Destiny: when I was in high school, I dreamed of becoming a hunting guide in Alaska, and now, at 75, I just took my first trip to our 49th state, after a career as a forestry professor. Did you also miss your life?
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In November I traveled to the Big Valley (Kishacoquillas Valley) in central Pennsylvania, about 70 miles northwest of Harrisburg. The Big Valley is home to three or more Amish groups, yet it’s off the well-worn paths around Lancaster, PA. Amish people wear their religion on their sleeves, heads, legs and feet. They travel in old ways with horses and buggies, maintain their homes without most modern conveniences and are among the remaining successful family farmers. They make their own clothes, prepare wonderful food, hardly eat in restaurants, restrict their interaction with outsiders, marry within their religion, and form tight-knit communities. Amish people believe God asks them to live this way. Despite all these differences from the rest of the U.S., their populations appear to be growing and there is a general diaspora among Amish communities: the children grow up, get baptized in their church, marry, and often move out to new places where they buy farms, start businesses, have children, and form new communities.
Goldfield joins the modern era.
Although the International Car Forest (last post) may be a highlight of Goldfield, NV, the town also boasts about it’s history. “From 1906 to 1910, Goldfield was the largest city in Nevada,” says the Goldfield Historical Society, claiming a population of over 20,000. Wyatt and Virgil Earp moved to Goldfield in 1904, and Virgil became a deputy sheriff for Esmeralda County in 1905. Virgil died of pneumonia later in 1905, and Wyatt moved on. Continue reading
Our van at Lake Tahoe
My wife, Barbara, and I are living about half a mile from Lake Tahoe in Nevada. We rented a condo for two months this spring to be nearer our son (San Francisco) and to visit three couples (old friends) who live nearby. We worked hard to get ready: repaired the house, tried to clean up the garage, disposed of my motorcycle, tended the lawn after winter, consolidated and rescheduled medical appointments, planned prescription refills, studied the spring weather at Lake Tahoe, and planned a route. Finally we selected clothing, packed our electronics and clothes, loaded the van, locked the house, climbed into the front seats and turned the key. Click, click, click, click—a dead battery, on Sunday. Continue reading
Christy and her husband, Bryce, retired in 2014 at age 31; they had about $1.16 million saved, which includes about 4 years of living expenses ($160 thousand–my estimate). Can two people make the money last in Toronto, Canada, where they live? What if they have kids? Continue reading
Old phone reminds me of the phone we had at the Ranger School in 1963, though ours had coin receptacles and a rotary dial.
Last winter, my younger brother, Bill, showed me a notebook I left at home over 50 years ago. It had two pages of expense entries from the summer of 1962, after graduating from high school, and from 1963, when I attended the New York State Ranger School, a forestry technician school in the western Adirondack Mountains of New York. Money spent: I wanted to see what the entries might tell. Continue reading
A dramatic comparison of federal land ownership in the West versus other regions.
The Atlantic magazine recently published a piece about the West entitled The Graying of Rural America, which argues that, “As cities attract young people, rural America has become older, whiter, and less populated.”
The authors focus on Fossil, Oregon, the county seat of Wheeler County, which they describe as slowly dying. According to The Atlantic, the town began “bleeding jobs” after a lumber mill closed in 1978. Young people leave for educations and jobs in larger cities, and old people become trapped. They exist mostly on investment earnings or government checks like Social Security. Continue reading
My wife and I recently took a short road trip through parts of Maine. Maine attracts visitors, mostly to the southern part of the coast and mostly in summer. The northern coast, northeast of Acadia National Park, attracts fewer visitors and is much less populated; this is the coastline of Down East Maine. In winter the roads are mostly empty, the coast is windy and solitude is available almost everywhere. Continue reading
Wide open landscapes in the West
In 2003, a year after I retired but when my wife was still working, I took Anna, our dog, and headed west to see some of the country I’d visited in times past. Anna and I camped most of the time, and one particular night I remember finding a small Bureau of Land Management campground on Antelope Reservoir in eastern Oregon. We could see a long way across the reservoir and surrounding desert landscape. I remember preparing dinner while Anna, sitting at the edge of the campsite, watched the landscape for signs of life. Continue reading
Driving in Mississippi
It’s raining and I’m sitting in a motel in Brookhaven, Mississippi, waiting for winter storm Remus to move through. Then I’ll continue driving, across the great river and northern Louisiana, then Texas and into southern New Mexico. I’m alone; my wife stayed home. For me, being alone is good. Continue reading