata of our society aside from the lowest that ends up carrying the burden of poor education. We will likely remedy the environment first as class differentiation plays deeply into ego gratification because those lucky to benefit from their place in life need to feel something greater than luck has granted them dominion over the masses. We no longer truly believe in god and, as time passes, less in the sciences either, so we cannot look to divine gifts or real learning as having given leaders their positions and wealth, and so it must simply be their greatness that has elevated them. A solid education where logic and real discovery about how to spend a lifetime learning is a remedy to this lopsided current situation, but who among the fortunate want to share the slice of pie they covet?

More important than oil, big houses, and luxury goods, education is the only serious commodity that will allow superpowers to emerge and displace whatever current economic leader might be holding the reins. It is no longer even remotely important who controls bombs and soldiers as using war for meaningful population control would require a conflict that would eliminate 2 to 3 billion people from the surface of our planet, and that cannot be accomplished with bullets, so do we resort to nuclear war?

The war of minds rages on the battlefield of global influence where Squid Games, anime, burritos, Rammstein, luxury cars, authors, game developers, BTS, Fentanyl, the NFL, TikTok, Apple, Pokemon Go, Bitcoin, and the host of other daily salves to ease the pain of existence is consumed by people who will always need a constant resupply of their drugs. Who can best offer access to an alternative to the grind of subservience to a dead future will start to propel humanity, while those who only desire continued enslavement will be moved off the world stage.

While America appears to desire a debased life of drugs, guns, and the associated malaise that has arrived with the crushed opportunities facing a vast swath of its citizens due to a feeble system of hope standing in for proper education, we sit back with a remote control, game controller, or smartphone ignoring the big truths that are all around us. We are failing in spectacular ways while the majority can’t begin to comprehend the abysmal failure of both politics and a population that has abdicated its participation.

My lament regarding education is a constant refrain in my daily life; I must listen to, talk with, or simply witness the broad spectrum stupidity mindlessly enjoyed by a populace oblivious to their own shortcomings, just as I am too, in some unacknowledged ways. The difference might be that I’m trying to uncover what I don’t know, repair my own bias that was gleefully instilled in me by society at large, and discover what lays ahead, or at least that’s my delusional thinking. Maybe everyone else is incredibly intelligent, and my form of madness has blinded me to their brilliance, with my ego deluding me into believing I’m on a different plane.

I’m terrified at our prospects where so many must remain marginalized and the wealthy, educated minority cannot see the structural problems all around them; of course, seeing this would require them to leave gated communities, venture outside of airports, and truly consider reality. Our political leaders are hiding this by using a complicit media apparatus that is distracting as many as it can with nonsense and entertainment, all backed by a corporate machine that mints super wealth while watching Rome burn.

Reference #1: https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/h/Household_income_in_the_United_States.htm

Reference #2: Low Literacy Levels Among U.S. Adults Could Be Costing The Economy $2.2 Trillion A Year (forbes.com)

Image Credit: “Cliffside Path” by Frank Kehren is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Recipe for Burmese Curry Base

Red Onions

Call me the experimental chef as I attempted to prepare Burmese curry base for the first time in years. I had a rough idea about the amount of ingredients I needed to make a batch but it seems I was a bit off. You see, I started with 8 pounds of red onions, 3 bunches of cilantro, and 3/4 cup of paprika, and well, that made 3 quarts or nearly 3 liters of this essential ingredient. It is enough curry base for us to make more than 12 Burmese dishes over the coming months, not that that’s a bad thing.

There are four main dishes for which I’ll be using this: jack fruit curry, pork belly curry, oxtail curry, and mango coconut squash shrimp curry. These dishes were taught to me a dozen years ago by Elizabeth Chan at the Little Rangoon restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona, before they closed shop. It continues to be a tragedy to this day that the people of Arizona will never know her amazing recipes and the variety of foods she brought to the dining table.

To make the curry base I’d recommend you start with maybe 3 pounds of red onions peeled (instead of 8), cut them in half, and slice them into about 6 large slices. Use only 1 bunch of roughly chopped cilantro and about 1/3 cup of paprika. Cook these ingredients over medium heat for about 90 minutes in 1/2 cup of oil; I prefer corn oil but use what you want. After everything has softened and quite liquidy, either use a wand and puree this mixture or place it in a blender to puree it. You can now freeze it in one-cup portions; I use Ziploc freezer bags.

Childhood Rememberances

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1970 in Frankfurt, Germany

Last summer, in late May and early June, I found myself in Germany helping deal with the belongings my mother-in-law Jutta had amassed at home. My job was to sort, make sense of, preserve, recycle, donate, or toss those things that were no longer required by anyone, considering that Jutta had entered assisted living. Among the lifetime belongings of Jutta was a portfolio of close to a hundred drawings from her daughter Caroline Wise née Engelhardt of Frankfurt, Germany. From the time she was two years old, right up until Caroline was 13, Jutta put these drawings into safekeeping. My mother-in-law was pretty meticulous about saving these and dating them as Caroline presented mom with her art. This very first piece was drawn the month before Caroline turned three. I’m finally getting around to posting this now as it sat languishing as a draft for too long, just as they had in a folder for nearly 40 years among Jutta’s things.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1971 in Frankfurt, Germany

Five months later, Caroline was mastering people, realistic hands, castles, and blue skies. This is from April 1971, and Caroline is 40 months old.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1972 in Frankfurt, Germany

At four years old, Caroline was drawing patterns, while over in America, I was probably still eating dirt at nine years old.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1973 in Frankfurt, Germany

By the time Caroline Wise was five, she took a liking to American Indians with horses starting to show up in her imagination.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1974 in Frankfurt, Germany

It’s 1974 when if I had to guess, Caroline drew this image of her mom.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1976 in Frankfurt, Germany

I don’t know what happened in 1975, but there wasn’t a single image from that year, and so here we are jumping right into 1976 and a nine-year-old little girl in love with ponies and Native Americans.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1976 in Frankfurt, Germany

1976 must have been the year Caroline was introduced to watercolors at school, or maybe mom bought her a set?

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1976 in Frankfurt, Germany

Caroline wrote down this story in 4th grade (at 9 or 10 years old). Back then, a typical exercise in German class would be that the teacher (Mrs. Hirsch) read a short story to the class, and the children had to “re-narrate” it in their own words. The story titled The Careful Dreamer is about a traveler of the old days who shares a room in an inn with someone else. He took off his clothes and got ready for bed, but before he lay down, he strapped his slippers to his feet. The traveler’s roommate asked him why and got the answer, “I once dreamed that I stepped on broken glass, and it was so painful that I never want to sleep barefoot again!” According to Mrs. Hirsch’s comment, Caroline did a great job.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from date unknown in Frankfurt, Germany

This was one of a few images without a date, but I was finding her fascination with horses interesting as although I knew she’d read Misty of Chincoteague and Black Beauty, I can’t say she ever shared with me just how deep her love of horses was.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1977 in Frankfurt, Germany

It’s 1977, and the year Caroline will turn ten years old in mid-December; I think her sense for the abstract was something that should have been developed.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1977 in Frankfurt, Germany

More horses, this time from 5th grade.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1978 in Frankfurt, Germany

Maybe this was foreshadowing that Caroline would one day see ponies in the mountains.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1979 in Frankfurt, Germany

During the summer of 1979, the horse and Native American theme continued.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from date unknown in Frankfurt, Germany

Another image without a date.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from 1981 in Frankfurt, Germany

Crayons were one of the first things Caroline asked me to get for her from the American PX, a big box of 96 colors. It was probably around this time in 1981 when Caroline had to give up drawing and art to take her studies seriously.

Drawing by Caroline Wise née Engelhardt from date unknown in Frankfurt, Germany

A rich woman throws a coin at a beggar woman with a child. This was the last image in the portfolio and a fitting one as the woman I would meet in 1989 was very aware of injustice, violence, and the social ills that fail so many people.

First Teddy Bear from Caroline Wise née Engelhardt of Frankfurt, Germany

All of these things, including the teddy bear above that belonged to Caroline at one time, are headed to the scrap heap where maybe pieces will be recycled while some of it burned. They were never destined to find their way into a museum, and while it might feel tragic at first glance that they should just be put in the trash, it’s ultimately where everything we own and create ends up. Maybe here on the internet, they’ll last longer than they might have otherwise.

End of The Weekend in L.A.

When embarking on travels, we wish for impactful and deeply experiential moments to fill our days. Well, the adage Be careful what you wish for played out to the letter this weekend. It being Sunday today, we could have opted to have a nice breakfast and maybe make one other brief stop before leaving for Arizona but after incurring the cost of visiting Los Angeles, it would be foolish not to maximize our time here.

Last night, when considering our options, we found that the La Brea Tar Pits opened at 9:30 while another museum we were looking at opened at 11:00, and the garden choices would require us to drive nearly across the breadth of L.A., wasting too much time for the effort. Okay then, first, we’ll head down the street again for breakfast at Huckleberry Cafe and then pay a revisit to a museum of fossils we’d not seen in more than a dozen years. This is where the adage I referred to comes into play as with the greater breadth of experiences, the more photos I’ll take and the more I need to share, so my wishes turn into blogging turmoil because after the mini-vacation I’ll have a good week of work to note it all.

About 50,000 years ago, a tar pit looking much like the one we’re standing next to saw mammoths, wolves, saber-toothed cats, giant sloths, camels, bears, and countless birds step into the waters hiding a thick goo just below the surface that captured them as prisoners destined to call these pits their final resting places. Many of the animal skeletons found here are of now-extinct species that died off as recently as 10,000 years ago.

Move slow with big fat limbs, and you might get stuck in the tar with no ability to pull yourself free; this proved fatal for this giant sloth. Isn’t this a metaphor for modernity, where people with thick, dumb minds get stuck in the tar of stupidity, unable to free themselves from participation in an economy that relies more than ever on intellectual work?

Even fierce beasts must succumb to the end of their time when all that ferocity and ability to project violence will not help free themselves from the trap they blindly walked into. Again, this relates to our current time, where populist would-be dictators appeal to the brute force of those with base powers only able to exercise the threat of might that they offer to bring to the party.

This mammoth is like the majority of a population with a heft that can easily crush the individual trying to do the right thing, but in the end it too will extinct itself as it fails to change with the times and the environment. Oops, my writing brain and indignance for stupidity got stuck in my own tar and have pulled me into a muck that is not this weekend of amazing moments.

Sure, if I was walking down Sunset Boulevard, the last thing I might want to encounter on my way to the movies is a 10-foot-tall beast with massive tusks that could toss me in front of a passing bus, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love knowing these creatures still had a place to wander around. I can’t stand here and not be in disbelief that they are forever gone, which only makes me appreciate more that the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum are here to remind us how fragile and temporary life is.

Skulls are amazing pieces of our skeletons when we stop to think how much of our senses are carried within them, and when they no longer serve that purpose and are but fossils, possibly forgotten within the earth, there is nothing left to know about that creature’s behaviors or, in the case of humans, their personalities. This ancestor of modern condors was nearly twice the weight of California condors and sported a wider wingspan, but for some reason, they went extinct about 10,000 years ago. I wonder what the reasons were for such a die-off because while the megafauna might have left the scene at that time, condors are scavengers, and I find it hard to believe that without cave bears, giant sloths, and mammoths, these large birds should simply die away. Sure, it was the end of the ice age, but my mind isn’t grasping why this change in weather didn’t invite adaptation to the new conditions instead of wiping out so many species. One theory posits that early humans, who arrived on the North American continent at that time, could have been a contributing factor, but estimates calculate that there were only 39,000 people in North America at that time. How could these few people kill off possibly millions of large animals?

This is the skull of the dire wolf that, like everything else on display here, is now extinct. These four skulls are part of a display featuring 404 such specimens, which is only a small part of the 3,600 dire wolf remains that have been excavated here at the La Brea Tar Pits.

How could people, some 10,000 years ago weighing in at about 140 pounds each, take out a pack of dire wolves, each weighing up to 200 pounds? I think the odds were stacked against these bipedal hunters in favor of the oversized canines.

This tar pit was actively excavated until the summer of 2019 and is estimated to still have 5 feet of skeletal remains buried within the tar. A sign tells us that 73 saber-toothed cats, 56 dire wolves, 16 coyotes, 13 western horses, 12 ancient bison, six ground sloths, six giant jaguars, four short-faced bears, two Yesterday’s camels (a.k.a, Western camel), and one American mastodon have been recovered so far.

Good thing this ground sloth isn’t able to eat, although if it was alive right now and not extinct, it would have been an herbivore; otherwise, I think my wife’s head might have been a snack instead of her friend offering a hug.

I probably should have taken a video of this, as Caroline’s curiosity took her right to these spinnable chairs. I helped her spin around, and after her first pangs of anxiety about falling out passed, she giggled like a little girl. She got the hang of it a lot quicker than trying to use a hula-hoop, though. In the gift shop, I tried convincing her that for only $885, she could have one for work, but she couldn’t be sold on the idea [I would have said yes for the low-low price of $499, though – Caroline].

I should also share that we are now at the Hammer Museum further down Wilshire Boulevard. Moving through the tar pits didn’t take very long, so instead of lingering or taking an early lunch, we opted for this museum that we’d never been to before.

A placard next to the entrance after entering this gallery reads: “In 1992, the Jamaican scholar and theorist Sylvia Wynter penned a critical text titled “‘No Humans Involved’: An Open Letter to My Colleagues.” The title refers to an internal code that was used by the Los Angeles Police Department, usually in relation to cases that disproportionately involved Black and Brown Angelenos who were often identified as sex workers, gang members, or drug traffickers. The code became public knowledge in 1992, shortly after the trial and ultimate acquittal of the four police officers charged with the use of excessive force in the brutal beating of Rodney King. In her open letter, written to her colleagues as a call to action, Wynter argues that the origins of Western humanism, steeped in imperial pursuits and colonial violence, determine contemporary constructs of race, gender, class, sexuality, and other categories that continue to shape our lived experience and justify or deny our humanity. She asks, “How did they come to conceive of what it means to be both human and North American in the kinds of terms (i.e., to be White, of Euro-American culture and descent, middle-class, college-educated and suburban) within whose logic the jobless and usually school drop-out/push-out category of young Black males can be perceived, and therefore behaved towards, only as the Lack of the human, the Conceptual Other to being North American?”

“The exhibition, No Humans Involved, showcases the work of Eddie Aparicio, Tau Lewis, Las Nietas de Nono, Sondra Perry, SANGREE, WangShui, and Wilmer Wilson IV, whose practices disrupts and interrogate Western ideals of humanism. Through conceptual and material explorations, these artists and collectives across the diverse regions of the diasporic Americas consider the systems, institutions, lineages, and cultural objects that uphold our sense of being via sculpture, textiles, performance, installation, and multimedia interventions. By centering the nonhuman or anti-human as a point of departure, highlighting ancient technologies, and utilizing artificial intelligence software, No Humans Involved attempts to provide a contemporary response to Wynter’s original call to action.”

Yeast and light.

Cloth and fabric become art.

Sculpture and form.

My first inclination was to offer up some biographical information about the man behind this museum, but then second thoughts crept into my head after reading about his communist father, his illegal campaign donations to President Nixon, and his great-grandson, an actor who might have cannibalistic tendencies. So, this is from the private art collection of a wealthy oil tycoon who is now dead and gone.

This was probably my favorite piece in the collection; it’s from Gustave Moreau and is titled Salomé Dancing before Herod.

Looking at the details, it’s obvious why Moreau required seven years to finish this work.

The dark, brooding, almost despairing look of the subject is appealing to my senses and is apparently quite contrary to what this artist would normally paint, which was fruit and flowers. This piece from Henri Fantin-Latour is titled Portrait of Miss Edith Crowe. I can’t say I’ve consciously ever seen his work before, but I did learn that he’s mentioned in In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust with the following:

“Many young women’s hands would be incapable of doing what I see there,” said the Prince, pointing to Mme de Villeparisis’s unfinished watercolors. And he asked her whether she had seen the flower painting by Fantin-Latour which had recently been exhibited. (From The Guermantes Way)

Detail from Grape Pickers at Lunch by Renoir.

Wow, I wasn’t expecting a Van Gogh here. There’s no good reason one shouldn’t be here, but they do seem rare. Maybe it’s because after visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam back in the 20th century and seeing so many in one place, nothing compares. This particular work is titled Hospital at Saint-Rémy.

The hospital referenced is in Provence, France, and its full name is Saint-Paul de Mausole. Van Gogh spent a year at this asylum back in 1889 when his mental health was failing him. Apparently, his creative skills were still intact as he painted a number of works during his stay. While it should be obvious, I’ll point it out anyway: this is a close-up detail from the painting above it.

From the Hammer website:

Witch Hunt presents the work of 16 mid-career women artists from 13 countries who use feminist, queer, and decolonial strategies to investigate current and historical political events, social conditions, and overlooked or suppressed artistic legacies. The artists have demonstrated decades-long commitments to feminist creative practice as a subversive, expansive, and oftentimes collaborative methodology. Together, their works provide an opportunity to examine ideas, expand awareness, and encourage dialogue about urgent contemporary issues, such as the body and its vulnerabilities; women’s rights and representation, the erasure of women’s contributions to critical movements and histories, the impact of technologies of surveillance; environmental justice; the queering of political discourse; the imperative for feminist practice to be inclusive and intersectional; and the power of collective action.

This enormous multi-panel weaving is from Otobong Nkanga, originally from Nigeria but now living in Antwerp, Belgium. Caroline and I both noticed that a lot of the artists featured here at the Hammer Museum are living in Europe, could it have something to do with how Europe supports artists?

Teresa Margolles was the other artist in this exhibit who struck a chord with me as she depicts a reality of life that I know, that I’ve seen, and doesn’t shy away from offering a look into the world that is contrary to the nonsense we share as our hoped for fantasy.

From the Hammer, it’s a short walk to Tehrangeles, a.k.a. Little Persia, where we went right over to the Attari Grill to try the lamb-brain-and-tongue sandwich only to learn they were already out of brain [a common complaint these days, it seems – Caroline], so tongue alone will have to be it. Sadly, this didn’t photograph well, and if I can cut a photo here and there, then I have less writing I need to deal with. Just across the street from lunch was the Saffron and Rose Ice Cream shop. Diabetes be damned, Persian ice cream is well worth the cheat.

And with that, we were on our way out of L.A. on a beautiful day after a beautiful weekend filled with beautiful moments.

Before long, it would be dark with hundreds of miles left until we reached home, but the investment of intention paid off once again and allowed us to start 2022 with incredible riches of experience.