Highlights

Our last week in America passed very quickly. Grandma Linda left just after we arrived to help with a family emergency and returned a few days before we flew back to Australia. The house, though filled with people and pets, was strangely empty while she was away.

The week's highlights were simple ones. Watching my dad and Bayan have a conversation about trains, (the subject of a show they were watching)
watching Bayan explain his point with many hand gestures and much repetition,
while my dad gave his own insights, which put a new spin on some of Bayan's theories.
Eating Butterfinger ice-cream with Willie at my feet.
Going for walks in the foothills. And smiling as Mehran admonished the children that if they were going to come that they must walk. He was not going to carry or pull anyone. No one. At all.

Enjoying the wooded mountains surrounding Lake Isabella and marvelling at how this rugged, almost unsurpassable terrain was settled by covered wagons flooding into the hills during the California Gold Rush.
Going treasure hunting at the site of the Keyesville ghost town. Grandma Linda had a metal detector and she and Mehran disappeared for awhile poking around abandoned mine shafts hoping to strike it rich.
I located on old map of the town and set about exploring what remained of the buildings, which-frankly was not much. The most well preserved structure was the general store, which was on private property and not available to visit, but I did find:
what would have once been someones residence and
an old outhouse, both of which I am sure you are delighted to see.


Meanwhile my dad and Willie went for a brief stroll around the hill, pausing to admire plants and smell flowers. He proved that when you slow down and remember to be still you notice things that you would otherwise miss. He found an old nail that was lost long ago. While that may seem completely insignificant I think it is wonderful. It is a tiny, tangible, connection with an age that has long since disappeared.
The children followed where Grandpa led and had their own adventures in the sunshine.
We piled back into the cars and headed down dirt tracks to locate a ghost town that you could walk through.
Behind this unassuming shop front, where old fashioned souvenirs are found en mass, lies the Silver City ghost town. The two story hotel stands in the front of the "city" flanked on either side by a make-shift brothel and general store. The town stretches out towards the right and doubles back along the other side creating a central rectangle. Here is the inside of someones home. The size of these houses were so incredibly small and yet they often housed many people. Note the long knife tucked into the panel in the wall. Apparently this was no a place for the faint hearted.

Where there is gold there will be gold thieves. So, here we have the inside of a jail cell.

The front of the jail was filled with pictures, postcards and wanted posters, you know-the essentials.

While Anisa and Bayan admired the wagons,

I noticed the noose hanging from a tree.

Below is the the town's water supply.

Bayan loved the old mining carts (I think these came from nearby Keyesville).

Or maybe it was simply the fact that they resembled a train, with the wheels and tracks and all. The girls and I inspected an old church. This was eerie. With the wind blowing through the tattered curtains and shafts of light falling over the pews you could imagine someone ringing the rope and could almost hear the sound of the bell and notes from the piano calling people to pray. Yet it somehow felt so superficial, especially with a brothel just across the way.

The Silver City ghost town was not quite what I had imagined, but perhaps that is a good thing. It challenges your imagination and forces you to try to focus on the positive, when perhaps positivity is not the first thing that comes to mind.

Speaking of which take a peek at the job description in this advertisement. Doesn't it just make you want to race off and join The Pony Express?

During the week we drove down to Bakersfield a number of times. It is a narrow, twisty road that winds it way through the mountains and I am very grateful that we did not know this the first time we went down in the foggy, dark, hours before dawn. On our numerous trips I came to love this little patch of trees that grow between the rocks in the river. I love the way the branches jut out from the trunk (it is difficult to see here) but they remind me of the Thai dancers that move their arms and wrists in unnatural ways, looking both exotic and elegant at once. It was much the same with these trees. The branches seemed to mimic those dancers, the trees' long arms frozen in impossible positions, moving only to the rhythm of the wind.
I also loved the views as we drove back through the mountains towards Lake Isabella. Especially after the smoggy haze that has completely consumed the city of Bakersfield. I have never seen anything like it. Once you pass a certain point on the highway (and this varies from day to day) you can no longer see the mountains though they are looming up directly behind you. Even in the city itself, there is a definite, low-laying, smog that appears to linger only a few blocks away, but it is really all around you. Apparently this phenomenon is because Bakersfield lies in a valley and is surrounded by hills or mountains which trap the smog and pollution. Once you leave the outskirts of the city and begin your ascent into the hills, the smog vanishes, the landscape changes and you find yourself admiring towering mountain tops with scattered trees and huge boulders, with shadowy nooks and sun drenched sides. You realize how truly small you are and can easily imagine that once, long ago, this was a playground for giants.

We spent our final day at home packing and getting ready for our long flight back. I wish that I had had more of an opportunity to talk with my dad, to simply sit and enjoy his company, but normally the children were awake and in need of attention or supervision or distraction. My biggest regret of the whole trip is that we did not stay up until the last possible second. We packed our bags and loaded the car. Mehran was worried that the kids were diving my dad nuts and said that we should just get going. I didn't want to make things worse for my dad but I also wasn't in a raging rush to leave either. We left an hour earlier than we had planned and in so doing missed Linda who had hurried back from work to say good-bye. I had a funny feeling when we left and am saddened that the last image I have of my dad is of him standing alone at the gate waving good-bye. It would have been so much better if Linda had been there and to think that we only missed her by a couple of minutes. It is this alone that has significantly contributed to my current depression and homesickness. How I hate regrets.