Thanksgiving Travels Past And Future

Thanksgiving Travels Past And Future

We started out the big turkey day with close friends that we had all but lost touch with thanks to suburban time and distance. All gathered in rembrance from various parts of the country, for the patriarch of the family who had passed away nearly 6 weeks ago. There was laughter, tears, fond remembrances, and a rousing game of Cranium as the turkey roasted in the oven. I'm not sure which team won the game, but we all had fun, regardless.

The grandkids, all college age or older, took their places at the main table with their recently widowed grandmother and one aunt and uncle, while the rest of us old geezers over 50 sat at the kids table, in an interesting role reversal. Following grace and a sparkling cider toast, we dined on the traditional turkey feast. When we were done, a few succombed to the effects of the tryptophan in the turkey, while the rest of us took a walk out side the senior housing tract community enjoying a rather warm November night.

The next morning, we all gathered once again at the local church for tribute to the now grown grandchildren's beloved Papa. The minister spoke, an old favorite hymn was sung, and Papa's middle son said some fine words about his father. One granddaughter presented a picture tribute of Papa's life bringing both smiles and tears to everyone's faces. Another granddaughter told of her cherished memories. We sang another hymn, bowed for a few words of prayer, and comforted each other in our loss of a great fellow human being who had touched all of our lives in so many ways.

Following the short reception, Papa's family would leave for a private goodbye as his ashes were set out to sea. Roger and I hugged everyone and told them we loved them, then headed out to the western Mojave desert for an overnight with our son before heading to the old mining camp of Cerro Gordo and strange mix of the  19th, 20th, and 21st century.

Dove Springs OHV area turns into an eternal dust bowl Thanksgiving weekend, with dirt bikers, and atv'ers of all ages. Some how we saw our way through the haze to the rv encampment where Eric and several friends had been staying since Monday. A prime rib was on the smoker, and would be served with garlic cheese bread inside the tiny dining area of his motorhome. We would devour the beef and bread, as we laughed and told jokes, and the guys compared notes on their motorized toys. Occassionally we'd peek outside to watch the huge bonfire that other friends were either sitting or standing or dancing to music by. Every once in awhile someone would pop their head in the rv door and try to entice us out into the cold air towards the fire, but we were comfy and cozy where we were and were enjoying the company and conversations of our own private little group, while the liquor flowed.

Sometime before midnight those who had joined us for food and fun left us for partying around the bonfire, or bedtime. The dining area of the motorhome magically turned into our bed, and my Roger and I hunkered down in sleeping bags, contemplating the strange contrast between the traditional Thanksgiving and memorial with old friends to this annual dirtbike trek in the California desert of our son's.

When the sun peeked through the motorhome windows on Saturday morning, we woke up, had a cold breakfast complete with bagel and diet coke then packed up and headed further north up highway 14 to highway 395. We drove around the great Owens dry lake and up into the Inyo mountains to our friend's ghosttown where thirty of us would give thanks for being able to be a part of the old silver mining town's 21st century history. We were a strange lot, with at least a dozen of us in victorian dress, others in jeans and cowboy hats and boots, and others bundled in modern cold weather mountain attire. Everyone posed for group and singular pictures, and caught up on all that had been accomplished on the mountain in the past year.

A fire burned in the great victorian parlor stove in the dining room of the 1871 American Hotel. Chairs stolen from an assortment of dining tables, were pulled beside the old stove and a few men sat around it shooting the breeze. Several women busied themselves in the huge kitchen as turkeys and hams cooked in modern roasters sitting atop weathered wood butcher blocks tables. Twentieth century stainless steel stoves contained pies in their ovens and side dishes on the top burners. The huge castiron wood stove from the past stood in silence in the corner, holding an overflow of kitchen supplies.

As timers went off and taste tests were done, dishes were brought in and placed on the long saloon type bar that takes up the entire length of the hotel dining room. A small bell at the bar was rung, and everyone scurried to their places at tables or in the buffet line. The mayor of Cerro Gordo thanked us all for joining him. A silent prayer was said to the lady who envisioned the town as it is today, grace was said, Cerro Gordo Freighting Company root beer toasts were made, and plates and tummies were filled.

The thirty of us leisurely sat around the old dining room, in comraderie, and memory, with history and high hopes for the future in our conversations. The mayor once again stood before, as we ate our last bites of our main dishes. He introduced us Cerro Gordo old timers and told of our accomplishments in the old town, then asked the newcomers to stand. He introduced each of them and told where they were from and why they were here. The entire room raised their hands in a secret shake to each of them, and the Society of Cerro Gordo grew in number another year.

Our ghosttown feast began with the midday sun, and ended well past it's Eastern Sierra settling. Temperatures dipped to the teens outside, and the fancy parlor stove struggled to keep the hotel warm. Tables were cleaned while some said their goodbyes and headed down the Yellow Grade road by the weak moonlight. Others lingered in conversation for awhile before heading to their chilly beds in the bunkhouse, Belshaw and Gordon houses.

The outside reading in our 4-runner read 20 degrees as Roger & I chose to drive the short dirt road distance from the bunkhouse to the American Hotel on Sunday morning. We greeted Gary, who was firetender in the hotel during the night, and had slept in a cot by the old cast iron heating stove with Miss Priss the hotel mouser. Roger started pots of coffee, and scrambled eggs and sausage, soon to be joined by others who heated up leftover potatoes and ham, and prepared warm tortillias and salsa. The mayor's son and I set two tables, as a few other Cerro Gordon's trailed in. About 15 of us enjoyed breakfast by the heat of the stove, and compared Thanksgiving 2006 to the years past.

True to form, just as we finished up our last bites at about 10:00, tourists wandered up the steep winding dirt road. The mayor welcomed them to his town, then Roger took them outside for a tour and history talk. I gathered up dishes and washed them, while others dried them and put them away, then joined to add my two cents to the town tour as they reached the old ice house behind the hotel kitchen.

We left the visitors with the sounds of miners and dance hall girls at Lola's & Maggies, visions of dust flying as bandits chased stagecoaches and freight wagons, and smokey skies from the smelters that processed the ore. We checked the bunkhouse and the hotel one last time for anything we might have forgotten to pack up, then hunted down the Cerro Gordo Mayor to thank him for his hospitality, and bid him and his town goodbye.

It was a somber trip down the eight miles of the dirt to the highway and back to the modern world. Fortunately we had gotten an early start and traffic was light for the first two hours. But at Dove Springs where our desert journey had originally begun the dirt bikers were filtering out of their campsites, with their gear loaded onto toy haulers behind motorhomes. It was steady going, but bumper to bumper until the stop sign near seemingly endless construction grinds us to a halt. A quick call on the cell phone to Eric told us that he was packed up and on the road, already in Mojave ahead of us, but had taken two hours to get through what should have only taken about 15 minutes. On his advise, we turned back on the highway to the California City exit and a backroad, adding an hour more to our travel home, instead of two. Another 15 minutes at the gas station in Mojave, and it's smooth sailing into Los Angeles. Our long weekend of thanks and celebration with friends and family is at last over, and it's time to think about putting up the Christmas lights.