Retreat in the Sagebrush

I've been in Dayton, Nevada on a three day retreat with friends. We did this last year and we were invited again. I guess we behaved ourselves well enough the first time for our hostess to invite us back this year. So off we drove to Dayton, for food, friendship, being creative and just having fun... and we did have fun!
The four of us met above Pioneer on Carson Pass and actually got everything into one car. Our hostess drove us up over the pass...

It was a lovely spring day in the mountains. I'm always in awe of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I forget that I live so close to such beauty. Driving over the pass into Nevada is a beautiful experience. There wasn't that much snow at the pass and I was surprised at the lack of it elsewhere.. but Caples and Red Lake were still frozen over.
These were my partners in fun at the Carson Pass.

 We took a quick break and then continued on into Nevada, ate lunch at a Basque restaurant, and stopped at a wonderful little art gallery store and theater in Carson City.

 I really wanted this sign. I love old neon signs.

Before I could figure out how to pack it into the car, the lady inside said that it wasn't for sale. Darn! I even had a wall for it in my house. So we walked around looking at some very good art that was for sale.
There were baskets...

and glass art, jewelry, paintings and drawings by local artists. There was a small restaurant and a theater in this old brewing company building.

 This charming creature, made from found metal pieces, looked so cute on the little chair that I just had to take a picture of it...

 Sometimes you have to exercise a little self control when it's the first stop of the trip and "impulse buying" space in the back end of the car was at a premium. So we looked around and moved on.
We stopping at Tuesday Morning in Carson City and Trader Joe's for a few important items like ice cream, cookies and candy.
When we arrived at the house, we  disembarked and choose bedrooms.  Then we began our BASKETS. Making baskets has taken on a whole new respect for me. I will never look at a basket again without knowing how much work goes into making it. I will never say, "Well, it's just a basket." every again. I don't care what kind of basket it is... their is a process and a skill involved with making that basket that is one of the most creative endeavors known to mankind.
This was the beginning of my basket. You are looking at the bottom of the basket.

 Our hostess showed us every step, slowly, with wonderful direction and patience. She had made two of them recently, so we had examples to strive for. All of these pieces of reed and twine have to be soaked before you can weave or bend them. It was a very creative feeling to watch my own hands work on this basket.

I felt as if I was carrying on a tradition that my ancestors started. Some Cherokee woman sitting by a creek weaving strips of reed together... making a basket to carry wood, or food, or a baby. Talking to her friends, laughing and telling stories to each other. It's all the same. Except we are soaking our pieces of reed, that we bought on the Internet, in the laundry room sink and sitting in the comfort of a lovely home. But, the idea came to me as we sat around that table together, doing something so old and necessary, that we may recreate the memories of our ancestors because we subconsciously want to continue the traditions.  Also, because there is something elemental in the process.  Maybe it's an ingredient in the recipe of our past. It was a good feeling.... until I got to the part where we had to fold the "spokes" over the rim of the basket with a 3 in. over lap, cut them and hold them with clothes pins while we wove them into the inside of the basket. I didn't take any photos of this because I never picked up the camera again. I had some cranky moments when my fingers ached from pushing the reed pieces into the already woven basket. We all finally got the baskets sides secured, so we put them aside for the evening.
We ate a nice dinner, talked at the table for a long time and then each of us went to our rooms to get some sleep... each dreaming differently about this moment in our lives. In the middle of the night I woke up to a full moon and an owl hooting. I had opened the window before I fell asleep. I got up and stood at the window listening to the owl and marveling at the brightness of the full moon. The air smelled wonderful. I thought about this place before houses, golf courses and air fields and so many people. How the tumbleweed would have only stopped  at the bottom of the mountains and not piled up against fences and the wild horses would have walked across the whole valley without having to cross a busy highway. It must have been beautiful then. It's beautiful now when you look in the right directions.
 I promised myself to get up early in the morning and walk out beyond the houses to the field filled with wild bushes, birds and rabbits. I went back to bed and dreamt of walking toward wild horses... but I don't remember much more.
Tomorrow I will write about my walk into the fields of sagebrush and watching the sun rise over the Virginia Range...

French Pressing Coffee With Touch and Go Landings.

It was Saturday morning.  Time for my cup of coffee. But first... I had to make it.
Never having used a French Press to make coffee, especially in the morning when I'm kind of handicapped anyway, the whole process seemed daunting. Our hostess had explained how to use it on Friday night before we went to bed. It sounded simple. Kind of like my grandmother use to make it. You throw the grounds in the bottom of the glass container, pour the water in and let it sit for three minutes, then you press the top down slowly and "Voila.", you have coffee.
When I asked her how she got the coffee hot, she started laughing and said that she forgot the "boil the water, first" part. Simple mistake.
I thought that I would have to heat it up in the microwave after I made it. Either that or the French must drink their coffee cold... which I doubted.
I had seen a french press before but I honestly had never used one. I'm embarrassed to admit this. I like to think of myself as rather cosmopolitan, but I really had not, in my lifetime, learned or attempted this way of making coffee.  "J" was up early. She was waiting for me in the kitchen. She even boiled the water for me.
I think she was concerned that she didn't have enough insurance to cover my lack of french press skills so she kept an eye on me until the coffee was finished. She knew I loved coffee. She knew that I would drive clear into Carson City to get a STARBUCKS if I didn't figure this whole thing out. She was very patient and understanding with me.
I'm here to say, proudly, that you really can teach an old dog a new trick. But, I could have used an instant pre-cup of coffee before I started doing the French Press that morning (Sounds like exercise doesn't it?). Coffee would have made my brain a bit sharper.
The other coffee drinker, Jan, said it was OK. She didn't get all excited about it... but she was polite... and she drank it.
 Finally I poured and drank my first cup of coffee which, by the way, must not have settled properly in the french press maker, (another faux pas?) because it had some grounds in it.
 Is this the way the French really do this? I don't get it. Why not just use a filter? Or, like my grandmother use to do... throw some egg shells into the coffee and they make the grounds settle at the bottom.
Maybe I poured it too fast. I don't know. It's all a mystery to me. Like smart phones and having to use three different remotes to play a DVD movie on my TV.
The coffee was really good... strong... and hot. As I got to the bottom of the cup, I was careful not to drink the sediment. They say you can read fortunes in the bottom of a cup of coffee. Mine would probably have read...'She will always be confused by new skills.' or  'Farmlady is not French.'

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Yes, I promised to tell you about the back side of the houses in this area. Didn't I?
I walked out the backdoor of "J"s house and "Wait!"

There was another garage... and another road. These beautiful homes had more to them than met the eye from the front.

The sun was coming up and I walked out across the blacktop and into the sagebrush. It was so beautiful out there. But the back of these homes looked like an unfinished version of the fronts... and the garages were twice as big as the front garages.  This garage, below, is "J"s garage... only it's not for cars. 

IT'S FOR AIRPLANES!

And the whole street of homes has its own AIRPORT. Imagine that! You can commute from anywhere, fly home and park your airplane in your own hanger. WOW!
"J" and her husband made an airplane from a kit. She showed us a picture of it. It's beautiful. It's not a little glider type, light weight plane. It's a two seat beauty that they have flown clear to Alaska... and back. The plane wasn't in its hanger this weekend because it was in California with "J"s husband, so we didn't get to see it in person.
Last year, they met some friends at a plane show and decided to buy a house here. Now they can fly from Jackson, CA. to Dayton, NV. in no time. They are in a community of people who love planes and because of the down real estate market they bought this place for a song.  I didn't know about places like this. I guess I've been in the mountains too long.

They taxi out onto the runway and off they go.

 It seems really exciting to me. No customs, no baggage checks, and you are in complete control. You are an eagle in the wind.
So I, being bound to the earth, walked though the sage brush taking pictures and thinking about what it would be like to fly. How I had written a poem, once, about flying. I will have to find it and read it to all of you.
Many years ago, in high school, I worked at an airport and the instructors would take us up after work. There was nothing like the exhilarating feeling of taking off in a small plane and flying over our world. We would fly out to the San Francisco Bay and the sun would be setting into the Pacific Ocean. It was breathtaking. We did Parabolic curves and watched a pencil in my hand lift up and come back down again as we did this maneuver.
I think I understand this love of flying. I don't like flying in a commercial airplane, but the concept of flight and being in that small plane was a delightful experience and I appreciate these folks that live here because they have followed their dream and learned to fly. They have learned to make coffee in a french press and they know which clouds they can fly through and which ones they can't. That's pretty cool.
I will leave you with some photos of the high desert and the early morning sunlight.
Watch out for Jack Rabbits and Rattlesnakes.

Tomorrow I will round up the story of my get away with a trip to Genoa, a small town west of Minden.
It was so good to get away from a week filled with sorrow over losing Murphy, our goat. I was able to look at his leaving from a different perspective and laugh a little with friends. It was a good trip.