Be Excellent To Each Other

So, the good Doc has gone to San Francisco. It's been ten months since I myself have been to America, and I'm jealous as hell. I want to go back. At the same time, I find my memories a bit faded as to the ol' trip I took last March - so I've decided to do an exhaustive photo-travelogue so that I don't forget what happened. First up is a morning in Reno, this will be followed by the infinitely (probably) more (maybe) interesting Virginia City, and then Lake Tahoe. I should have done this travelogue ages ago, frankly, but I was having too much fun at the time to do my blog as promised and after that, well - I kind of forgot. Anyways...

Nervous Pete's Great Nevada Jaunt

Part One: RENO - City of Awful

Sometime after the sun has set in a small town in Central Oregon, three people pack an old but sturdy four wheel drive with the plan of driving all night over the plains and hills into Reno, Nevada State. This is the American way, born of a people who think thirty miles away is 'next door' and who never balk at the notion of long, weary drives over hundreds of miles of badly-maintained interstate road. An American will invariably give you a lift from the airport, even if they don't really know you and it's several hundred miles away. Now it was up to me to suffer the long haul, a drive seemingly only slightly shorter than my trans-Atlantic flight. It was for a good cause though. In Reno I'd be meeting my old friend Hardy, who to my host's evident surprise had promptly accepted her casual Facebook-fuelled offer of joining us for the last third of my three week holiday - even though they'd only met through me for a period of two days over five years ago. Then we'd all head off to Virginia City in the Nevada hills, an old ghost town. Good times were certain.

The boot slammed down on the luggage and the emergency road kit full of flares and k-rations. The malamute wolf-dog Harley Whitehawk pawed excited goodbyes and Todd and Amber waved farewell as me, Lyryn and Joel climbed into the car. The Decemberists went into the CD player and we hit the road, quickly turning onto route 97. Bend sprawls over a high-desert plain where everything is ash-gray, sandstone yellow and parched green and brown scrub. It’s volcanic territory, the ground hard and arid with the occasional hard black basalt lava formation. The only green on the plains occurs within the town limits, with well tendered lawns and parkland. In the distance all around where the plains rises up to form the Cascade Mountains, evergreens hug the sides of the snow-capped ranges. Not that I could see any of this, it was night and beyond the neon of the roadside 24-hour diners, gas stations and motels there lies an utter void of darkest, inkiest blackness. Fifteen miles later and we pull over for food at a drive through Mexican restaurant. I don't feel like eating. Joel seems perfectly happy with driving AND eating. I mewl softly in cowardly terror at this cavalier attitude to road safety, and decide that the best course of action is to sleep through as much of the road trip as possible.

The Oregon state-line terminates in a range of great hills that pile up all of a sudden. Navigating them is akin to following the winding roads of the Peak District, only with narrower lanes, giant trucks and steeper, deeper, darker gullies of volcanic rock. This is the evocatively named 'Modoc Volcanic Scenic Byway' that leads through forest and up into the Warner mountains. Not only that but they seem never to have heard of cats-eyes, and the roads are lit only by the headlights - sometimes blinding - of the feebly breaking, wide-cornering death-wagons. At one point Lyryn excitedly points out a deer running across the road, at another she shouts, "Coyote!" Mainly she silently respects my retreat into a half-sleeping, ignorance-is-bliss catatonia. Joel drives with eyes fixedly wide, in-the-zone. Now we head down into a valley town, somewhere, and pause for a toilet break, smokes, drinks and gas. The gas station attendant gets excited at my accent. I wonder how many English guys pass through this town. We get back into the car and I say goodbye to a nowhere place. An hour later and we switch from the CD's onto the radio as we bottom out onto a great salt plain and the sun begins to peep over the distant hills. The radio is evangelical, and what initially provides laughs edges us into creeped out discomfort. We dial through the stations. They're all Christian radio stations. We are now in Nevada, aka the Devil state. It seems natural that a state known for gambling, litigation and quickie marriage-divorces is clotted with evangelical radio. The great plain is a desert in summer, in winter it forms a very shallow lake.

This great expanse is called 'Honey Lake', and it is vast, covering a great stretch of alkali flats. Swallows and geese come here to brood, on occasion the bald eagle. The road stretches on and on along the dried lake-shore and the sun now rises above the mountain range. A breathtaking sight and I realise that the lonely ranches on the roadside, backing up against forbidding hills, at least have something going for them with a glorious dawn such as this. Maybe God is at work here after all. And then the unctuous radio jock starts spouting right-wing guff again and I come crashing back down to reality.

Up another hill and then down onto the freeway into Reno. The place dominates a vast plain and has no rhyme or reason to its sprawl. It is hideously ugly and the gold and white hotels jut out of the basin like bleached dead teeth in the dust, gleaming in the blinding sun. Reno is the poor man's Las Vegas; gambling stripped of her veil and left to paw at you desperately. We hit the main street, a dome rising over the skyline like a great ceramic breast. Welcome to gambling Mecca. Like seemingly everywhere in America the streets are free of litter – this amazing societal achievement places them far above the British, in my opinion. For all the frail gaudiness of the gold-trimmed hotels and neon signs, Reno is actually quite Spartan, with box like buildings and glass doors everywhere. Inside one of these great boxes - indeed the greatest - sleeps Simon. He's staying at the Eldorado, a vast casino-hotel complex with a circus within. Inside are rows and rows of slot machines. Lyryn homes in on them, and begins her usual 'break-even' three hour streak. (A curious aside, gamblers in America seem to be pre-dominantly women, I saw very few men, even at the tables.) I give gambling a chance and hit a few slot machines in an area peppered with apologetic faux-ancient Egyptian decor. The machines are either bafflingly complex or insulting simplistic. I am quickly enraged. It is now nine o'clock. No sign of Hardy in the lobby. I stooge around a while playing my DS. Joel taps my shoulder, he's equally bored. I note the lack of attractive women hosting the tables. Most are red-skinned and weathered, like Rich Hall with long hair and breasts. This is disappointing. We decide to explore Reno for an hour.



'The Cold, Plump, Breast of Gamblor'



'Barren Awfulness'

Reno proclaims itself 'The Biggest Little City in the World'. A phrase that when examined makes no sense. This is unlike Reno, which makes a tragic sort of sense. Forever in the glowing shade of its bigger brother Las Vegas, Reno knows it can't compete with the glitz and so knuckles down to good ol' honest pocket-stripping. You'd never visit it for any other reason, despite an annual hot-air balloon festival and... er... well, that's it. Walking down the main street I note the number of vacant casinos, victims of the downturn. One Irish themed casino brazenly flaunts a piece of the Blarney stone in the brickwork. A sign on the dusty locked glass door says in the true sense of the pathetic, "Closed due to bad times. Hope you have more luck." As you walk down the street the casinos drop any pretentions, with faded decor and tired people haunting the interiors. It's a relief to get past them and instead hit the river. By here you'll find what Reno can muster for an arts scene. The Pioneer Center hosts music in a domed building. It’s about a tenth of the size of the casino. There are a number of cafes and a park along the riverbank, each one is a half-hearted affair. Drink your coffee, get out. Part of the suck up and spit out ethos of Reno, no doubt. Further still sits an Arts Centre, past a massive billboard promoting the 'Aggressive Excellence' of an attorney. Reno was named after a US civil war General who fought and died for the land with his corps in the Battle of South Mountain. His last words were a cheerful, "Yes, yes, I'm dying - good-bye!" For some reason they were not, "For Christ's sake don't build some cock-awful town here!"



'Overly Aggressive Excellence'



Lego Tower



"I died for this? Choke!"

The Arts Center demands an unfeasible amount of money to get in. I squint into the lobby; it seems suspiciously free of art and largely empty. Balls to that, then. We look at the three sculptures outside. They range from excellent to poor with a stone man, a wooden horse and some metal-flim-flam. Across the road a legally unbinding shotgun chapel gaudily graces the dilapidated street. In its way it is art, I guess. Defiantly tacky and yet oddly pleasing. Lots of run-down houses round here. Spying a homeless guy pushing a trolley, I half expect to see David Simon taking notes. Curiously around here a rather splendid, well-to-do house defiantly stares down its shabby neighbours. Along an alley beneath some magnificent power lines, there haunts a barred, tagged window with an alarm sticker and a 'God Bless America' card on the windowsill. On a wall stands the art of a 'Jobama', who faces off against the Art Museum on the other side. His stuff is garish, brutal and cartoon like. It's not half-bad. Slightly depressed, we head past a project that's like something out of The Wire and on past the homeless on the lawns. There are people both black and white, rich and poor are queuing up at a church at this curious hour. I'm not sure why as it appears closed. We turn another street and I snap some curious architectural nuggets and some street art on a traffic fuse-box promoting an attractive local long haired singer-songwriter. There's a cafe round here, and we pop in. I hear the radio, and stagger with shock. To my disbelief Belle & Sebastian are playing. Quite incredible. There's a poster of The Smiths on the wall. I buy an overpriced orange juice. "So is there an indie scene in Reno?" I ask the owner of the reasonably busy cafe. "No, it's just us," he replies sadly, "Just us for hundreds and hundreds of miles." Never mind, at least he can stare at the rare, beautiful woman in the business suit drinking her coffee out on the sidewalk tables.



Wooden Bone Mare



"I'll just die here, ta."


The city felt oddly deserted throughout. Barely any traffic, or people, even midday. The air was chill despite the glare of the sun, and I wandered in a sort of dazed state, mainly owing to sleep deprivation, as my sleep in the car had been very shallow and interrupted by pot-holes and violent swerves to avoid fauna every few minutes. Still, I'm having a sick sort of fun charting how awful the place is, and there is the added bonus in having hunted out the odd interesting little things tucked away here and there. Apparently Reno has barely changed in decades. For some reason I can find no bars, not a one that isn't in a casino, and I'm not going back into one of those, not voluntarily. Surrounded by withered old people with dyed hair and red skin amid the klaxon wails, bells and alarms of one armed bandits. Not for me. Surely there must be some night-life around with gambling? I suspect not.



Edward Hopper Style



Arty Juxtaposition



Alley Tree



Me in Pretentious Art with 'The Garden of Eden'



"Yo, man! Omar's coming!"



Actually, This is Pretty Cool...

We pick up Hardy. There's something incredible about meeting and old, long-standing friend two weeks into a holiday out in the middle of nowhere - no matter how pre-arranged. We applaud modern travel and social networking. Still, it takes him a long time to get checked-out, and I grow frustrated at my complete inability to complete 'Elite Beat Agents'. I've been stuck on the last level for about a year now. Finally Hardy has his stuff ready to trundle to the car. I and Joel forcibly drag Lyryn away from the machines. What is it about women and gambling? Looking up at the pictures of past winners lining the walls – there’s something strangely touching about them, about seeing their happy smiles, lives changed – and you’ll note that they’re also nearly all women. I remember the Twilight Zone episode with the coughing, spluttering gambling machine that comes for the man who takes pride in loudly denouncing it.

I like to play Poker, actually.

But let's get the hell out of here. This place is sapping my life essence. So we all get back into the car, me and Hardy staring at each with amused disbelief that here we are, both once upon a time sitting next to each other in geography at Holmfirth High and now having made a rendezvous in deepest America we’re off to drink beer, wander, point at things and drink more beer. We drive up and out of Reno, onto a winding road into the hills due South. When we hit a scenic lookout, we stop and get out. This one commemorates a certain Mr Geiger - neither of scary monster or radioactive fame - who blasted out a path through the rock. He’s a real trail-blazing pioneer and by the picture on the plaque he has a big beard. Hardy does a mock Nazi rally from the big look-out rock. He’s spouting excellent Chaplainesque Great Dictator gibberish. I 'thumbs up' at the camera, grinning inanely. Below Reno sickly glistens in the fierce noonday sun. Reno is largely terrible, my friend, and the music's crap. Don't go there, unless you want to pop into the only indie cafe for miles.



"Let's get the Fuck away from here!"

Ah well, only seventy miles on route 341 to Virginia City, the Ghost-Town home of excellence and the object of this trip. It's there I'll find the strange glory of old America.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/99176172@N00/

I haven't read this yet, but before I do, cheers Pete. This forum wouldn't be the same without you!

Awesome stuff. Thanks!

I want an "aggresive excellence" sign. Make it so, Zardoz.

Excellent stuff, pete!

Ta folks!

I was that horrible mixture tired/wired when I got round to writing that. I'd been up most of the night remastering old photos, removing power lines and the like, and I wasn't firing on all cylinders with that one. So I've corrected spelling mistakes, cleared things up a bit and added a little more stuff.

Next part probably up Wednesday night. Once this has done I think I'll use it to re-kick-start my blog. Any comments welcome!

That was brilliant, Pete. Now, get yourself back over there and write another one for me, so I can have it absorb another fifteen minutes of a boring day.

So....don't go to Reno, then?

I'm planning to go Vegas->San Francisco this summer, via a couple of the national parks. I'll make a point of avoiding Reno.

No, don't go to Reno - unless you want to cross-check my findings. Do if you can go to Virginia City or Lake Tahoe, both of which are pretty lovely. Virginia City for its humble, salt-o-earth people and Americana combined with cowboy vistas and Lake Tahoe for the tremendous big lake. Though Tahoe ain't as good for bars as Virginia City is, oddly. It is, however, a national park.

And I expect a full report from you, me laddy. I'd really like to go to San Fran me. Las Vegas, not so much.

Did you shot a man there, just to watch him die? Although, judging by your report, I wouldn't blame you if you did - it sounds like that sort of place.

That was probably due to the lack of attractions. I'm sure if there was, say, a waterslide park or something Cash's penniless outlaw would have gone done different for entertainment.

# I slid down a slide in Reno, just to have some fun #

I think it works. It makes for a much nicer song too.

I coulod make you an "aggresive flatulence" sign.

I am doing LV - LA - SF at the end of May and shall report similarly.

Virginia City


Part One - The Arrival



"There's gold in them thar hills!"

It's an advertising campaign unrivalled since the infamous "Gabbo! Gabbo! Gabbo!" At every twist and turn of the winding road up into Virginia City, the enticing, shiver-of-thrill words 'Come and See the Famous Suicide Table' blaze from colourful battered billboards. The Delta Saloon wasn't afraid to get its name out there and in the back of the car both me and Hardy were excitedly theorising the possible nature of this wonder. Did you sit meekly down and stare into the distance despairingly as a motorised mechanical arm gently slit your throat? Lyryn and Joel had visited Virginia City before on several occassions. Their cynical, amused refusals to elaborate did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm.

In the summer of 1859 Henry Tompkins Paige Comstock and others prospecting at Gold Hill on the slopes of Mount Davidson found a thin vein of gold, which turned into blueish quartz rock. They analysed it and to their undoubted joy from that it contained both silver and gold at nearly $4,000 a ton. Within moments, slick businessman from Nevada City accosted the men with offers to buy the site, amongst whom was George Hearst, the father of William Randolph Hearst. Now Comstock was a lazy man, shiftless and idle who’d been dubbed ‘Old Pancake’ by his friends. He happily accepted $10,000 dollars for his share. Legend has it that the town got its name from a drunken Irishman called James Finney who fell over, smashing his whiskey bottle. He used the remainder to christen the area ‘Virginia’. I have no idea why.

And so began the great Virginia City gold rush. By 1861 there were 10,000 miners rooting around in the Virginia City hills. They sunk shafts and beavered away, throwing up a shanty town. Gradually a main street of sorts formed, with stores, saloons, a brothel, a stock exchange and even an opera house. The city also became a centre for freight, transportation and lumber for the underground mines. More and more miners and clueless opportunists poured into the area, including a man called Mark Twain who went to work on a local newspaper, cheerfully making up complete lies to sell papers. Lies involving kidnappings, gambling massacres, strange feats of strength, murders, Indian raids and the undead. His brother, Orin Clems, was the territorial secretary - a plum position.

Such was the staggering wealth buried underneath these hills that Virginia City rapidly became the financial centre and hub for the entire West. The coin generated basically fuelled Lincoln’s war effort, in exchange of which he granted Nevada statehood. It wasn’t easy to dig the Comstock load though. Scalding waters rushed through the seams, deep in the workings pits of boiling water claimed lives as miners slipped and fell in. German engineers and miners were brought in to improve the workings. A man called Aldolph Sutro embarked on a giant project to build a tunnel that would drain the mines of the water, allowing deeper workings. Starting in 1869 he toiled with his men for ten years, blasting rock and facing death. In the course of his toil he found out that the lode had almost been worked out, but wisely kept it quiet. After completion in 1878 he charged $10,000 a day to the mine holders as the tunnel drained up to three to four million gallons a day. The mine holders paid, convinced that new big seams were just waiting to be uncovered.

They weren’t. The lode was played out. In a few years the population began declining rapidly. From its height of 30,000 it fell to two thousand or so in a few decades, and by 1960 the population was a mere 510. For a long time Virginia City was in disrepair, a ghost town of decaying, collapsing buildings. In the last ten years or so it has however enjoyed something of a minor renaissance as a tourist attraction, and the population has doubled. Virginia City has many colourful stories. As wild as only a gold rush town could have been, fortunes were made and lost. Hookers paraded balconies. Fire razed the city and it was built again. Deadly gunfights echoed in the saloons. Sharp operators parted rubes from their money. Some men made incredible fortunes, others lost it all and comitted the ultimate sin.

Maybe, just maybe... at a table?



"Hit the road jack," - Virginia City Main St.


The road into town skirts the tall, barren Ophir Hill, Virginia City hitching up on its skirts. It rolls you onto a long straight street covered in bunting and American flags, flanked by saloons, souvenir stores, curiosity shops and derelict buildings. Along each side shining silver and jet cars do their best to rob you of any feeling of timeslip. The buildings are colourful and gaudy; covered in tourist-trap signs and posters, all blazing some nebulous slip of local lore that you can experience, for a small fee. It’s trashy, brazen and entirely in keeping with Virginia City’s history. The Main Street’s function, its raison d’etre, is to part you from your cash by selling you things you don’t need, by dealing in trivial pleasures and getting you hammered. If it were any other way, Virginia City would be a tired, false memory. This way, the place is alive with the spirit of an enterprise both merrily cynical and achingly nostalgic. Within moments it connects with me more than an entire morning in Reno did. We’re hungry and we pull up at a parking lot beside Ponderosa Saloon of which Lyryn assures us good grub can be had. Motorcyclists on Harleys slide past, exhibiting rare restraint by gliding almost silently. For a moment, perhaps, they wish they had horses.



This makes a jolly good 16:9 desktop background, honest guv!


Ponderosa Saloon is a typical Virginia City joint. On the walls are great framed paintings that resemble a slightly classier version of the landscapes and mise en scenes you’d find on western covers. They’re usually cast in dark and earthy colours, covered in dust and cobwebs and feature saloon gunfights, gambling, cattle drives and settlers wiping their brows and looking wistful. Along one side a player piano sits, silently. Maybe one day it stopped forever mid jingle when the right outlaw stepped through the swing doors. A great slumbering St. Bernard sprawls on the floor, drool pooling on the rough boards. The place is crowded on this sunny Friday lunchtime. A waitress shows us to a space on the back balcony and the view is breathtaking. It’s called the Seven Mile View, and you can see why. Below, a little tourist train upon which a man with a nasal monotone voice trundles punters around the graveyards and uninhabited streets. To its left, a Ramada Inn and parking lot astonishing in its unsympathetic box-like ugliness. But beyond this, old church spire and shacks. A graveyard hill and a rise covered in matt green scrub and beyond Sugarloaf mountain, a distinctive pointed hill of the sort that would once have been a slurry heap - but perfectly natural. (You may have noticed the local penchant for exageration - cities, mountains: they’re not, they’re towns and hills. Tsk.) You could walk to Sugarloaf in an hour or so, but the view stretches on to places you’d figure on dying of thirst in the baking sun before ever reaching. Hill range after hill range and beyond a desert basin followed by yet more hills, all of which are devoid of vegetation. I gawp, unashamedly.

Lyryn was once a waitress and she has an instinct for perfectly describing an unfamiliar dish. She guides me through the menu. I think the food I eventually settled on was salmon, of all things. It came amazingly quickly and tasted rather nice. The portions were hefty, naturally. The beer was very good too, as was the general rule in America.



"Beware the Cat."

Back in the car and off to our digs, one and a half miles of winding road leading down into a narrow, small valley that beyond a discreet spur flattens into a barren desert prairie. The Gold Hill Hotel was the first place to offer lodgings to Miners, and of course prides itself on this fact, despite having been almost completely rebuilt in the interim. A fat ginger tom suns itself on the steps leading up to reception. He has his own little house to the side. The building is made of dark brown logs and the inside is all caramel, brass and sandpaper colours. It feels wonderfully frontier, still ramshackle but furnished nicely and rather cosy. Like the claim most American hotels over forty years make, it is apparently haunted. To the side of the reception a small room is given over to a bookshop featuring many small press books and vanity publishings about the good ol’ days of the Comstock Lode. Books on and by Mark Twain also feature, as do westerns. Unlike in the UK, hotel staff do not feel the need to impinge themselves upon your holiday experience. They’re there if you need them, willing to banter and offer gossip and local knowledge. But otherwise they melt into the background like the traditional Jeeves. Never will they inflict that fussy officiousness or jobsworth mentality. Service with a genuine smile has been the rule for everywhere I’ve stayed. For this reason I find it impossible to remember a single thing about the staff of the place. But I’m sure they’re Minnesota nice in the best of ways.



Baking in summer, freezing in winter...

We’d chosen the Miners lodge, a corugated shack on the other side of the little car park. It looks quite small on the outside. The metal is the sort of grey you’d find in Humbrol paints. There’s a door at each end and its divided with two sleeping quarters sharing a common kitchen area, which can be sealed off to adjoin only one if you’ve only rented one bedroom, or really hate your neighbours. Me and Hardy share a very small living room with camp bed couches. An old colour TV with aerial sits gathering dust in the corner. A bookcase offers a fantastically rubbish selection of Clancy and Grisham in their usual tattered bricks of yellowing paper. There is however a book on the different types of clouds and I eagerly grab it and start leafing - aiming to differentiate between the two different types of cloud Nevada possesses. Then a short nap later and I’m ready to explore the place. The door opens stiffly and has an netted screen door to keep out the insects. I can see why. Beside the shack stands the mustard coloured mudbrick croquet hoop of an old pitshaft pulley system. At its feet a danger sign and a pile of rubble and scrub. A loud buzzing noise. An advance guard of wasps menacingly advances. I yelp and briskly cross the yard to look at a big abandoned mine working on the other side of a little gully. Up on the hill side directly above sits a ruined timber water sluice, either for the sifting of gold or - more likely I think - the drainage of the workings. It’s a photographer’s paradise. Before I wander off too far, Joel and Lyryn call me back. Back when Lyryn visited me in the UK, she quickly realised my penchant for wandering off up hills for hours on end, exploring.



"Yelp! Wasps! Squeal!"

And so it’s mid-afternoon, the 21st of March 2009 - and Virginia City Main Street calls for exploration in the next thrilling, appallingly meticulous edition of Nervous Pete’s American travelogue. Will I become the victim of a card-sharp? Will I be forced to dance as some one shoots pistols at my feet? Will I finally get to find out what this Suicide Table is all about? Come one, come all, for the next edition of Pete vaguely recollecting things inaccurately and putting them down in posts.



"... Red Team is capturing the base!"

P.S:

Seriously, that Virginia Hill range pic I'm quite proud of. Shame about the black shadow in the corner, can't be helped. Do check it out full size here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/99176172@N00/

Another ace one, Pete Keep 'em coming.

Great reading Pete! Looking forward to the next one!

Man, you kept me on tenterhooks about the Suicide Table the entire time, and then left it as a cliff-hanger? Booo!

Very good read Pete - I'm hoping that in the next episode you get in a fight, get hit over the head with a whisky bottle by a hooker, punched through some balcony railings, get hurled onto a card table by a man with a beard, and then slid along the bar until your head crashes through the wall, at which point you'll realise that you've ended up in a room full of can-can girls changing.

Excellent stuff.

Are you considering submitting this for publication somewhere (Sunday travel section or suchlike)?

Crumbs, I never thought beyond maybe forwarding a copy to the Virginia City website.

Hmm. *Strokes chin*

Anyway, training all day now. Boo-urns. More shall perhaps be revealed tonight. And top summary of events there Squirt. Don't forget spilling the spitoon over the chief hoodlum's chaps.

My sister got something published on the Grandinuads travel blog bit - I'm not sure if she got paid but it got her some nice comments and a few interesting contacts. She travelled through South America and wrote 3 or 4 columns about it afterwards. It might be worth a punt - I'll ask her how she did it if you;re interested.

This is great Pete! I'm saving your second story for this afternoon when I know I've got a dull 30 minutes at work where I'll need taking away to someplace special!

Pete. I love you.

Brilliant stuff Pete! Very enjoyable.

Virginia City

Part Two: The Old Washoe Club

After a nap we head off up into town. Joel kindly eschews drinking to drive us up there, being one of those curious types who prefers to abstain most times. I guess we should thank the designated drivers of this world, but still. Curious. The Old Washoe Club is a saloon where Samuel Clemens came to play cards, drink and cook up tall stories. It’s the oldest saloon in Virginia City and a real spit and sawdust dive. Yet it still retains a strange sense of regality from its Gentleman’s Club days; the aristocracy of the old perhaps. Forever dimly lit, The Old Washoe has a long bar along one side cluttered with glasses, dusty bottles and random bits of knick-knack for sale, including a low cut top for the ladies stamped with the saloon’s name. Creaky ornate chairs surround small black tables and in a corner a little raised platform houses bands. At the rear are the toilets, one like a David Lynch nightmare with black plastic curtains in the place of stall doors and the low hum of a harsh, fluorescent light. You expect Dean Stockwell to drift by, crooning softly into a lamp. Opposite these terrifying facilities, a wooden staircase winds up to nowhere. Literally, there is nothing at the top. This staircase is not nailed or glued together, nor is it slotted with pegs. It relies on its own weight to hold it together, designed by some mad European. Native Virginians swear that a ghost of a lady can sometimes be seen at the top, staring down. Possibly a past echo of a madam who ascended the stairs only to say, “The fuck are the doors?”



"And they say that this damn frog can out-jump anything..." - "Heard it!"

Step beyond through the door at the foot of these stairs and there’s a pool room, containing one blue table and a whole heap of junk. It’s an incredibly cold, unwelcoming room. I can’t deny it, there was something slightly sinister about the place. More past echoes? Or the rugs thrown over piles of bust-up amps and speakers and other junk in the corner, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling? Never mind, back into the bar, behind which stands an old man with a long white beard and hair in a black cowboy hat. A fellow in the real old grizzled prospector mode, he stares sullenly at locals and tourists alike. He is magnificent and spends more time in front of the bar than behind it. It’s quiet, only six other people in the bar. Bad music is playing from the juke box, so naturally I commandere it and put on some quality stuff. Patsy Cline, Cash, Hank Williams and whatever British rock I can see for patriotism’s sake. Lyryn tells me of a Ghost Adventures episode that took place here. Americans seem to have a real fondness for that show. I reply with memories of BBC’s top unintentional scarefest Ghostwatch.



"She wore blue velvet..."

Hardy points at a photo on the wall. A cowboy sits on his horse at the bar, ordering a drink. We chuckle heartily over this, and wonder at it happening today. And then there’s a strange, throaty roaring from outside, and a bright light pours through the windows. As if on queue, a biker on a Harley rides his motorbike through the swing doors, across the floor and into the back pool room. He gets off, walks up to the bar and orders a drink. It’s easily the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long while.




"But... but... it goes nowhere! THE HORROR! THE EXISTENTIAL HORROR!


The Washoe has its history. Rapes and murders on the closed off upper floors, the rooms now stripped bare and caked in dust, pipes loose and smashed glass. Miners dead from accidents stored in the cellar crypt, now used for beer storage. Of all the places in Virginia City, its reputedly the most haunted. Foo-farrah cooked up by the small local population to ensure an evergreen supply of tourists? If so, they seem to believe it themselves now. Every man jack in town has a story to tell about spooks. What’s interesting is that in this old place there is a curious frission. I put it down to being so out of my normal element. I’m in a dusty old dive in the middle of nowhere, deep in the hills. That’s got to set something going within me. It’s my favourite place in Virginia City. The old, decayed, untidy dive seems more out of time and in keeping than any polished, meticulous restoration. It’s a dogged, cranky old geriatric, rocking quietly on Main Street, refusing to be washed and put on show. Wish we had one in Cardiff.

Back down the hill, and we enter a tiny bar opposite the Gold Hill Hotel filled with the locals from the movie Tremors. It's small, whitewashed and filled with weathered, dusky faces. There’s karaoke afoot, and I’m sandwiched between two genuine cowboys at the bar. It’s sort of the American equivilent of the kegs on offer in the village hall, with hard seats and stools, little in the way of comforts and an ad hoc approach to service. It's pretty crowded and a fair few sit on the windowsills. A plump sun burnt woman belts through MOR hits, she cannot be shifted except by an old timer who shuffles in to cheers and sings several cowboy songs. I feel sort of out of place. All the talk is local gossip and I’m too tired to hang around. Time for bed.



"Businessman, see? Roots in the community."


It’s not just the Old Washoe Club that has been the subject of Ghost Adventures. They stayed in the cabin where me, Hardy, Lyryn and Joel are now sleeping. The episode follows the typical pattern, with lights switched off, calls into darkness and shaky camera work. The two leads start talking scared at each other, and pointing at things the viewer can’t see and hushing at the noises the viewer can’t hear. What sets the juices going of our sub-Supernatural coupling is the tragic historical event of the Yellowjacket fire. The mine next to the Gold Hill Hotel one night suffered a fire at the eight hundred foot level. As the day crew descended, the fire sent timbers crashing and poisonous fumes rushing through the shafts. Thirty eight miners lost their lives. The very pit they descended is the one next to my cabin.

In bed and I toss and turn for a good hour as I hear howls and a hurricane roar that sets the shack rattling. Are these the ghosts of the dead tunnel dwellers come to drag us back down with them into the very pits of hell?

No, coyotes and the air-con. I get up and switch it off, braving the penetrating chill that descends at night at an elevation of 1800m. Later, having awoken in the deep night, I creep out the flimsy door and wander the dirt yard. I remember that bit from the old PC RPG Daggerfall, when stepping outside the inn at midnight in the capital caused the terrifying cry of “VENGEANCE!” as the spirit of the dead king rushes at you causing my fourteen year old self to yelp and flail widely at the keyboard. I look up at the great blanket of stars and across at the silhouette of the mine hunched up on the shoulder of the hill. I feel profoundly happy. And very cold. Back inside.

In the morning me and Hardy awake, obviously relieved at not having been murdered in our beds by vengeful spirits. We shower, get dressed and go for breakfast in the hotel. The room we eat in is nice, something of a big log cabin social room with an old stove and flue and long couches. On a table along one wall sits various cereals, coffee, tea and muffins. But the coffee is unpleasant and in dinky cups and the muffins are downright stale. Something of a let down after the excellence of the surroundings and service. It’s clearly quiet season here, as there are only a couple of other guests who join us in the room. We read the local papers. Now in novels I’d always read of a character picking up a newspaper and ‘catching up on the local gossip’. In these small American towns it seems to be literally true. They have a dedicated paper for the area and it is full of updates on what everybody’s up to, a sort of yellowed news-sheet version of Facebook and strangely endearing - small stories told with a friendly, neighbourly wit. With a population of just over a thousand in the middle of nowhere where everybody knows each other, I guess news both foreign and national becomes kind of irrelevant, because I don’t remember seeing many national papers in that town.

Lyryn and Joel have elected to sleep in, so me and Hardy decide to walk up the hill into town with big plans to explore and get coffee. It's a lovely, sunny morning once again and the narrow lane winds up between small scattered brightly painted hillside houses beside their own power generators and chicken coops. What will we find, that sleepy Saturday morning? You’ll have to damn well wait.

Hmm, I have a bad feeling that a little drunk on whiskey as I was, I lost all editing faculty and bodged that one. More conciseness, more dizzying highs, the terrifying lows - the genuinely creamy middles, I promise. rather than me getting dangerously near purple prose and photos of slighty spooky restrooms in future, honest.

I do like the old man saloon pic though. It came out nice.

I enjoyed that Pete. Awesome read (and pictures).

What ho! Bet you thought I'd forgotten all about this. ("He had," - ed.) Well, it's high-time for the next instalment and here it is, the biggest yet! Join us now as we enter into a day of high adventure in Virginia City...

Virginia City




Part Three: There's Gold in Them Thar Hills.


The road into town curves up to the left and then snakes to the right like a cracking whip, lashing the steeply sloped hillside. It’s dirt county, hard-packed dust, yellow rock and wiry scrub. Along the left hand side there’s a small rail depot. Once in a while a steam train from who knows where brings in tourist dollar, and perhaps its the need of a good first impression that keeps this little station looking trim. But this is off-season, Virginia City is stripped of its parades and side-shows and the echo of the steam-whistle does not sound in these lonely hills. Beside it a rail crossing and a memorial to firemen, and a hefty looking wooden bear called Smokey, resplendant with helmet and shovel. Either side of the road sit pretty wooden houses, painted white and blue, looking frail in this weathered, sun beaten valley. Looking to the right the fenced yard of a shack contains a row of four gas pumps, planted and rusting in the grass. It’s early morning and the air has a pleasantly refreshing chill as we crest the slope and turn into the long straight that brings us into town.



"Remember kids, drop that match and I'll eat your face."



The Rail Depot



Now that's Americana!

Half eight and it’s blissfully quiet. Nothing but the tread of feet, the rustle of tumbleweed, the lonesome sound of the wind and the bandying forth of quotes from Tremors. We get into town, every thing is shut. I want a coffee. We walk to the end of the long street. Just past a wooden shack with a circular saw nailed to the front sits a white board house with yellow trim and a balcony. Painted on the front are the words, 'Mocha’ and 'Latte’. The windows are dusty. We can discern no life inside. Yet there is an Open sign upon the door. We weigh up the dangers. It might be a trap set for effeminate Frenchmen. But I really want a coffee, and the dust kicked up by the sudden mountain gusts stings my nostrils and smarts my eyes. I drag Hardy inside.



Rusted Saw, Curious Coffee House


A legend is born. The serving area we find ourselves in is akin to a bare concrete rec-room with a washing machine with a thermos atop. Rich Hall in Otis Lee Crenshaw mode lurches over. Behind him is we see through open door a colourful mural that could only have been painted by a hippy, with a lake and a rainbow. There seems to be a sofa beyond, in that other room inhabited by an old couple who I assume to be his parents.

“Hi, just wondering if you serve coffee here.”

“Yeah, morning. We got coffee.”

“A cup of black coffee would be great.”

He nods and reaches over the thermos, pours me a mug. It’s hot and bears a sort of passing resemblance to coffee. “You from England?”

“Yeah. We’re staying in Oregon but came down for the weekend.”

“Crazy weather in Oregon.”

Excellent! A conversational path opens itself, straight and true and clear of the awkward pause shown as visual punctuation in metaphor by the traditional tumbleweed. I’m a Brit, we love talking about the weather! Let’s talk about the weather!

And we do. And you know, it’s not a bad chat. We talk about the seasons and the droughts and the blizzards and what-not. He’s a good talker, with an easy slow drawl. Of course, it’s at this point in the mutual bonding that my eyes drift across and catch the KKK calling card pinned to his notice board.

No joke. It really is there. What the hell? Is it for real? Is it some excellent ironic joke? Perhaps it popped through his letter-box one day and he figured, ‘hey, makes a good talking point’. But staring at this man, my mouth still yapping away good-naturedly, I can see his red sun-ravaged features disappearing under a pointed sheet of white. It must be a tough gig around here, I haven’t seen a single black.

Holy shit, maybe he’s lynched 'em all!

But rather peversely I’m quite enjoying the coffee and the chat now, and refuse to acknowledge Hardy’s frantic eye flicks directed at the board and to me, stood as he is behind the man’s shoulder with a 'Let’s get the fuck out of here!’ expression. But you know, fuck it. I’m drinking coffee. He’s not going to lynch us is he? No way, man. We’re talking weather. Like what the white men do.

He waves goodbye as we leave. Hardy clutches me by the arm. “Did you see that?!”

“Goddammitt yes, Hardy. Let’s not judge 'till all the facts are in, okay.”

“A calling card.”

We fall silent. Hardy seems slightly upset.

“Hey Hardy. We should have stayed for breakfast. Reckon they do cereal?”

“Probably not.”

“Shame, I could really go in for some Special KKK.”

This is easily the funniest thing I have ever said.

We head back onto the high street. The stores and saloons are opening up shop now. We enjoy the freedom of gawping like rubes at dusty trinkets in dimly lit dime stores. There’s a book shop that’s chock-a-block with Mark Twain books. I pick up a Zane Gray western. It’s good readin’. We wander into a hat shop, a monumentally huge affair stuffed with literaly hundreds of hats. Hardy quickly settles upon a sleek black leather cowboy hat that only a villain could wear, perhaps whilst spitting tobacco on the church floor with a sneer. I dither for an hour, completely unable to make up my mind between a stetson and a derby hat mighty similar to Firefly Badger’s apparel. In the end, derby wins out. Much as the stetson was cool, I can’t help but think that I’d look slightly gay and risk mockery back in Cardiff. Those crusty old Cardiffians, like to take some of the starch out of their shirts!

I hand over the coin to the urbane bearded old man, and enjoy the fit. He nods approvingly at my new found dapperness. We talk a bit about exchange rates and the economy, about how the banks are screwing us. I find it delightfully easy to talk to American strangers, if you’re stuck for a subject just mention how Uncle Tony (now Unkie Cameron and Auntie Clegg) stiff us for our hard-earned shillings, and then complain about the banks and the general lack of work ethic nowadays. It’s their equivilent of talking about the weather. I pass an amicable while talking guvmint with the fellow and find his opinions on fixing the economy are well observed. However, I cannot remember point one that he offered, so you will have to take my word for it that the owner of The Old Red Garter Western Wear is a real deep dude.

They sell old cowboy dusters. Like what Mal Reynolds wears! If only I had more money!




"Hot Diggerty-Dang! We're the Bee's Knees!"

Sporting our new hats and tipping them to the ladies, we feel like we’re walking tall as we tread the boards of the saloon sidewalks. It is a shame then that the effect is spoiled as we suddenly freeze, beads of sweat form prickle our foreheads, bowls loosen and low moans and prayers are uttered as the unearthly doom-laden wail of a collossally loud air raid siren fills the air. It races up and down the scale with its banshee wail, and we crane our necks to look at the sky, expecting to see the trails of ICBM minutemen missiles criss-crossing the sky as megatonnage death direct from the Mid-West to Mother Russia speeds its way.

Fortunately before we could humiliate ourselves by treating the locals to an exercise in 'duck and cover’ reason slowly returns. Why is everyone walking around, enjoying their sandwiches instead of racing for the deepest mine shafts? I ask a local what gives. He chuckles and tells us its the traditional ‘lunch time siren’. Of course.

Moments later we bump into Lyryn and Joel, having finally awoken and hauled ass up the hill. Myself and Hardy spend a moment spouting the infuriating, “You’ve missed the best part of the day!” guff and we then all decide to go and get lunch. Back into the Palace Saloon. They have indeed a good menu. More variations on the burger than you could shake a T-bone at. We trough and chat and then at dinner’s close Lyryn shows us the entrance to a mine shaft at the rear of the saloon. A man not unlike John Ratzenberger of Cheers fame offers us a tour, and next thing we know we’re wearing helmets as we follow him and his lantern deep into the mine-workings. The tunnel stretches deep into the hillside, and I’m almost beside myself with how cool this is - a pub that has a big mine shaft at the back to explore! He explains that at the time searing hot temperatures forced miners to duck into small rooms filled with ice blocks to keep cool, otherwise they’d slowly cook. He spoke of the boiling hot waters that claimed lives as holes opened up in the ground - fatal par-boiling wells to fall into. He explained the luminescent qualities of certain ores, and turned out the lantern to show us the glow in the dark nature of the (thankfully non-radioactive) rare ores contained in certain rocks. At the end of the tunnel is a series of ladders reaching up a shaft towards a faint glimmering of light. The shaft exits upon a lane higher up on the hillside, a hundred feet above. The ladders criss-cross crazily, hammered into the beams bracing the walls. It’s like a Half-Life mine shaft level. I almost want to climb up it, but its the Pale Ale thinking.

Upon emerging and paying the excellent guide his well-deserved monies we formulate a plan for the afternoon. Lyryn wants do a little slot machine gambling first off. Me, Joel and Hardy collectively grumble in a murmuring manner.

Hold on, better insert a disclaimer here. Lyryn’s a fantastically amusing and witty companion, with brilliant taste and has a determined core that has allowed her to surmount the rather shitty tragedies big and small that life has flung at her with the speed and frequency of a barrell wielding Donkey Kong. She’s a great producer of musicals, has a fine singing voice and a perfect host. But put her in the same room as a dime slot machine and that’s another hour you’ve lost her for, right there. And Nevada has a hell of a lot of these sinister machines. So don’t kill me Lyryn, you’re most excellent. But this travelogue demands an ongoing gag, and the average American woman’s gambling fix presents itself as an ample opportunity.

So she hastily defines it as just a wee whim, and that mainly she wants at the book and curiosity shops. Me and Hardy want to go see the graveyard, because as any fule kno cowboy graveyards are awesome. Lyryn and Joel explain that they’ve seen the graveyard three times now, and that it holds interest for them no longer.

“Fair so. While you wander the shops and stuff me and Hardy will walk over and take a gander at this graveyard then, we can be back in an hour and a half.”

“It’s quite a walk,” warns Joel. “You’d need an hour just to get there and back.”

“We like walking. Call it two hours. When we get back we’ll hit one of the Saloons on the high street. You can find us there.”

The plan meets approval, me and Hardy head off.



Love Shacks

We follow a track along the foot of the town that passes old abandoned shacks and a giant cinder cone of dirt surrounded by JCB diggers. Up through a narrow gorge and we scrabble up the loosely packed dirt of a small hill, boots sending the parched earth and stones cascading and rattling down as we claw our way up and through a thicket. After entering the graveyard in the most inconvenient manner possible, eschewing the finely wrought open iron gates of the entrance, we begin our exploration.



The Graveyard



Boot Hill



The Golden Light


It’s a photographers paradise. Broken wooden frames border most graves, with dessicated wooden crosses. for the poor miners who died paupers, astonishingly fine and imposing statues and marble crosses for the rich burghers of the town, who mainly consist of Irish masons. You can read the history of a town in a graveyard. Men shot in duels. Children dying of polio. Syphalis from the brothels. Tuberculosis for the long-term miners. It strips a little of the golden age nostalgia from the town. Those were damn hard times.

The wind really whips it up now. My city-slicker derby hat stays planted firmly atop my head, but hilariously Hardy’s rugged bandit hat keeps flying off, and every five minutes he’s forced to run off and catch it and return, dusting it off, swearing. This is doubly amusing as Hardy had previously criticised my choice as being inappropriate for the elements of frontier life, citing his tough bandito choice as better suited for the harsh climes.

We spy a hill beyond the graveyard, a gently climb that would afford a fine view of the valley beyond. “We got time?” “Plenty.”

And so we ascend. The wind is settling down a while, as the sun comes out and beats down hard. Mopping our brows of sweat we reach the crest. Beyond we see a ranch of horses, and that single cone shaped hill jutting out of the mouth of the valley. It looks reachable, and for a while we seriously consider walking off that way and seeing what’s beyond. But time forbids, so we poke around the ridge around us. This is time well spent, as like children we crowd around and marvel at what appears to be a human bone and a bullet complete with cartridge on a stone besides. It is with great reluctance that we leave the bullet behind, and exit Reaver territory. The newly resurgent wind makes further game of Hardy hat on the way. Ha.



Wanderlust



Reavers Did It!

We walk back the proper way, and blunder catastrophically into the myopic vision of a withered old crone who calls us over. Within moments - I’m not entire sure how but she must have used terrifying old voodoo witch powers to achieve this - she’s got poor Hardy holding a hoe and hacking away at a great big root in a pothole on the pavement on the corner of her yard. Over the course of ten sweat-soaked minutes Hardy manages to chip a bit of it away, and I contribute a far feebler effort, before she sighs and rasps, “That’s enough boys.” She’s determined we have a reward. Thoughts of sour candy and iodine surface. She points at the house across the road. Apparently there are trinkets to be bought inside, but more importantly, famously good bramble jam. “Just say my name!” she squarks triumphantly, “Just say my name!”



You Better Dig Boy!

We don’t feel like bramble jam. But she’s staring at us as we cross the road, and her piercing glare makes sure we damned well go in. If we don’t emerge with a carrier bag, no doubt we’ll be slain by the gaze of a gorgon. We potter about a bit, rooting through old badges and yearbooks. Now and then we glance through the window to see if she’s gone back inside. Nope, she’s still there. Sigh.

“How much is the blackcurrent jam?” I ask the middle-aged woman with her hair up in a scarf, Dutch style.

“Blackcurrent jelly? Five dollars.”

It does look quite nice actually. Thick and dark and pure. I mention that the lady across has sent us, raising my eyebrows in the universal sign language of the discount.

“Yeah, I saw you trying and failing out there. Anyway, all the jelly’s are five dollars. Homemade,” she adds proudly.

Discount my ass. Still, looks like good jam. I buy some. Later upon my return to Cardiff I give the jam to the beautiful music library assistant Ellie, enamoured with her Americana ways, excellent song-writing ability and gypsy rose good looks. She likes the jam. Success.

Back at the Old Washoe Club. We’re propping up the bar. Now there’s nothing quite like propping up an American bar. In the UK sitting at the bar watching the world go by nets you faintly disgusted stares from some staff, weary sighs from others. In this golden land you can happily sit and drink and not say much of anything. There’s a sort of easy feeling that frees you to ponder big thoughts over a pint or a shot. The old grizzled prospector serves us drinks with curt nods, offering no chit-chat. He looks a mean, ornery old bastard. Excellent. A tubby stubbled guy sits next to me, resting his saxophone case against his stool. His eyes are lost under the bill of a baseball cap and he’s dressed entirely in blue demin. He’s a friendly duffer, and we get chatting.

“You know one of you guys I really admired. That Lady Thatcher. Primeminister,” he says in his gravelly drawl. “She stood by us firm.”

Emboldened I shake my head. “I’m afraid she’s not popular where I’m from. We’re not fans.”
“Really?” he ask, surprised at the possibility that the Iron Lady could be unpopular, nay despised. “Why?”

“You see how there used to be a lot of mines and industry around here?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well there used to be a lot of that where I come from in the North of England, and where I live now, in Wales. There were mines and factories all over once. By the time she left office, it’d all gone. Didn’t do nothing to help those thrown out of work either, she was all about the big city business.”

The man grunted sadly. “I liked her for her foreign policy. Never heard of her for domestic. I can understand.”

This expression of empathy moved me greatly, and I tinged my glass with his in a comradely manner. We talked of his life moving around America before settling in Virginia City, of the Vietnam war and of mining. Until eventually beer in hand he slid off his stool and picked up his saxophone.

“Well,” he said, “better get to it, nice talking with you son.” He walked over to the little stage in the corner, joined by another man with a guitar, and played country-folk - original or no I have no idea. I popped six bucks in the bucket. The music had earned them a beer apiece.



Saxo-mo-phone, Saxo-mo-phone

We drank a good two hours in that place, and stumbled out pleasantly mid-afternoon with Lyryn and Joel. Lyryn suggested the Julia C Bullette Red Light Museum - the Museum of Prostitution - and who was I to argue with this excellent suggestion? The Red Light Museum inhabits the basement of a saloon, where a brothel used to be. Julia Bullette used to be a favoured soiled dove of Virginia City. Her history is worth recounting...

When Julia arrived at Virginia City in 1859, she found herself the only non-married white woman in town. Consequently she was greatly sought after by the miners, and so she capitalised on the oldest game - charging an incredible $1000 for her services a night. This probably goes to show just how desperate teh miners were, and just how flush with the money they were from the greatest silver lode in history. Julia was slim, tall and dark of hair and quite the looker apparently, and rather the wit. As her looks faded she invested her money in setting up a brothel, tastefully done in the best style. She amassed a workforce of young girls imported from San Francisco and dressed them and herself in the Parisian style. Her French ancestry compelled her to serve fine French cuisine also. She quickly became adored by the miners, not least because of her strong character that led her to convert the brothel into a hospital in times of disaster. She also refused to leave and stayed by the miners when the threat of Indian raids had caused most of the women to seek shelter in Carson City. She lived in style, and walked the streets wearing sable furs and jewells, and travelled in a luxurious carriage. She was made an honoury member of the Virigina Fire Engine No. 1, and was elected Queen of the Independence Parade, riding the engine in a fireman’s hat with a brass trumpet full of roses. In return she donated much to the local fire service, and even took a turn at the water pump from time to time.

Alas, her end was not a happy one. One night after attending Piper’s Opera House she retired to her bedroom and was murdered by a French drifter named John Millain, who had strangled and bludgeoned her to death and made off with her jewells and furs. The funeral was a lavish one and the mines, mills and saloons closed as a mark of respect. The militia played her out and she was buried in the same cemetary myself and Hardy wandered. Had we known earlier that afternoon we would have undoubtably made a point of searching for her stone. As for Millain, he was caught within the year and hung. Mark Twain was present.

The museum is both gaudy and amusing, even in the tragic details. A window offers a view into a room where mannequins indulge in a back-room abortion, complete with barbaric looking instruments and plenty of blood. I check for Pro-Lifer sponsership. Glass cabinets adorn the walls with erotic instruments of old, such as the Sears and Roebuck ‘Arctic Vibrator’ and the rival company ‘Polar Cub Vibrator’. I have no idea why they are named that, I wish I had been a fly on the wall for those brain-storming marketing meetings. Everywhere, Victorian erotic art is resplendant upon the walls. It seems that prostitution can be a class act.

Ho ho, just joking folks! Of course as a man of the 21st century, I deplore such sleeze.

It was now coming up on evening. We headed back to camp to freshen up and then hit the town. First off was food at the Cafe Del Rio, a Mexican restaurant housed within an old adobe mud-brick building. Very nicely decorated with abstract wall art and with good food on offer. Leaving the place we were enchanted to find it snowing heavily, Hardy literally dancing happily amongst the snow-flakes. The sky was slate grey and the neon lights of the parking lot across from us glowed wetly in the cool night.



Wahey! Snow! God bless us everyone!

We walked down the street and hit some saloon bars. The Silver Dollar is naturally loaded with gambling machines and the walls are covered in glass panels filled with (possibly fake) silver dollar pieces. The Bucket of Blood is a fine establishment, so called because every morning when they mopped the floor after a hard night’s drinking and brawling by the miners there’d be a good quart of blood in the bucket. Then there’s the Delta Saloon, home of...

The Suicide Table.

What? Yes. This is it. The Suicide Table. Der Table of Tot. The very one.

Monumentally disappointing. Sorry guys, but no whirling razor blades. No electricuting cables, no clouds of cyanida gass dispensing from hidden nozzles. It gained its name and its fame instead from bringing fatal bad luck to the three men who owned it. The first man named Black Jake lost $70,000 playing cards one evening and shot himself. The next lost a great deal and either killed himself or was killed by his creditors. Either way he checked out. The last seemed to be doing well for a while, until a drunken miner came in one night and in an astonishingly wild streak of luck won interest in a mine, a team of horses and $86,000 off the poor man. With obvious consequences. From then on no one wanted the table, but equally it was such a part of local legend nobody wanted to get rid of it. Instead it was preserved under a glass case, and now sits under a big plaque in the Delta Saloon, mastermind of the greatest marketing campaign in Nevada history.

So yes, me and Hardy were a bit non-plussed with the lack of killer instruments. But still, it’s a cool story. We don’t begrudge you nothing, Delta Saloon old boy.

Later, back at the Gold Hill Hotel the four of us sit in the hotel bar. It’s a cosy, timber walled place with foreign currency nailed all over the ceiling and a tiny TV showing baseball in the corner. It’s lively, and we’re having a great time, until me and Hardy reach for the Blue Moon beer. It tastes of orange, and for some reason it gives us both crashing depression. Possibly the bluest drink I’ve ever had, as far as depressants go.Time for bed I think.

It’s a bit chilly wrapped up in the thin blanket, and the coyotes howl outside, but once again I am truly happy in this rickety-rackety old miner’s cabin. Last day in town tomorrow and we hope to make our way after lunch to Lake Tahoe. Wonder if the snow will settle? Good night all.

Good lord, I wrote all that? *Choke* I think that's busted my longest forum post ever record...

God dammit, why does Jordan get to write books when wor Pete has to scrape by as a shoe shiner?

JUSTICE! I DEMANDS IT!

Bravo Pete. That was awesome (again)

He need massive placky num nums.

Awesome read that, Pete.

Ta for the nice words. Hope more get to read this, the epic of which the Times has called, "A stirring penetration of America's soul," and the New Yorker describes as "a potent travelogue of the psyche as well as the soil, few Pulitzer prizes are as richly deserved," in my head.

I've already remembered two things that were supposed to be in there that I'd forgotten though! I'll have to re-edit!

I have to shelve Jordan books as well. That hurts.

When Rich "KKK" Hall asked you how you liked your coffee, you should responded "I take it Black....Like my men". That would have gone down well.

Excellent stuff as usual Pete.

Out of interest what cup size are you, Pete?

I don't know. Patti Smith size. What do you think I should go for? You can be my literary agent. Recommend a block-busting size, Zardoz.

Glad to see that you lot liked it and didn't find it becoming, for example, too 'get a load of these guys!'. The burnt Montanna-Red of folk's skin in that place is fascinating to behold, I don't know if they notice it anymore. People age real fast out there. I felt really good last night writing that. It gathered a real nice momentum after I'd busted through the first seven hundred words or so. I shall do more again soon, but alas I don't remember as much from Tahoe, I didn't really meet any characters there. Though the scenery was quite beautiful.

In preperation for my next trip I'm becoming steadily obsessed with a smal town called Chemult in Oregon, about thirty miles south of Bend. It has a population of 300, yet despite being far smaller than Bend (74,000) and Redmond (16,000) it's the only town for hundreds of miles that has a train station. I don't understand America at all. This train runs down from Seattle to California once a day, and is called the Coastlight Express. It's a sleeper train with rather a romantic name. I really want to visit there. I've no idea why beyond it being a very small place near a lake in deep forest, and possibly slightly Twin Peaksy. I just feel like it would be good 'material', so when I go to the US I reckon I'll let 'em know that I'm going to take a night out to go down to this place.

Though it would be quite cool to catch the train up to Seattle as well and catch the bus to where they do Twin Peaks.

'cos of the popularity of the travelogue, and the fact that I'm having great fun writing it, and because of my need to remember as much of the trip as possible before its lost in the mists of time, I'm going to take a full on Molskein book with me next time and fill it with observations as I spend this holiday. It'll make a really good journal.

Roll on end of October, say I.

Or the pilot, at least. Everything after that was a set in L.A. and in the woods surrounding that particular Earth anus.

Hmm it's tricky. For launch you need gimmicky tits, not too big at first, as you'll want to build on them. Maybe you should have 34c's. Three of them. And change your name slightly to Peter 'Three Tits' Bender, or PB Threetits, you choose.

I think the second choice. It's more 'J D Salinger'. Gotta keep that hi-brow market in mind. Do I have to show them on the dust jacket inside?

I feel the hat needs more praise. That is a fine hat, sir.

They should be embossed, possibly with gold-leaf lingerie detail on there.

You need to figure out your costume for signings now.

PS I haven't actually read the latest installment yet, am saving it

No just the one. Tastefully.

Virginia City & Lake Tahoe



Brrr.


I wake up and it is chill, the metal frame of the camp bed being cold to the touch. We’d turned the air-conditioning and heating off due to the jet-turbine volume and we were now paying the price. There’s two inches of snow outside. I can scarce believe that the previous morning an uncompromising sun beat down with a hot, white glare upon Virginia City. Now the corrugated metal rattles in the wind. I wrap myself snugly inside the blankets.

Today we leave Virginia City and make for Lake Tahoe. Glancing around at the scrub covered hills and the shacks and the ruins I know already I’ll miss the place deeply. We check out of Gold Hill and drive into town to get breakfast. Hardy and I decide to do some last minute exploring while Lyryn and Joel enjoy a second and third coffee. A wind is whipping down the valley hillside, driving sleet down the slopes of a town that huddles under a milky white sky. The street is a wind-tunnel, and at the intersections locals struggle to keep their balance. Determined to explore the upper reaches we stomp off up the hill, passing the garish yellow and red building that is (or was) Piper’s Opera House. Next to it is an empty derelict in which a man once hung himself. Last night we stood outside the window, staring into the gloom within, trying to make out if the chandelier was moving. Local talk has it that the chandelier from which the man hung himself sways of its own accord from time to time. Joel and Lyryn swear they saw it move once, on a trip a year or so before. Last night the poor spirit failed to oblige. We walk on.



Blustery is not the word...


There are some truly beautiful houses in Virginia City, and like in any old industrial town they are high up on the hill - built to be above the fug. One is painted blue with white trim and has a little of the American gothic about it. Across from it is a vacant overgrown lot with an outhouse stood off kilter. The door has a crescent moon peep hole cut into it. Further up there’s a massive and solid looking red and rusted iron safe. The house has gone from around it. Presumably the safe could not be shifted.

It’s time to go. We roll out of town, me and Hardy waving like children out the back window. Winding down the slope with dread Reno on the skyline once again, I ask if I can nip out and take a photo of the vista. This gives them the opportunity to do the hilarious time-old 'driving off without me’ joke. Yeah, awful funny folks. Awful funny. Ha ha yes. Awful.



Those wags...

We’re hammering along the ring road that circles Reno, resisting every attempt it makes at fooling us into taking the wrong exit and falling into its neon clutches once again. I ask what the rush is, as we seem to be driving ridiculously fast. “We’ve got to hit the mountain pass before the snow gets so bad that the state troopers turn us back.” Lyryn scans the radio bands for weather news. Joel has a face fixed with steely road-block defying determination. Hardy and I don’t get the beef, after all - we were thousands of feet up in Virginia City and there we found only a couple of inches of snow, right? And now the Nevada sun on high roasts the valley basin like before. We have our windows down and the warm desert air washes over us.

Past the little pit of desert that is Reno, we began to climb the hillside road, directly across the valley from those great Comstock hills. The drive is a steep one. The state troopers are ahead, the gate is open yet a foot of snow smothers the roadside and orange warning lights blink. The radio warns the pass is going to be closed any moment. Joel shifts gears and we begin our long slog up the hill. We haven’t got snow-chains. Lyryn assures us that this is a bad thing and that we better start praying. There is the thought of turning back, but those Lake Tahoe motel rooms are booked - and hey! Lake Tahoe, come on! That’s where Tom Jones crooned at the end of Mars Attacks.



The snow gets deeper. The four wheel drive struggles for purchase. It is touch and go for this old car as claws its way up the steep road. The falling snowflakes swirl thickly around us. The air has got very cold, very fast and the cabins amongst the trees I can make out through the misted glass seem to be snowed in to a depth of several feet. We make the crest of the hill with a great labouring of engine and begin the drive down. This is terrifying. There are sheer drops on one side of the road and Joel keeps on having to pump the break to prevent us sliding out of control. We’d slow to a crawl but we can’t. The snow’s falling thick and fast and if we don’t move quickly we might not get through. The snow that’s now at least a few inches deep on the road begins to blank out the edges of the road – and still the white miasma just keeps on falling. I begin to pray. I know now what they say about there being no atheists in fox-holes.

And then... and then we’re down through the cloud layer and the most awe-inspiring view presents itself. Before us lays a great lake egg-shell blue ringed by a white-capped mountain range and the dark regal green of Douglas Firs. Lake Tahoe is beautiful.

It’s a while longer before we finally get down to the checking-in hut beside the little cabin complex. The ice is thick upon the parking lot macadam and my legs almost slide out from under me. It is incredibly cold. Again, I cannot believe that an hour and a half ago we were driving in the baking sun. The woman in the hut is apologetic. The rooms we reserved at the lake motel are no longer available. Before we can utter word one of protest, she cheerfully offers us the keys to a first class little lakeside cabin to make up for it. Unknown receptionist woman at Lake Tahoe, I treasure your benignly smiling memory always.



Frustrated bear, that.

The cabin is beside a sculpture of a bear humping a log - odd that. The eaves of the cabin house icicles the length of brooms and the thickness of an arm. I have never seen icicles so big. Lyryn and Joel get the bedroom and once again and Hardy and I test the comfort of the lounge-beds. They pass muster. Outside the front of the cabin a veranda leading down to the lake shore and a row of sun-lounges covered in snow. Boulders dot the beach the rock pools are iced over. I’ve never seen snow settled on a beach before. It’s fascinating. We’ve two nights at the cabin. I can’t wait to go exploring.



Aw, you guys!

That afternoon we walk the lake shore. I’m grinning like an idiot because I still can’t quite believe that I’m there. We lark about and take photos before giving thought as to the evening’s entertainment.

“What’s the plan?” I ask.

“We head off to an all-you-can-eat restaurant and have some beers.”

“I love you Lyryn.”

“Thank you.”

“Is the restaurant above a casino with slot machines, by any chance?”

“... maybe...”



An afternoon walk along the shore...

The cabin lays half way up the East shore. The casino squats at South Shore Tahoe, a town that is split in two by the California and Nevada state line. It's easy to see where the line intersects. The towering casinos half suddenly to be replaced my little gas stations, chalets and 'mom and pop' stores. It doesn't look far on the cute little map we were given at the Chalet, which is in fact as detailed and accurate as the Krusty Burger franchise map. But the lake is huge at twenty miles long and eleven miles wide. The drive takes a while and I'm ravenous. It is dark when we arrive. The casino is monumentally ugly. It is a big concrete thing. Beside it is a gleaming obsidian thing - also a casino. This one looks like the sort of place the materialistic Satan worshippers at the end of a particularly apocalyptic Stephen King novel would end up at. If the architecture is any reflection on the cuisine, I'm not hopeful.

But I am hungry. Up we go up to the top floor of Harrah's Casino. I recall Harrah was a frugal and canny desert dwelling Fremen in Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic Dune. I expect there's no relation. The queue to the restaurant is long and populated by excitable Chinese tourists for some reason. Finally we get a seat near the window.

And my God…. the food is delicious. I take it all back Harrah's Casino. You have justified your existence with a delicious all you can eat that covers just about every type of food under the sun for a low, low price. You want curry? Sushi? Italian? British roast? All here for your enjoyment and embiggerment. Myself, I hit the salmon and sea food with hot buttery new potatoes and salad. I am gorging and I know I'm going to regret it. In between dishes I glance out the window. It commands a fine view of the lake. Rain spatters against the glass and I'm staring idly out when all of a sudden the clouds part and the heavens shine through, illuminating the far shore in a golden beam of light that's so beautiful it chokes me. Hands shaking, I grab my camera and take the shot. I almost dare not look to see if I captured it right, as all too quickly the clouds close in once again and the heavenly light fades.



Phew, it worked.

Stuffed until we can eat no more Lyryn suggests a spot of gambling. Me, Hardy and Joel decide to go play the arcade machines on the kid's basement floor instead. I weep with joy as I see old Pacman machines and the like. Happy childhood memories flood my memory-noggin', only to be quickly choked off by the rush of appalled realisation at what half of these arcade machines actually are. These are juvenile gambling machines that the tots are lining up to play! True, the prizes are letter-of-the-law-avoiding stuffed toys and what-not, but the buttons marked 'Hold' and the roulette wheels and the like are clearly primers for the next generation of gamble-junkies. I am suffused with indignation. Then Joel offers a game on Time Crisis 2, and I immediately forget about it. National pride is on the line now. I have to prove to an American that in a nation where a hand-gun is illegal, we young Brits can still pass muster at shooting fictional terrorists wearing brightly coloured jim-jams. Thankfully, I do quite well - but nowhere near as good as Joel who rips through them with a steely eyed hawk-like accuracy. Eventually becoming slightly self-conscious being alone in a room full of bawling chiddlers, we decide to quit the children's crèche and go out for some air.

Attached to Harrah's is another casino called Harvey's. Now, I didn't know this at the time but this building has a fascinating history. On August 27th, 1980, a massive explosion ripped through the building that gouged out a fifty by thirty feet crater and blew out every window of the two hundred and fifty rooms within. The blast also severely damaged the adjoining Harrah's Casino. What caused this explosion? Six hundred pounds of dynamite, that’s what. It wasn't a scheduled demolition; it was the biggest home-made bomb on American soil until the 1993 World Trade Centre attack. It had been planted inside a fake IBM counting machine that was delivered to the building by mad millionaire John Birges, who'd lost $750,000 on the tables at Harvey's and was out for revenge. Attached was a ransom note demanding three million dollars. It also warned that the bomb was on a timer and would explode if moved - and that the only way to move it to a safe place was to flip a certain switch that would be identified upon payment. The FBI evacuated the hotel casino, rather thoughtfully retrieving and sending on every guest's luggage as well. A helicopter piloted by a lone agent and containing fake money circled the hills searching for the drop-off beacon Birges had set up but failed to find it. Bomb experts from all over flew in to try and deactivate the bomb. Eventually it was decided that a remote destruction of the upper firing-mechanisms would be the best way to render the bomb safe. But Birges was a canny beggar. He'd rigged the bomb with a secondary device ready to explode if anything was tampered with. The bomb went off. Happily, no one was killed or injured. The helicopter never found the beacon, which was a relief as the FBI strongly suspected that the mad Birges would have attempted to kill the pilot and fly the helicopter to God-knows-where. Eventually Birges was caught after one of his teenage sons told his girlfriend that his dad had planted it there. The girlfriend then split with the boy and told her new beau at the drive-in. With a $250,000 reward posted the new boyfriend's eyes did the cartoon-cash-register ka-ching and the youth skedaddled to tell the police.

Birges at first denied everything, but then started babbling about how he hadn't done it, 'but if I had this is how I would have done it.' Sadly for Birges, an OJ Simpson style book deal was not in the offing and he was found guilty and jailed for life. His two sons, who knew about the attempt, testified against him in exchange for freedom. No honour amongst thieves, eh?

There are no plaques outside Harvey's or Harrah's commemorating the bombing. The simple reason why no one remembers is that no had died, and the world of casino entertainment is a hungry, myopic beast that looks forward only to the future. I'm happy to pass on the tale though. I think its a cracking story of can-do American free-enterprise.

Now on a street quiet in the late hours of night a line of trucks line up behind a gigantic snow-plough more akin to a combine harvester. It has a gaping maw of whirring teeth and as it ploughs through the snow it spits the accumulation into the truck behind, which quickly peels off to be replaced by a fresh empty one. It's an impressive operation. I had wondered how they kept the roads clear round the lake. Me, Hardy and Joel try and search for a bar that isn't attached to a casino filled with light, klaxons and buzzers and sad eyes. We fail. We head back to Harrah's, thankful for the crisp night air and the stretching of legs. Lyryn is happy. She has won a tidy sum. Back to the chalet fully sated and groggy. By the time we pull in at the parking lot I'm already fast asleep in the car.

Next time: Richard Milhouse Nixon's Winter Funland

Superb!

I really enjoy reading these, Pete. Thanks.

Very good Mr NervousPete!

That bear creeps me out though. I can't work out if it's trying to hump the tree, trying really hard to shit in the woods, experiencing a transcendent moment of zen-like calm, or about to unleash a wave of screaming, howling ursine fury upon the world.

Glad I waited to read this and not squinted at it on my phone.

Awesome as always, Pete the Prose.

Lake Tahoe & Squaw Valley


This week: Too much information about obscure 1960's sporting events and bears! Roargh!



Did I ever mention the awesome ensemble I'd thrown together in America? Derby hat, brown shirt, brown tie, canvas coloured jeans and boots. I looked like some sort of Nazi brownshirt gone West. Or some sort of 'faggott' as one of our angrier less enlightened American cousins would have it. I rocked that look on the shores of Tahoe. Maybe it was this that led a man at a bar to start mouthing off about 'Goddamn Limeys' when I ordered a drink. He looked a bit like Cliff from Cheers. A real barfly. He'd sounded quite threatening, but secretly I was kind of thrilled - I was being insulted in the most genteel way I'd ever been insulted in a bar. I was a 'Goddamn Limey'. Presumably an advance scout for Queen Elizabeth, ready to wrest this country back and queer it with our limp, overly mannered ways. His friend tried to hush him up, I grinned much like Marwood in that scene in the pub in Withnail & I - the helpless grin. Then I took my drink and played some pool. Hands balling into fists, teeth gritted, he wanted me to act chalantly, but I was having none of it.



"I'm Quite the Thing, don'tcha know?"

It's impossible to keep a hot temper at Lake Tahoe. For one it is freezing round there. Get in an argument at a bar, take it outside and you end up hugging for warmth. Break a chair over someone's head and they don't get mad at you, they carefully pick up the pieces and throw it on the fire. Drive by shootings are thwarted by the occupants having to de-ice the windows before they can wind them down, then struggle with great big mittens as they try and squeeze the trigger. By that time the targets gone and the gunman has to flag down the patrol car to get a jump-start. It's not an environment that invites crime. Unless you're trying to blow up a casino, of course.



There's a spider in the woodpile Quentin!

Plus, unlike Virginia City, it's really not that sort of place. Bars are far and few between on the shore line. Instead there are a thousand holiday retreats, each one an island from its neighbours, nestled beneath forbidding trees and smothered in great mounds of snow, as if a giant ice-cream scoop has creamed the white off the mountains and dolloped it over their homes. They're the sort of gingerbread houses that Frasier and Niles repair to when they wish to 'rough it'. Log cabins with three floors - though to be fair the ostentation makes sense. Under that weight of snow the third floor is the ground floor. These aren't the sort of people who go to bars. Even if they wanted to, they'd freeze before the first marker. I imagine they conduct parties like that one in Wham's 'Last Christmas' video, romancing whilst wearing exciting cardigans.

Or possibly they just come in summer, rendering my theories void. Anyway.

Snow higher than waist deep. Entire roads not only blocked but actively ceasing to exist - now part of an unbroken mountain slope. That's not the only reason to stay indoors. Beware the bears.



The Bear Centre

There are over six hundred black bears prowling around the shores of Lake Tahoe. There are another two thousand up in the hills. There are thirty thousand state wide. Recently bears have taken to using the crawl space under house decking as a place for hibernation. These bears are increasingly breaking from hibernation to raid food on garbage day, or smash their way into kitchens while the homeowners are away. Bears will eat and drink anything, but they usually home in on the delicacies. Chocolate, soda and jam is popular. One bear broke into a basement and drank all the champagne. It's a growing problem, one that isn't helped by a lack of enforcement of state ordnance. One family may place all their garbage in bear-proof lock-ups. Others may actively leave out honey for the bears. As charming as this sounds, bears that find food around humans quickly become habituated to them. They'll break into the car boots and tear open the tents of campers. We went to a centre dedicated to educating both tourists and locals about the blessings and dangers of the black bear. There was some stunning nature photography there and a school exhibition of art painted by school kids - usually of bears rooting through trash under rainbows. They'd clearly had run ins themselves.

Black bears by nature aren't aggressive, unless defending their cubs. Recommended behaviour upon happening upon one varies depending on whether you are trespassing on its territory, or it is on yours. If you happen upon a bear in the wild, make eye contact but don't stare. Back slowly away but do not run. Try and make yourself as big as possible. Make as much noise as possible. If in the yard be aggressive and shout and advance slowly, banging pots and pans if to hand. You have to teach that bear that this land is occupied. Always leave an exit for the bear. They will frequently climb a tree if frightened, apparently.

Excellently, the centre also advises: "Though attacks are very rare, if you are attacked, FIGHT BACK AGGRESSIVELY!"

Goes without saying, surely?

We didn't have any troubles with bears though. Shame, after all I had my camera.

Lake Tahoe is relentlessly stunning in its scenery but beyond this for those without much cash there isn't actually that much to do beyond walk, gawp, take photos and drink in whichever affordable bar that offers itself. We tried a restaurant beside a marina but suffered such a criminally long wait for our orders to be taken that we upped and left. I was pleased to find a charity shop in one shoreside hamlet, for those are surprisingly rare in America. Nevertheless the stand out night was staying in and watching The Shawshank Redemption, drinking beer and eating pizza. Then we went out onto the beach and looked up at the stars. Those incredible, beautiful, impossible to count stars.



If only all places were so purdy...


I miss Lake Tahoe, but its charms are almost exclusively dependent on nature. It is not a happening place.

The day we left we decided to stop off at Squaw Valley, a ski-resort up in the mountains above the lake. This was the sight of the eighth Winter Olympic Games in 1960. Now back then before that glorious olympiad, Squaw Valley was nothing. It was a town with no mayor and the ski skope had one chairlift, two rope tows and a dinky fifty room lodge. It was owned by an enthusiastic chap with a gift of the gab called Alexander Cushing. For full enjoyment of this chapter, permission is given to imagine Peter Cushing in his stead. Cushing wanted his one horse resort to be the best, but for it he needed funding. For funding he needed interest. For interest he needed a big event. For a big event he needed the Winter Olympics, which needed the best. Classic Wyld Stallyns / Eddie Van Halen conundrum. He solved the problem by getting in some heavy duty publicity champions on his side. His first call to the newspapers announcing his intentions were met with hysterical laughter, but he persevered and found friends. The influential San Francisco Chronicle backed him, as did a Pulitzer Prize winning famed writer and various sporting celebrities and a French war hero. He tirelessly glad-handed and cajoled, finding unlikely backing in a bunch of South American delegates who were entirely ignorant of winter sports but fired by his can-do enthusiasm. He bullied a US Ambassador into allowing a giant three thousand pound-weight model of the proposed Olympic Squaw Valley Venue into the US Embassy grounds in Paris so the local Olympic committee members could have a gander. Many considered him a joke, but so confident were they of the traditional choice of Innsbruck and so dangerously neglectful in their contempt for Cushing's proposal that their own lobbying efforts were feeble and unfocused.



"No, Mr Bond, I expect you to compete!"

The Parisian committee, after a moving and tearful speech from Cushing promising to give the Olympics back to the world by celebrating diversity and simple, honest athletics, miraculously voted yes. Stunned disbelief from a shocked sporting world.

It was a close thing, but the venue facilities were completed just in time and remarkably on budget. In four and a half years access roads, an oval speed skating rink, chairlifts, ice rink, housing for athletes, a huge hotel, a ski jump and a visitors centre were constructed. Then - horror. No snow. It had been an unprecedented non-snowy season for Tahoe. All looked lost. And then, on the day the Greek delegation turned up a massive snow storm closed in. It dumped its load on the slopes and then the dark clouds broke to reveal brilliant sunshine, just as the opening ceremony was about to begin. Walt Disney was the overseer of the pageantry and released two thousand doves into the cold air, which all presumably immediately froze stiff in the perishing cold and crash landed. Vice President Richard Nixon gave his beady eyed and jowly welcome to the attendees, pressing sweating yellow flesh into their palms before kicking a dog, presumably. Perhaps the most beautiful event those wildly successful games enjoyed was in the contest between America and Russia in ice hockey. A thrilling match between the two superpowers had America win three goals to two. But America still had Soviet Russia's ally Czechoslovakia to beat in the final. America was flagging, they were fighting heroically but the Czechs were in the lead. Then, to everyone's mind-boggled surprise, the Russian team Captain Nikolai "Solly" Sologubov approached the American team in the interval and suggested to them that they each take a gulp from an oxygen tank to combat the altitude-exhaustion. They followed his advice and with the added fuel this hit provided proceeded to win nine - four against the Czechs and claimed their first gold medal in ice hockey. A cheery 'Solly' appeared on the following day's edition of the New York Times shaking hands with the American coach. It is a curious thing that despite the daggers stared between both super-powers, American and Russian hockey teams then - and ever since - have been the best of friends.





"They must all be as rich as Grim...!"

Lyryn and Joel didn't fancy the ten dollars ski-lift up to the resort; a winter fortress like that one out of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Me and Hardy ascended into the heavens. It was a nice place, all sleek UN Building lines. You could easily imagine jump-suited ninjas and an evil Telly Savalas battling the US Marines there. There was a big picture of Nixon and this obliged the two of us to do bad jowl shaking Futurama-style impressions. "Ffffflabitissss!" (Say, what is that anyway?) There were also quite a lot of fit lasses in ski suits wandering around. Yum. Not that we could really see them though. Me and Hardy stepped outside following one and were immediately blinding by the dazzling light spearing into our eyes from every snow-covered surface. Pain following our every outside movement, we beat a retreat back inside. But not before we noticed that - as ever - where rich white American ladies and gents play unfortunate Hispanic wage-slaves are there to toil en masse; this time shovelling ice off the paths and into the heated pool.



"Que?"

Lake Tahoe and Squaw Valley done and dusted, we piled back into the car for our return to Bend - land of high plains, lava formations, prairie scrubland and utterly beautiful beer. Bend, home of the delightful 2nd Street Theatre and Baldie's Restaurant. Bend, home of the dormant cinder-cone. Yep, Lake Tahoe is certainly a cool place... but it is certainly difficult to warm to. Ho ho! ("Kill him," - ed.) I much prefer the vibrant, rather drunk times of that little city called Bend. Ich bin ein Bender!

*Cough*

Superb, yet again.

That last picture is fantastic btw, really surreal (one of the few I haven't seen before).

Awesome stuff, Pete.

I need a hat, I think