Gambling with Death

Thursday July 15th At eight am we were on the road again, destination – the Great Salt Lake. We were told that this lake was second only to the Dead Sea in terms of its salt content. Things like this are good to know when confronted with such an unimpressive sight. It was a grubby, dismal, barren place and the water smelt. I paddled a good half mile into the lake – Keyton's ever-hopeful gene – but the water failed to reach much higher than my knees. Maybe I should be grateful. Much higher and I could have walked out, my cojones dried and salted. I took one final look before boarding the bus. The shoreline swarmed with millions of tiny sand-flies, souls captured by Mormons in their great genealogical quest. Then on to The Great Salt Desert where we lunched. I hate to use the phrase coming up now. My crit partners would shoot me dead on the spot. But this was awesome, and it was here I momentarily gambled with death. I just wanted to experience utter loneliness, to see what it might be like to get totally and irrevocably lost. I walked out into the desert. I walked a good mile, every so often looking back to see the bus, a rapidly diminishing speck. I walked on and on until that speck could barely be seen. And then finally the point was reached where the bus couldn’t be seen at all. Here I kicked a large arrow into the ground, pointing the way back and walked a few paces farther on. Then I spun round like some demented hippy, a dervish on speed, and as suddenly stopped. I looked round, scanning sky, the blistering whiteness and savoured the silence. I stayed until I felt the first trickle of fear and then set about locating my arrow. For a minute or two I panicked, walking faster and faster, wondering where the hell the bus was: And then the welcoming speck, and the promise of bourbon. I’d lived a western dream.                                                           

 

Back on the bus we played cards – Sweaty Betty if I remember – with a slug of bourbon for stakes. We were heading into gambling country. On crossing the state line into Nevada we were all given a book of vouchers entitling us to free drinks and games in a nearby casino. 

A most gorgeous, raven haired woman controlled the Black Jack table. She operated without expression like a beautifully efficient automaton. I’d have married her on the spot. Instead I lost dollars on a crap game I never understood. It didn’t matter. It was enough just to watch her face and that little stick of hers moving chips across a long green board. Wells Campsite was also beautiful but in a different way. Greg, Gary, Roland and myself drove off-site to the nearby town of Wells to buy alcohol for our nightly punch. 

Wells is a crossroads in the desert, the gateway to so much endeavour and tragedy in the old west. Times change. Now there was a whole coach-load of Jewish folk in the liquor store – all from New York. Provisions bought we whiled away an hour in a small casino bar where I drank and Greg, with more experience, gambled.

 

Bear Lake and Salt Lake City

Wednesday July 14 Salt Lake City I hate early starts but with Aventours and a country the size of America you had little choice. Today we had breakfast at seven and to compound the misery I was on dishwashing duty with Sharon and Kim. We had great fun but I wasn’t looking forward to eating from those plates later in the day. We were not great dish-washers. After packing we were on the road once more, heading for Bear Lake in Utah followed by Salt Lake City. Bear Lake was a magical lunch spot, and mercifully we didn’t need plates. I was beginning to worry about the reaction when we eventually did. The lake itself was a beautiful turquoise and according to legend a lake monster lurked in its depths. The story originated from a compendium of sightings compiled by Joseph C Rich a leading C19th Mormon who later admitted the stories were false. An untruthful Mormon. Be still my beating heart. Still the story had traction. Other sightings followed, some describing it as a large walrus, others as a prehistoric lizard, and a few describing it as a larger than average carp. We saw nothing – though the last reported sighting was in 2004. 

I think we’d have been quite happy spending the entire day at Bear Lake, swimming, diving from rocks, just messing around, but Salt Lake City beckoned. There we toured the Temple grounds, saw a film on their founding prophet, and were invited to stroke marble-effect pillars made purely from wood. There were better ways to spend an afternoon, but there wasn’t a bar in sight.

Walking around, I felt like an extra in Stepford City – only no one had given me the diazepam. It had to be Valium. It had to be. I couldn’t figure it out. Sunshine and Valium. Everyone seemed so goddamned content with those smug little smiles that told us they knew something we didn’t. Maybe they did. I bought a Mormon bible for a dollar, but was later ripped off 11 dollars buying a T Shirt from a fresh-faced boy - with the smile. Beneath a late afternoon sun I consumed two milkshakes and too many ice creams watching people walk by, searching for a break in the wall of contentment. Tourists may see that in Monmouth today, an alternative Paradise. I love it. But that Wednesday, July 14th I saw it as alien, artificial, and it gave me the creeps. That night some of the group went bowling but having consumed too many milk products, I stayed in camp and spent the time talking to Evelyn, Daghmar, Sharon and Kim; drank bourbon, swatted mosquitoes. The only other highlight of this day was noting that Ron Tillet didn’t sleep in his tent that night. Can you imagine that? I’d become a canvas-flap-twitcher. I must have been really bored that day. I blame it on the milk.

Dirty talk in Jackson Hole

Tuesday July 13




Jackson Hole seen from above










Me and the pink lady were walking side by side, she still licking the ice-cream she’d bought in Yellowstone Park. Somehow she managed to talk between licks. “You know,” she said, “we’re walking on history.” I nodded, barely able to talk. My head was hurting from too much grog and the pink lady spoke in a high, dry monotone that cut through me like a knife.

“Mountain men crossed and re-crossed Jackson Hole between 1810 and 1840 catching beaver. The valley was supposedly named after the fur trapper David E. “Davey” Jackson in 1829, perhaps earlier.” She paused. Another lick. “The fur trade declined around 1840 and we don't hear about Jackson Hole again until after 1860.” Then, mercifully she disappeared, ice cream and all, and two other figures stepped into view: Roland and Veronique.

Together we walked around Jackson Lake and caught the boat back from the other side. From the boat I was able to take several dramatic shots of the Tetons.
















“You know how they got their name,” she whispered. I span round. The lady wasn’t in sight, but her voice was all around and I caught the whiff of vanilla and chocolate. I shook my head, wondering whether Roland and Veronique were privy to the same conversation. They seemed pretty quiet.

























The pink lady continued. “les Trois Tetons” Then because my French is pretty poor, she translated. “The three breasts!” Well, I’d always heard French women were different. I squinted, trying to make sense of what she’d just said; wondered how long those poor bastards had been out there alone and what else they did to beaver, but then the dirty talk ended and she became all factual.

“The Shoshone however called the mountains Teewinot,” (It sounded like dog food) “meaning many pinnacles.” Well, at least they could count. Three breasts, indeed. Then she whispered something else that made my blood run cold. “The Tetons are the youngest of all the mountain ranges in the Rocky Mountain chain. Most other mountains in the region are at least 50 million years old but the Tetons are less than 10 million and are still rising. Jackson Hole is of the same age… and is still sinking.”

Never mind. We’d be somewhere else tomorrow.

Later that afternoon, instead of going to the Hot Tubs with the rest of the group, I went to get my picture taken as a Cowboy, then celebrated with a lemonade at the Mountain High Pizza Pie with Evelyn.





I remember the pizzas were good.












That evening we all went to a barbecue at a ranch-house. It was a large sombre barn. I was one of seven hundred people being fed beef, beans, potato and coffee very, very quickly. Industrial farming feeds beef much the same way. American efficiency is wonderful. That night we had fresh grog.

Jackson Hole

Monday July 12

















I hear it’s great in Jackson Hole















Yup, mighty pretty.


















Okay, whose big idea was this?

The town square has arches on each entrance; each arch is made from elk antlers that have been naturally shed. Or so I've been told.


















We had, for us, a late breakfast at 7 am and decamped to Snake River for a day of white-water rafting. It was fast and exhilarating, and then there were the quiet moments, drifting down river past immense sandstone cliffs. It was easy to dream of Shoshone and Blackfeet, easy to dream of making this a more permanent way of life. Our time on earth is finite. What better way could there be to spend it like this? Only John Lennon was right. Life is what happens when you're busy making plans. What chance dreams?













The Pink Garter Theatre

Back in camp we soaked up the sun and lined up for the laundry. In the evening some of us went to the Rodeo but I went with Kay to the Pink Garter theatre to see ‘Little Mary Sunshine’ My God, it was funny. Or maybe the sun had got to me

It took several drinks in the bar afterwards to settle me down, and a few more at the Ranch inn just to make sure and get those damn tunes out of my head. It didn’t prevent several erotic dreams of Nancy Twinkle, but that was alright.
























Rome does things differently :) Made from the bones of 4000 Capuchin monks, all naturally shed but perhaps more macabre than Jackson Hole's bone-gate. (In response to Maria's comments below.)

A pink lady in Yellowstone

Sunday July 11th.
We woke up early this day, keen to see Yellowstone and check the fidelity of ‘Old Faithful’. The geyser was undoubtedly the star of the show, and resembled nothing so much as an ancient pagan ritual, its power drawing a silent and respectful horde, poised in photographic worship. On the moment a thousand cameras clicked, followed by a moment of silence.

No doubt people were contemplating that they were standing in the middle of a gigantic caldera, its last great volcanic eruption a mere 640,000 years ago. A woman in a pink dress stood nearby; she had an ice-cream and was taking long and contemplative licks, no doubt assessing the odds. Just five miles below us roiled a vast reservoir of magma thirty miles long, twenty miles wide, and six miles deep. Our eyes met in silent understanding. This baby could blow at any time…geologically speaking.

I tried to reassure her, to reassure myself, all without saying a word. Given its geological history the likelihood of a super-volcanic eruption occurring before she’d finished her ice-cream was 1 in 730,000 or 0.00014%

She riposted with a look. And what are the odds of winning the European lottery?

I walked away, the ground trembling beneath my feet. This woman was spooky. There was no European lottery but she knew one day I would play it. What else did she know? She watched me walk, barely hiding her contempt.

And you know what? Her face twisted into Munch-like scream, and she finished her ice-cream in a lick: catastrophic geologic events are neither regular nor predictable. They just happen.

Gloomy thoughts. Much of North America obliterated by a tourist attraction.

The problem is you never know what a geyser’s thinking. Was it brooding on past indignities? It has been used as a laundry, garments placed in the crater between eruptions - timing here being everything. With each eruption clothes shot up in the air, thoroughly washed and no doubt steam-cleaned. In an early experiment in temperature control it was found that linen and cotton fabrics were uninjured by the action of the water, but woolen clothes were torn to shreds
























Me and Doug, an Australian, walked across the steaming mudflats. It was eerie - like a nature walk on the moon, unexpectedly alien. It was also frustrating because human nature being what it is, you wanted to wander where you were not allowed to – for your own safety.


Never mind Yellowstone, nor the need for some fresh steam-cleaned underwear of our own; the bus exploded in silliness on our way to Jackson Hole, our next port of call. Alcohol, boredom and shaving foam make a deadly combination. I was still thinking of the lady in the pink dress, wondering whether the fumes clouding the mud flats, were hallucinogenic, whether they could be bottled – when Veronique attacked with a can of foaming beer.

We arrived in Jackson Hole late, and set up our tents in the dark. After dinner we made our way across to a Trek-America campfire party. We’d been told about it but rumour was our only guide. The night was pitch-black and we had only one torch, which Veronique hi-jacked because she’d heard the party was near a river. Dutch logic.

Dutch triumph.

The party was found.

My diary records how I talked to four Australians and drank their beer feeling immense guilt because I had none of my own. This is a cardinal sin but no doubt I consoled myself that the world as we knew it was due to end within 25,000 years. Perhaps sooner. The pink lady had spoken.

A storm in Wyoming

Saturday July 10th

We travelled through Wyoming to Cody, the town built by Buffalo Bill, and which now terms itself as 'the small western town with the big city attitude'. It may be true, but it’s some boast. The Wyoming plains and sky were overwhelming and we felt very small.



I am proud of these photos : )













That night we camped on the prairie, the sky gathering into a storm as we were putting up our tents. As usual I was slower than anyone else, knots and pegs mutinous in unpractised fingers. I was inside the barely erect tent when the storm broke. It was like being in the Devil’s mouth as the tent whirled and jerked with me, grasping on to the barely erect pole for all I was worth.


















After the storm - a road turned river



The storm ended as suddenly as it had begun and I glugged a quick whisky, celebrating the fact that both I and the tent remained standing. When I peeked outside, I took another celebratory drink. Sometimes slowness pays. The rest of the group, more efficien than me, had their tents up before the storm broke, and had taken refuge in the dry of the bus. As a result their tents were scattered across the prairie and the evening was spent in retrieving and drying them out.















Later some of us spent the evening drinking cheap Californian wine in a nearby laundrette. It stood where buffalo once roamed but W. F Cody saw to that and made the land safe for washing machines. My diary records that I somehow upset Sharon Lehman, a large and bouncy New Yorker with a smile like sunshine, but it doesn’t record how, or why. That’s the trouble with diaries. They can bring back memories of how I saved a tent, but not something as important as that.

Chief Crazy Horse

The British empire ruled over relatively few people. For the most part it governed Nig-Nogs, Chinks, Fuzzy Wuzzies; and, closer to home, Paddies and Jocks, Taffies; even the English soldiery didn’t escape such labelling, referred to as scum by many of their commanders. Today we have Chavs.

Labels disguise or sweeten unpalatable truths and they allow one race or nation to more easily fight and steal from another. It’s easier to kill a Hun than a German father or boy.

So Americans napalmed ‘gooks’, Germans gassed ‘Yids’ or ‘Kikes’ and justified their eastern expansion by referring to Poles as Dungvolken, the Slavs as subhuman. In 1982, in a speech to the Knesset, Prime Minister Menachem Begin said, “The Palestinians are beasts walking on two legs.” A year later, Raphael Eitan, then-Israeli army chief of staff told the New York Times, “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”

In the C19th the tribes and nations of America were designated savages. In the C20th broken and sectioned in reservations, these same savages became Chugs.

At least they had souls. That was established in 1537 in response to Spanish colonists who wanted the ultimate excuse to treat them as beasts. The Church in its wisdom ruled otherwise, the Papal Bull Sublimus Deus establishing that depriving anyone of their humanity was the work of Satan.

Theft however was permissible. Satan won that one long ago.

They made many promises
More than I can remember –
They never kept but one:
They promised to take our land,
And they took it Chief Red Cloud

We travelled eight miles from Rushmore to the Crazy Horse monument and I stared in awe, both at what had been achieved and at the grand concept behind it. Crazy Horse himself was killed in 1877 under a flag of truce. Some time before his death he was asked in scorn: Where are your lands now? His reply was: Where my people are buried. And one day both his reply and his monument will dominate a landscape.

In 1939, Ziolkowski received a letter from Chief Henry Standing Bear, which stated in part "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too."

Ziolkowski acted on this invitation. In 1948 and refusing government grants, he began the project largely single handed. He died in 1982, but his work goes on. I think he was an exceptional man.

Truth is though, you cannot please everyone. In a 2001 interview, the American Indian activist and actor, Russell Means, stated his objections to the memorial: "Imagine going to the holy land in Israel, whether you're a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, and start carving up the mountain of Zion. It's an insult to our entire being." It must be nice to speak for everyone. Indeed to speak for the dead: "The whole idea of making a beautiful wild mountain into a statue of him is a pollution of the landscape. It is against the spirit of Crazy Horse” Lame Deer, a Lakota Medicine Man.

Opinion is man’s curse and greatest gift. See, how easy it is to make the grand generalisation. This however I find genuinely funny. "In Mexico one points with the chin, whereas American Indians and certain other people point with the lips.” So, to be genuine to the spirit of Crazy Horse, the pointing finger should be replaced by a pout.




The monument in 2004. Still someway to go.