Search
Polls
Latest Forum Posts
| Taking a Knee unclebuck 15-11-08 13:51 |
| Re:Football unclebuck 07-10-08 15:24 |
| Re:Football unclebuck 02-10-08 12:59 |
Login Form
| Fast Talk |
|
|
| Written by Ron Swift / Fast Talk | |
| Saturday, 02 February 2008 | |
|
On the road again You never know what path life’s little twists and turns will take. Ours just took an unexpected one. Let me explain.  Fast Talk - Ron Swift “Where would you like to go?” I remember her asking in 1987. Because we were getting away just after Christmas, I suggested somewhere warm — like Australia. But then we talked with Wade and Chris Bingham, as well as Roy and Betty Eberwein. Both couples had visited New Zealand and strongly recommended the Kiwi country. So we added New Zealand, and then a college friend in the U.S. Air Force invited us to visit him in Thailand. At that point, HM hauled a world globe out of the closet and pointed out that Nepal wasn’t all that far from Thailand. And by the time we added a stop in Hong Kong on the way home, we had a 50-day trip in the works. Then, it was back to work for more than five years before HM, while reading a travel brochure, suddenly announced she wanted to go to Tibet. “Tibet?” I replied. “Heck, we’ve never been to the East Coast, let along England, France or Italy. Why would we want to go to Tibet?” She voiced convincing reasons. Well, we and 14 other Americans went and spent 23 days roaming around that mountainous Himalayan country in four-wheel-drive vehicles, sleeping in a tent, eating camp food prepared by our excellent Sherpa staff, and thoroughly enjoying ourselves while seldom getting below 12,000 feet. Tourism had just opened in Tibet, and we were on the cutting edge. It was fascinating and exhilarating. In fact, one of the highlights of the trip was getting up to 18,000-foot elevation at Mt. Everest and overnighting in a snowstorm with an international group that would soon make an attempt at the summit. We also visited a dozen monasteries and met a few hundred Buddhist monks. We were hooked, but didn’t realize it. We stayed in touch with our American tour guide Susan, who six years later (in 1999) convinced us to join her group of 12 on an adventure trip out into the vast 800-mile-long Taklamakan Desert in western China, second in size only to the Sahara. Again it was four-wheel-drive vehicles, sometimes where not even a track existed, making the use of GPS devices mandatory. We fell back into a four-week routine of tent camping, sponge bathing, foregoing bathrooms, eating with friends in the dining tent and visiting ruins of walled cities dating back 3,000 years while frequently getting out to push our stuck vehicles. You’d think such an adventure would be enough for one lifetime. But no. Three years later, just 12 months after 9/11, Susan led us back to the Taklamakan. This time, it was a 43-day adventurous journey that included travel by plane, mini-bus, four-wheel drives, camel and foot. Logging nearly 3,000 miles, we got all the way west to the historical city of Kashgar of Silk Road fame. We felt safe throughout the journey, and were treated as royalty. Because I was 65 at the time and about to retire from a lifetime behind a desk, I assumed future traveling would be of the tame variety. We managed Antarctica with brief but fun stops in both Chile and Argentina and joined nearly 40 others on a trip to such Eastern European places as Albania, Macedonia and Bulgaria — all the way to the Black Sea. Interesting, but tame. On our way home, we finally spent a week in Washington, D.C., a “first” for HM. Now, we thought, maybe we can see the remainder of this country — as new retirees Dr. Peter and Vicki La Torre are planning to do. We’ll just get behind the wheel of our family bucket of bolts and see the fascinating US of A. Then around the recent holidays came an e-mail from Susan, now a successful watercolor artist in New Mexico. She had a new trip in mind, this one titled “Mysterious Lakes of the Gobi.” Yep, back to China (we have yet to see the Terra Cotta Warriors or the Three Gorges Dam) — or, more precisely, Inner Mongolia, a Chinese province. This came as a surprise, because Susan, who on our trip in 2002 fell off the back of a camel and broke her back, has not traveled since. She had been a tour guide for more than 25 years and once trekked across Africa (the short way) on foot, but she retired after spending several months in a cast after her fall in the desert. So, what’s luring us back to China later this year? Well, maybe you haven’t heard of the Badain Jaran Desert, a World Heritage site. I hadn’t either, but I learned it contains about 140 shallow spring-fed lakes and is said to be a “living desert,” unlike the Taklamakan — “The Sea of Death.” It also contains the world’s largest stationary dunes, the highest perhaps 1,400 feet above the surrounding landscape. I suppose we’ll be asked to climb it. The 25-day trip will include 15 days of camel trekking, where we will have a choice of either walking or riding about 130 miles. That should make Patterson’s own Bob “Spokie” Kimball happy, for when I get on him about his obsessive bicycle riding — he’s closing in on 50,000 miles — he in turn refers to me as a “camel jockey.” What will we see out in the desert besides shallow lakes, huge dunes and wild camels? The Chinese government believes that about 30 Mongolian families reside in this desert, and Susan expects to meet up with at least eight of them. This isn’t an area where tourists tread, so our meeting should be interesting, to say the least. In addition, we’ll visit a couple of Buddhist monasteries and will undoubtedly have a cup or two of buttered tea. Our group of about a dozen will include three others with whom we have twice previously traveled to China. Hearing a familiar voice singing in a nearby tent as the sun breaks over the desert horizon is a joy that can’t be described in words. This time I’ll be 71, and if the ol’ bones hold together long enough to survive the trip, it’s unlikely I’ll call upon them to risk another similar adventure. We really would like to visit England. Education item of the week Babies are born without kneecaps. They develop when a child is between 2 and 6 years of age. So there. ELECTION TIME While Stanislaus County voters decide upon Measures E and L at the polls next Tuesday, San Francisco voters will make a decision on Alcatraz. The proposition is for the city to acquire the former federal penitentiary, tear down the historical landmark and build a stylish, probably expensive global peace center. No voter options on homelessness, gangs and Muni Railway problems. FOR THE SPORTS FAN Local basketball fans may find this hard to believe. Over in the Trans-Valley League, where Patterson High used to compete, the Ripon Christian Knights early this week had a conference record of 1-9 and overall were 4-18. That’s not a misprint — 1-9! The Knights, who dominated the TVL for so many years, are apparently in a rebuilding mode. AND FINALLY … Who says figures don’t lie? We all know that Caroline Kennedy didn’t turn 50 in November, now don’t we? Ron Swift is editor/publisher emeritus of the Patterson Irrigator. His column appears weekly in this space.
Set as favorite
Bookmark
Email This
Hits: 160 Comments
(0)
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed