We stayed in this wacky place called the Amargosa Opera House hotel, which was a place we had driven by on last year’s Death Valley trip and remarked upon. I didn’t know how it would go over - I know some people are skeeved out by run down motels, and this certainly was that - but thankfully the F was delighted by it and the kids were oblivious to the chipping paint and collapsing walls. We did a tour of the actual opera house on the property and met some fellow desert travelers. The only down side was the acquisition of food, as I’d anticipated - there is nothing, and I mean nothing, around there for miles, which lead us on a couple of desperate late night forages for food which did, and could have, ended badly at times. Our first night we waited over three hours at a shitty casino cafe for mediocre food, had to have a long talk with the manager, it was a mess; our final night we went to several places that Yelp said were open but were in fact closed, finally stumbling on a tiny bar and steak place minutes before they closed (I’ve never in my life felt so much like Joseph and Mary searching for an inn). Ah, covid travel. Nothing is as Yelp would have you believe.
However, our desert activities were great. We spent a long day at the China Ranch Date Farm which had endless fascinating trails to explore followed by date shakes, and found a lovely roadside hot spring in Tecopa which ironically ended up being the best hot spring of the week which was meant to be all about the northern hot springs. Then the next day we hit up Death Valley for some of the adventures we couldn’t take the RV on last time - Keane Wonder Mine, the Natural Bridge, and a couple we had just missed - Zabriskie Point, Devil’s Golf Course. I love Death Valley. We have so much else to do there! Can’t wait to return some day and explore the Panamint side.
On Wednesday we made the long trek up to Mammoth Lakes to a kitschy cabin with a kitchen and good wifi. Our first day was great - we went to Bodie, a massive ghost town I’ve always wanted to see. I thought we could hit up two of the hot springs nearby, but soon realized a pattern with these eastern Sierra hot springs I had intended to spend all week hopping in and out of - they are all tiny, and invariably already occupied by people with full tent/kitchen/furniture setups who have no intention of letting your family of four jump in. So there were lots of long drives on bumpy roads only to discover yet another hot spring the size of a bathtub with six people partying in it. Somehow in all my research the actual size of these things never came up. So we had a nice Thanksgiving day at the ghost town, had a mostly microwaved Thanksgiving dinner (I’m coming to realize I really loathe Thanksgiving food and just can’t eat it), watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and then I scrambled to find more things for us to do as I realized spending two more days in hot springs was probably not going to happen. We had a desultory trip to Mono Lake, then went to the only spring that was large enough for families, Wild Willy’s. To be fair, I enjoyed it, but it paled in comparison to Tecopa. It was only a few inches deep so you could never submerge yourself, and, of course, it was packed with people. We had a hilarious mad dash to change back into our clothes as the sun was setting and the cold rushed in, resulting in boys in my scarves and their tiny bathrobes and snow gloves half hanging off. I knew this would be the most problematic part of my plan - getting kids out of wet swim suits in public in the cold - and I was right. I made the executive decision to leave the next morning instead of Sunday. I was over it, and realized a full week was probably just too damned long anyway.
There were two underlying stressors on our trip - one was the F’s car, which is always a risk on these trips. The first morning up in Mammoth he thought it sounded funny so we wasted hours while he tried to figure out what was going on with it and ended up pouring several containers of boiling water on the engine before we could head out anywhere. To be fair the car had been making strange noises and had a horrible burning smell for much of the trip, so I was constantly full of anxiety that we would be stranded somewhere - again, the entire trip consisted of being out of cell range on unattended dirt roads, so the possibility of real disaster always hung over our heads. I so wish he could afford a solid reliable car. He also had some very dark moments around his work stress that he just couldn’t leave behind. Then on Friday as the news came out about the new coronavirus mutation, it put a serious pall over everything - everyone was freaking out about it, and I started to imagine a third year with no event, possibly having to cancel the wedding and lose the tens of thousands I’ve already put down in deposits (these companies do not care if you have to cancel due to coronavirus - they’ve lost enough in the last two years and don’t give a shit anymore), how much money do I have, could we make it? But more importantly, will humanity make it? What if this thing really does wipe out a third of the population as some people have predicted? What if this is just life from now on? Suffice it to say, these thoughts took us down some very scary roads. Not how I wanted to end my trip.
BUT, we’re safe at home now, and life goes on - today we do Christmas stuff, kids are back to school tomorrow, and my plate is full with Christmas preparations that all have to be done next week, not to mention the four gig nights in a row starting on Thursday, preparing for Hawaii (although the F thinks there’s a chance our trip will get canceled because of the new variant). There’s a chance this variant won’t amount to much - that yes, it’s scary and transmissible, but that the vaccines still provide at least some protection, and it is not more deadly. We just won’t know until at least a couple of weeks. My fear, beyond the obvious end of humanity as we know it, is the closure of schools and cancellation of my event and wedding, and of course the F’s inability to make a living, again, as both our jobs require people being able to socialize. I don’t predict any of these things happening, however. But I did have a very dark moment in the car coming home in which I thought about how everything went to shit when Trump was elected in 2016 and how life has just been one nightmarish apocalyptic scenario after another since, with worse things on the horizon, and how utterly exhausted and terrified I am, and how I just don’t know how I’m going to emotionally handle years more of pandemic uncertainty, the loss of Democrats in power, and loss of democracy in general.
Anyway, ummm…Merry Christmas!
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