Life in the USA (Ⅱ)-Leaf Show, Wild West, Truckers

The Autumn Spectacular Leaf Show

We are now into autumn once again, and the annual changes are beginning.  I happen to live in the northeastern part of the USA.  Autumn is a great time of year in this part of the country.

 

The weather is typically very dry with bright sunny days and cool nights.  You can still work or play outside in short-sleeved shirts and short pants.  In the evening, you can enjoy the cool breezes.  In the night, you can sleep comfortably under a warm blanket.

 

The grand spectacular annual autumn leaf show will soon begin.  It typically starts in the far northern states like Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire around the first week in October.  The date cannot be accurately predicted, because much depends on the weather and climactic conditions.  The show moves south from there,  In Pennsylvania, we get it around the middle of October.  Further south, it may begin as late as the end of October.

 

Unfortunately, the far southern states miss out on the annual extravaganza.  In Florida, California, Arizona and Texas, they get milder winters without all of the snow and ice that we experience, but they completely miss the great leaf show every autumn.  In those warm southern states, their vegetation typically turns brown during the hot summers, then green during the cooler, wetter winters and springs. There is no kaliedoscope of colors during the autumn changes.  Many southerners get on tour busses and drive north just to witness our wonderful leaf show.

 

 All of the northern states experience this autumnal change when the leaves on the trees turn from green to other colors before they drop from the branches. In the northeastern states it is the most spectacular.  We have forests of mixed hardwood trees including maples, ash, oak, cherry and walnut.  Each variety produces a different range of hues during the autumn change.  The various varieties of maple produce a vibrant array of bright reds, yellows and oranges.  The oaks produce shades of carmine, brown and cordovan.  Sumacs turn flaming crimson.  Some of the trees even retain their green until the end of the show.  Together, they make a kaliedoscope of polychromatic vistas that completely envelop the hills and valleys.

 

Unfortunately, the show only lasts a few weeks.  In the beginning, the forests are predominately green with a few flares of red or yellow from individual maple trees.  Within days, the color spreads to include more and more trees, until the whole forest is a profusion of color with bits of green from the last holdouts scattered throughout.  By the end of the second week, many of the leaves have dropped to the ground, and the remaining colors are beginning to fade to shades of brown and tan.  Eventually, all of the leaves are on the floor of the forest and the trees sadly display only naked branches and twigs.

 

If youi want to see this spectacular leaf show, plan on visiting the northeastern states sometime during October.  Vermont is a popular tourist destination during this time of the year.  It has rolling hills and lofty mountains all covered with mixed hardwood forests.  The leaf show is extremely picturesque in that state. I would plan on visiting during the first or second week of October.  The show should be well underway at that time.

 

If you visit Pennsylvania or New York, you should time your visit a bit later in the month.  The show should reach its peak around the third week in October.  In West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland, it will probably peak by the end of October.

 

Visiting the Wild Wild West

I recently drove from Las Vegas Nevada to Death Valley California.  This is only a short drive of about 100 miles, but it takes you over the mountains and through the barren Sonoran Desert.  It turned out to be a very interesting excursion into the picturesque countryside of the still wild West.

 

I drove through the Amargosa Valley, a vast expanse of dry sand and rock strewn flats able to support only widely scattered brown shrubs and a few cactus.  The bare lifeless mountains that deliniated the sides of the valley were visible miles off to the side of Interstate 95.  In this country, you tend to watch your fuel gauge as towns, service stations and other signs of civilization are few and far between.

 

  I noticed the occassional dirt roads that extended straight across the valley floor for miles until they disappeared into the mountains.  They were guarded by wire fences with signs warning away visitors.  We were at the periphery of the Nevada Test Site, a government proving grounds for all the secret weaponry being developed far away from prying eyes.  This was also the proposed location of the controversial Yucca Mountain underground radioactive waste depository.  Across those mountains in the most inaccessable parts of this desert landscape lay Area 51, that top secret retreat where the US government had purportedly secreted captured alien spacecraft and the bodies of alien creatures.

 

At the turnoff to the Death Valley area, our map indicated a small town.  What we found was a few widely scattered mobile homes parked in the desert, one boaded up restaurant, and a combination service station, general store, diner and brothel. The convenience store part of the big dilapidated building had an array of nearly empty shelves, the restaurant in the back claimed to serve hamburgers, fries and sandwiches, but no waitress was anywhere to be found.  The old bearded man at the cash register was on the telephone the entire while we were there, and only bothered to glance up to take our money.  The nicest part of this desert waystation was the neatly painted double-wide mobile home in the back with its big bright sign proclaiming it to be the "Cherry Patch II" house of prostitution.

 

Route 373 went through more desolate landscape occasionally interspersed with an oasis of green mesquite trees and a few houses indicating a local supply of water.  Other than one modern casino inconguously located in this god-forsaken land at the end of the civilized world, there were no amenities such as service stations, restaurants or stores to be found. The road eventually brought us to Death Valley Junction, an almost ghost town at an isolated desert crossroads.

 

The Amargosa hotel was the most impressive building in this nearly deserted community.  A long low white adobe building with an inviting shaded veranda along its whole length was the only well maintained structure in the town.  The remaining cottages, stores, and industrial builings were in various states of disrepair and ruin.  We met Richard, self appointed mayor, sheriff and one third of the population of Death Valley Junction.  He explained how Marta Bennett, a ballet dancer from New York City had come to the deserted town in 1967 and decided to make it her home.  She refurbished the old theater and reopened it as the Amargosa Opera House.

 

For over 40 years, Marta has produced theatrical productions in her opera house.  She constructed her own scenery and lighting, her own costumes and stage props.  She even painted the walls of the opera with elaborate murals of an appreciative audience.  Marta used to dance ballet, but at 80+ years of age, she now restricts herself to singing and acting.  Marta still lives in Death Valley Junction, and she still performs her show every Saturday evening to guests who come from around the world just to see this opera in the desert.  Marta is a unique character, but the desert seems to attract unique characters.

 

Death Valley is a starkly beautiful but severe landscape with an extremely challenging environment.  The temperature reached 120 F (47 C) during the middle of the day.  The heat was oppressive, and I clung to the shelter of any bit of shade I could find.  The gleaming white salt flats nearly blinded me with sunlight reflected from its burning surface where temperatures were hot enough to fry an egg or bake a cake.

 

I could easily understand why they named this place "Death Valley".  I had more difficulty comprehending how prospectors and miners could ever have lived in such a severe environment.  The thirst for gold and for riches from the mineral deposits must have been very compelling for anyone to brave such conditions.

 

On the way back to Las Vegas, I passed through the thriving desert community of Pahrump.  It has shopping malls, restaurants, casinos and even a bit of industrial development.  It is most famous for being one of the maverick communities that has permitted the legalization of prostitution.  Brothels are scattered around the outskirts of Pahrump. 

 

It is here that Heidi Fleis, the notorious Hollywood Madam who ran an escort service to provide prostitutes to movie stars and other famous movie executives until she was arrested, has taken up residence.  With plans to open a Brothel, named "the Stud Farm" that catered to women customers, she took up residents in Pahrump and began a long feud with the existing Brothel owners and with the local authorities.  Heidi never opened her brothel, but she still lives in the local desert with dozens of parrots, Macaws and other tropical birds.  Another desert character.

 

In tales of the old times, the wild west was a very inhospitable place populated by many strange and interesting characters.  It hasn't changed much.

 

Long Distance Truckers

We call them eighteen wheelers.  They are the large tractor-semi-trailor rigs that haul goods across the USA on the network of Interstate highways.  The front part of the rig is the actual truck or tractor, while the back two thirds of the rig is really a semi-trailer attached to it. The tractor part has ten wheels, two on the front axle for steering and eight more configured as four sets of dual wheels on its two rear axles.  These immensly powerful tractors usually pull a semi trailer that is supported by the tractor on the front end while the back end rides on eight wheels distributed as another four sets of dual wheels on two axles.  The entire rig is typically over twenty meters long and has a combined total of eighteen wheels.

 

If you drive on any interstate highway in the USA, you will see hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of these eighteen wheelers.  Typically, the majority of them will be long-distance haulers.  They might be hauling steel from Chicago to Los Angeles, or hauling fresh fruit from Florida to Boston, or hauling tanks of industrial chemicals from New Orleans to Denver. These "big rigs" transport much of our industrial, agricultural and manufacured goods across long distances.

 

Some of the eighteen wheelers are company owned equipment operated by employee drivers, however the majority are independent owner-operated rigs.  The independent operator is someone who has borrowed sufficient money from the bank to purchase his own expensive tractor.  It typically costs the driver more than the home he lives in, and is usually his single most valuable possession.

 

An owner operator of a tractor usually contracts with one or more freight companies to haul semi-trailers from one destination to another.  He gets paid by the mile.  Out of the haulage fee, the operator must pay for his own fuel, maintenence, insurance and traveling expense. 

 

You can easily discriminate between the independently owned and operated rigs versus the company owned ones.  A company owned truck will usually be a dirty drab affair with very little added amenities.  An independantly owned rig will normally by a bright clean shiny truck with beautiful paint, lots of chrome plated accessories, numerous marker lights and possibly an elaborately painted name and picture on its door.  The independant owner-operator values his truck very highly, and takes great pride in its appearance.

 

Truck stops are special refueling stations catering to the needs of truckers.  They can be found at various locations along the interstate highways.  In addition to widely spaced refueling pumps and a huge parking lot, most truck stops also feature a restaurant, a convenience store, restrooms, bathing facilities and specialty shops offering all sorts of trucker paraphenalia.  You can visit a truck stop even if you are only driving a little "four wheeler".  If you visit one in the late evening hours, you will typically find many big rigs parked in the lot while their operators rest or sleep in their rigs. 

 

If you carefully stroll through a truck stop parking lot, you can admire the beautifully painted and highly decorated Macks, Kenworths, GMCs and Peterbilts. Most independant truckers are very friendly.  They will proudly show you their beloved rig and will tell you about their life and career as a long distance trucker.  They may even show you the interior of their truck.  Most independantly owned trucks are equipped with an array of amenities to make life on the road more bearable.  They will likely have a great music systems, two-way radios, navigation systems, computers, and in the back sleeper section, televisions with DVD players.

 

These guys spend three fourths of their life on the road in their truck.  Yes, they are mostly men, but there are some women drivers as well.  A few young truckers, are even accompanied by their spouses.   

 

Truckers communicate with each other via citizens band (CB) radios,  You can purchase a citizen band radio, install it in your car, tune it to channel 19 and listen to the truckers' conversations on the road.  If you learn a bit of the jargon, you can even communicate with the truckers.  They have a quaint and colorful way of speaking on the radio.  A "smokey" or a "bear" is a police officer. A "picture taker" is a policeman with a radar speed gun.  A "plain wrapper" is an unmarked police car.  When you hear a trucker say, "I saw a bear rolling east and advertising at 334, and a plain wrapper in the grass taking pictures at 385."  It means he spotted a patrol car driving east with lights flashing near mile post 334 and an unmarked police car with radar gun in the medial strip of the highway near mile marker 385".

 

If you come to the USA and do a bit of driving on your vacation, stop at a truck stop along the Interstate highway to see this bit of unique US culture.  Just look for signs at the interchanges that advertise "Petro", "Flying J" or "Travel Centers of America".  These are just a few of the national truckstop chains.  There are many others.