Month: September 2007

Hiking and exploring back roads around Reno

Last Sunday we visited the Donner Party Museum at Donner Memorial State Park right off of Interstate 80 west of Truckee.  During the winter of 1846-47 a group of emigrants (The Donner Party) was trapped by snow on Donner Pass. The museum tells the story of the group and what happened to them. We watched the film in the museum, walked the short nature walk which goes by the site of one of their cabins, and visited the memorial.

From Donner Pass we decided to take back roads home to Reno. Heading north on 89 from Interstate 80 We turned east on Hobart Mills Road and then left on Dog Valley Road which eventually comes to Stampede Reservoir. We drove over Stampede Dam and stopped to have a look. It is a earth fill dam on the Little Truckee River completed in 1970. From Stampede Dam we took Henness Pass Rd back into Nevada. Except for some of the roads around the reservoir all of the roads after we turned off 89 were fairly good dirt roads. Duke and I love to explore back roads. It was fun to add this to our list of adventures.

Last week we also did two hikes with the Sierra Canyon hiking group. Coincidentally the first hike was also to Stampede Reservoir. It was a short pleasant hike along Sage Hen Creek to the west end of the reservoir. The trail-head was on the east side of highway 89 north of where we turned off for our drive on Sunday. The walk along the creek to the lake was mainly shaded and flat. The water level in the lake seemed fairly low. We walked out to the edge of the water and then back into the trees where we had lunch before heading home. I think the whole hike was about 4 miles.

The Sierra Canyon hiking group does an easier hike on Mondays and a longer hike on Thursdays. Our hike last Thursday was probably about 8 miles long. It was the first hike that Duke and I have done on the south east side of Reno. The hike was on the east side of the Mount Rose Wilderness. We parked at the trail-head on Timberline Road off the Mount Rose Highway. Heading up we hiked along Thomas Creek over a ridge and then down Whites Creek. In addition to being a longer hike than Monday’s hike there were also a lot more ups and downs. Both Thomas and Whites Creeks had quite a bit of water in them and were very scenic.

I thoroughly enjoyed both hikes. I didn’t take any pictures on our Monday hike but here is one I took at our lunch stop on Whites Creek on Thursday.

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The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

I’m in the Bay Area tonight for my book club meeting. We discussed The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai.

I’ve decided I need to change the way I evaluate books. Books as art is my new paradigm. I can appreciate a Jackson Pollock painting without needing to know what it is. So I should be able to appreciate a book without it telling a story or having a plot. I tried to look at The Inheritance of Loss as a work of art.

There is no doubt that Kiran Desai is an extraordinarily talented writer. Her writing is lyrical. Her vignettes are memorable, sometimes funny, sometimes terribly sad. Perhaps that is what makes this such a depressing book. Inheritance of loss is about how life is unending loss and there is no hope. Desai is so talented that her depiction of life as loss is arresting. But the total lack of hope in this book was too much for me.

Of course life is loss, that is the easy part. The important part is hope. But there is no hope in this book. I admire people who in spite of overwhelming loss still strive to look forward with hope. So, if I measure Inheritance of Loss as art I can appreciate Desai’s talent but I don’t like the book much.

During the book club discussion the review of The Inheritance of Loss in the  NY Times by Pankaj Mishra was quoted. I just read the review. It does a much better job than I have of summing up this book. To Mishra the theme of The Inheritance of Loss is the "common experience of impotence and humiliation" shared by all of the characters in the book. Mishra says:

"Desai offers her characters no possibility of growth or redemption.
Though relieved by much humor, "The Inheritance of Loss" may strike
many readers as offering an unrelentingly bitter view. But then, as
Orhan Pamuk wrote soon after 9/11, people in the West are "scarcely
aware of this overwhelming feeling of humiliation that is experienced
by most of the world’s population," which "neither magical realistic
novels that endow poverty and foolishness with charm nor the exoticism
of popular travel literature manages to fathom." This is the invisible
emotional reality Desai uncovers as she describes the lives of people
fated to experience modern life as a continuous affront to their
notions of order, dignity and justice. We do not need to agree with
this vision in order to marvel at Desai’s artistic power in expressing
it."

The Great Reno Baloon Races

My daughter came to visit this weekend and got to see our new house for the first time. She got here late Friday night but in spite of that we all got up at 4am Saturday morning! We wanted to go see the Reno Balloon Races. We had no idea if it would be worth getting up at such an ungodly hour but reading about it in the paper made it sound interesting. We left home at 4:30 and just followed the traffic. We parked on one of the side streets near Rancho San Rafael Park and then walked.  There were lots of people but it was easy to find a place to sit in the middle of a dark field. First we watched the Glow Show at 5am. It was quite a sight to see the balloons light up as they ignited the burners. Then at 5:30 we watched the dawn patrol. 5 balloons launching together and staying in formation in the night sky. It was incredibly beautiful. After the dawn patrol there was a break, so we had breakfast at the Kiwanis Club pancake breakfast. Around 6:30 they started inflating and launching over a hundred balloons. We got to stand right in the middle of it all. It was great fun. But next year I will dress more warmly, bring blankets to sit on, and a thermos of hot chocolate or coffee. I’m not sure I will be there for the glow show next year but the dawn patrol, the pancake breakfast and the simultaneous launch of over 100 balloons as the sun rose was absolutely worth getting up for.

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Sierra canyon Hiking Group Hike on the Pacific Crest Trail to Benson Hut

The Del Webb over 55 community that we live in, Sierra Canyon, has a hiking group that does an  easier hike on Mondays and a longer hike on Thursdays. Today Duke and I did our first Thursday hike. It was wonderful. We met at 7:30 at the lodge and were on the trail by 8:30. We started just south of highway 80 at Donner Pass and followed the Pacific Crest Trail to a Sierra Club hut called Benson hut. It was beautiful day and the trail followed the crest of the mountains. We had phenomenal views although it was a bit hazy because of the California fires. The first part of the trail went through Sugar Bowl ski area and over the top of the long tunnel that trains go through to get over the pass.

The first pass we went over was Roller pass where the Donner party used logs and oxen to pull their wagons over the pass.

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The trail followed the crest and gave us breath taking views in all directions.

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While we were walking along here Duke fell and hit his head. Although it was a scary fall and his head looked bad he didn’t even get a headache. I guess he has a hard head!

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Our destination was the Sierra Club Benson hut which was 5.8 miles from the trail head. We had lunch and then headed back.

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Although my feet are sore and I am tired it was great hike. I think we should get hiking poles for Duke before our next hike. The ones I have were a gift from Bonnie and they worked great!

Here is a link to my flickr page with all my pictures of the hike.

Sierra Canyon bus tour to Fallon NAS

Yesterday the Del Webb community we live in, Sierra Canyon, offered a bus tour to Fallon  Naval Air Station and we went. It was so cool. Fallon is about 50 miles east of Reno. It is the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Command. It is where the Top Gun school is. Our guide described it as the graduate school for pilots. Pilots come in and are trained to go back and be the trainers for their units. In addition whole airwings come in to Fallon to be trained. An airwing inclues about 40 F18 Super Hornets each of which cost 40 Million.

The first thing we did when we arrived was to go up into the observation floor in the control tower.

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We could see the F5 Tigers that were painted to be the agressor aircraft for training and at the other end of the flight line we could see the F18s that were part of the air wing there for training.

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After the observation deck we went into one of the hangers where one of the pilots stationed a Fallon told us about  what they do. Our guide was call sign BUDA for Big Ugly Dumb Animal. His real name was Brandon Harjer.

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He said that Fallon is unique in that it is so big that they can train on air to air and air to ground combat at the same time. He told us all about his training and how he got to be a pilot. He has served in Afganistan. It was so cool to walk around the F5 tigers that they fly and  ask him questions about them.

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From the hanger we went into the ready room where we saw the pilot’s flight gear and parachutes.

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From there we went out on to the flight line where all the planes were. I know I have said it before but it was so cool!

Then we had a picnic lunch and walked around the airplane museum. It was really interesting to see the MiGs and the early jets.

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The whole tour was a real treat. I love jets and especially fighter jets.

Here is the Flickr link to all my pictures from the tour.