I'm a little late in blogging again, but I have been so busy with life, that I just don't think about it very often. Let's see, what's a fun story in the last month... Aha! Wells, Nevada... it's kinda long, but it's a fun one! So let me start by saying that ever since just about my birthday, I have been in the frame of mind where I want to do all the things I have not done before, provided they won't kill me or injure me in some way. So about a month ago probably, I spent the weekend at this fabulous bed and breakfast that my friend Dan's family owns. On our way there, we drove through Wendover, Nevada and stopped to gamble. Now, I, having never gambled before lost more than half of what I spent! I gambled away a dollar and seven cents of two dollars on the penny slots! Then, I met an older man named...
well I'm not sure what his name was, but he asked me to come sit and chat with him and I had nothing else to do being that I wasn't going to spend any more money. He put some money in the game that was in front of me and told me how to play. It was the kind of game that requires no thought to lose at and as I sat there for a very very very long time, there went all of the 5 bucks he had put in. It was entertaining conversation though. He told me about his first crush... his little Queen Elizabeth as he called her. He told me all about their days in kindergarten and how he got in trouble for whispering in her ear when he shouldn't have been. He told me that I reminded him of her and spoke of her for a good hour at least. We finally got on our way and arrived as the sun was coming up. I went straight to sleep and when I woke and came downstairs I was told to go look in the fridge. There was a bag of freshly killed ducks! Danny said we were going to prepare them and have them for dinner. I figured ducks had been being prepared for hundreds of years and I'd never done it, so it was high time I do it! I let it boil
for 5 minutes then proceeded to take out all the feathers and cut the meatless part of the wings off as well as the feet and then cut it open and... well it's gross but suffice it to say I cleaned it all out and took off the meat. I was told that putting it in salt water would draw the blood out so I did that... not wanting to eat duck blood. Then, Dan came down as I was finishing and made me a very yummy breakfast as I finished cleaning my mess. Everyone else was still asleep when we finished eating and so we went out to the pond in the back and rowed out to the middle and jumped in the water and played a while and tried out the rope swing. The pond has some parts that are warmer from a hot spring type thing, and that was delightful! Then, he had some things to do and I lay out on the grass enjoying the sunshine and the perfect weather as I dried a bit. Dan came back a little bit later and asked me if I wanted to go to a magical place where Indians used to have sacred ceremonies. Of course! We got on our bikes and
headed down the road. Dan's bike was obviously a kid bike, and mine was about the same size, and was obviously new in the 1930's. It looked just like the one on The Wizard of Oz except that it was rusty, wobbly, the chain was held together by a yellow string, and I would swear the tires didn't even have a tube in them. Well! That explained the tire pump in the basket! We rode on a rock-filled dirt road for three miles and I (and Dan too, unfortunately) discovered just how out of shape I really am. All of a sudden I discovered why we had gone there. There, sitting on the side of the trail/road, was the car we had come up in... with a big puddle of oil underneath it. Dan said that when they had come up that morning they lost something when they drove over a rock and the car was dead. Well! That explained why I had 5 quarts of oil in the basket! I put the bike down and we went to the magical part of the excursion. Apparently, the land had been his family's until not long prior and his great-grandfather had discovered a hot spring that ran into a stream fed by glacier and had built a birm around the spring fencing it in so that there was a pool of sorts about 10 feet wide by maybe 40 feet long and at one part it still overflowed into the stream. He showed me where the water came out and told me that his friend had taken a garden hose to breathe out of and had gone into it when they were little.
We spent a while playing and relaxing in the hot water, then the cold water, and the water in between. Eventually it was time to get going. We decided to see if we could find whatever broke off... about 2 miles further, but just as we got started my chain broke. Well! That explained why there was a roll of yellow string in the basket! Dan tied it back together but it broke again just a few feet further. So we loaded them into the back of the Jimmy with all the other stuff that hadn't been unpacked and decided that I would put a quart of oil in it and then jump in and Dan would drive as far as we could on it and then add another quart and see how far we could go that way with the 5 quarts. We made it through one quart and came to where the stream intersects the road. He stopped the car, we added another quart and the engine didn't even turn over. it was completely dead. It was around 3 in the afternoon by this time and we needed to get back. The others didn't even know where we were! Well, we had no other way to get back so we loaded up the essentials, the guns,
some ammo, playing cards, speakers, a sweater, and the spices and proceeded to start walking back the 3 miles home. After just a bit we passed two people walking toward the spring... one was from England and the other California. A few minutes later, 3 guys passed by and two were from Australia. Then some girls from Russia and New York, some more people from Florida, Canada and somewhere in Asia. There was a bus tour that had stopped on it's travels across America to let the people hike to this obscure little hot spring in the obscure little town of Wells, Nevada. We passed two bus loads of people and by the time we got to the buses we were so thirsty, having run out of water before we had begun walking. We lay on the ground under the jug of water on the bus, and let the water chase impending death from us. Ok, ok, maybe that's little dramatic... we weren't going to die... we were just super thirsty. We walked the remaining half mile and I jumped promptly into the pond when we got home. Dan, trying to keep moral high about not having all our stuff told everyone about the people at the spring and how we all had to go back and party with them. Me, having just walked all the way back, did not care to 'show them where it was' and would have liked to just stay home... but... as Dan and Danny had to get stuff for dinner, I had to bring them back thereby providing entertainment. So, this time we drove about a mile of the way and walked the rest. It wasn't long before the people from New York passed us, and the girl from Russia, and the Australians, and the Californian... By the time we got there every last tourist was en route to the bus which left just the 5 of us. We got to the spring and I decided that I wanted to go in that hole where the hot water came from. I was able to go in far enough that they could just see the ends of my toes but then it was too tight and the air in my lungs wouldn't let me find a way through. Then we relaxed a while,
and played a while and then decided we had better be getting back before the sun went down any further. We were supposed to wait for Dan and Danny, but it was just taking too long. about halfway back to the car we came upon them hiking in, and we all walked back out together. I chatted with Mellina most of the way and we got home a while after dark. When we got there, the ranch hand, Carl was there. He is an older man, probably in his early 60's, and was born deaf. His wife had died six years ago and he was living on the property helping out wherever he was needed. I understand some sign language, and can fingerspell reasonably well, so I became the translator for the evening. It was an absolute delight for me and it was great to talk with him. He was so child-like in his thoughts and at the same time he had such wisdom because of his years. He was just completely untainted by the world. He didn't ever watch tv, or never heard the radio. He was so good and kind.
I asked him to teach me the proper way to prepare a duck and we spent the next hour preparing one each, he showing me what to do on his duck, and then me doing it and getting tips on exactly how to do it. Then, I showed Dan and Mellina how to do it and supervised as they did one of their own. Once it got to the part where you get their intestines and stuff out I opted to just let the boys do it. I know how, should I ever need to, but that would be the only time I ever woul
d. With the ducks cleaned and our spaghetti dinner ready, we all sat at the big dining table and Carl was the guest of honor. As I ate, I watched with amusement as the boys tried to communicate with Carl using some form of charades, acting out every word and exaggerating every word along the way. Hahaha, come to find out he could read lips very well and was far more capable than we knew. He told us stories of his travels and things he had learned from the Indians. He said that he is a good hunter because he can smell the animals before they can be spotted and that at one point he was hired in Arizona to hunt rattlesnakes because of it. The boys were like entranced 5 year old listening to the hunting stories, and were amazed by all he had learned from the Indians. We stayed up very late talking with him and I was glad to finally be in bed when I got to it. Everyone else stayed up playing with the horses and shooting rabbits, which Carl had told us that most of the rabbits were diseased and that shooting them was ok to do. The next morning when I woke up, the sun was shining through the curtains and the day was calling me to it, promising fun, adventure, and new experiences. I went downstairs and breakfast was almost ready. As we were eating Dan asked who wanted to drive with him to pick up our rental car we would need to drive home. If it were earlier or later you could have heard the crickets. Nobody. I really wanted to enjoy the grounds and play and relax after spending so much of the previous day hiking, and the 4 remaining boys had been able to do that yesterday and stay up half the night as well. Some coaxing, still nothing. More coaxing, still nothing. Just as Dan was about to think that we were all extremely ungrateful for all of is efforts on out behalf, I volunteered to go with him. We left as soon as breakfast was over and drove to Ely, first stopping at the grocery store for some things for that night's dinner. We got to Ely and picked up an Explorer, which Dan drove back as I followed in Mellina's car. When we arrived back at home, about 3 in the afternoon, Carl had just come over. He and Mellina went to find some good sagebrush and we decided we'd go up to the lake at the very top of the mountain and go swimming.
The 7 of us and Carl piled into the Explorer and took a quick detour to the old abandoned high school that looked as if it had never been finished. It was alone out it in the middle of the desert looking like old ruins from the 60's. It was quite a peculiar sight. As soon as we got out of the car, Carl told me that he smelled rattlesnake, but they weren't near, and so to not wander far.
We took some pictures and were on our way. We drove up to the very top of the mountain and came to the lake. Now, even though this was the last week of August that high up, at that time of day, was quite cold. The water was low and the boys were skittish to jump in... except Dan. He jumped right in to prove that it was fine, but only 2 of the other boys jumped in and one only after being jeered at and being called a 'pansy' by somebody on the other side of the lake twenty minutes after he first started to attempt his jump. That was hilarious. He wasn't aware that the bowl we were in made it easy to hear every word from his perch.
We stayed a while and again left as the sun sat low in the sky. By the time we got down the mountain it was dark and honestly, I was kinda tired of translating. Confined to the car everyone had lots of questions for Carl and he, sitting directly behind me, was not easy to communicate with. Dan, wanting to provide new experiences, decided to take us to tour one of the two working brothels in town... Bella's. That was quite the experience, and quite the arduous task to explain to Carl where we were going and why. I figured, there's one more thing I have never done before! We got there and rang the doorbell. A woman who looked like she played that role in a movie, answered the door and was surprised to see not only all 8 of us, but the two girls... myself looking rather young having somehow left all my makeup in Utah.
She explained to us that we would be touring the place and that in a few moments would be selecting our tour guide in the traditional fashion. The tour guides presented themselves and we made our selection, which was weird... then it got weirder... and weirder, and more and more awkward as the tour went on. I took the tour with Dan and I was glad he was with me. What did I have to ask? I did feel kind of dumb at one point for asking an obvious question, but Dan was awkward too which helped, and then Carl joined our tour too which helped even more. Talking to our tour guide and another tour guide about some of the details of their occupation and how they came to acquire that job I tried to keep the look of shock off my face and really just felt sorry for them as I left. I must say, I have a lot to be grateful for, so very very much. When we got home, we cooked the duck on the grill and had a good dinner, again with Carl, but this time not a formal dinner. The did the packing, cleaning, and had an uneventful ride home. I slept almost all the way back. It was a very, very fun trip!!
well I'm not sure what his name was, but he asked me to come sit and chat with him and I had nothing else to do being that I wasn't going to spend any more money. He put some money in the game that was in front of me and told me how to play. It was the kind of game that requires no thought to lose at and as I sat there for a very very very long time, there went all of the 5 bucks he had put in. It was entertaining conversation though. He told me about his first crush... his little Queen Elizabeth as he called her. He told me all about their days in kindergarten and how he got in trouble for whispering in her ear when he shouldn't have been. He told me that I reminded him of her and spoke of her for a good hour at least. We finally got on our way and arrived as the sun was coming up. I went straight to sleep and when I woke and came downstairs I was told to go look in the fridge. There was a bag of freshly killed ducks! Danny said we were going to prepare them and have them for dinner. I figured ducks had been being prepared for hundreds of years and I'd never done it, so it was high time I do it! I let it boil
for 5 minutes then proceeded to take out all the feathers and cut the meatless part of the wings off as well as the feet and then cut it open and... well it's gross but suffice it to say I cleaned it all out and took off the meat. I was told that putting it in salt water would draw the blood out so I did that... not wanting to eat duck blood. Then, Dan came down as I was finishing and made me a very yummy breakfast as I finished cleaning my mess. Everyone else was still asleep when we finished eating and so we went out to the pond in the back and rowed out to the middle and jumped in the water and played a while and tried out the rope swing. The pond has some parts that are warmer from a hot spring type thing, and that was delightful! Then, he had some things to do and I lay out on the grass enjoying the sunshine and the perfect weather as I dried a bit. Dan came back a little bit later and asked me if I wanted to go to a magical place where Indians used to have sacred ceremonies. Of course! We got on our bikes and 
headed down the road. Dan's bike was obviously a kid bike, and mine was about the same size, and was obviously new in the 1930's. It looked just like the one on The Wizard of Oz except that it was rusty, wobbly, the chain was held together by a yellow string, and I would swear the tires didn't even have a tube in them. Well! That explained the tire pump in the basket! We rode on a rock-filled dirt road for three miles and I (and Dan too, unfortunately) discovered just how out of shape I really am. All of a sudden I discovered why we had gone there. There, sitting on the side of the trail/road, was the car we had come up in... with a big puddle of oil underneath it. Dan said that when they had come up that morning they lost something when they drove over a rock and the car was dead. Well! That explained why I had 5 quarts of oil in the basket! I put the bike down and we went to the magical part of the excursion. Apparently, the land had been his family's until not long prior and his great-grandfather had discovered a hot spring that ran into a stream fed by glacier and had built a birm around the spring fencing it in so that there was a pool of sorts about 10 feet wide by maybe 40 feet long and at one part it still overflowed into the stream. He showed me where the water came out and told me that his friend had taken a garden hose to breathe out of and had gone into it when they were little. 
We spent a while playing and relaxing in the hot water, then the cold water, and the water in between. Eventually it was time to get going. We decided to see if we could find whatever broke off... about 2 miles further, but just as we got started my chain broke. Well! That explained why there was a roll of yellow string in the basket! Dan tied it back together but it broke again just a few feet further. So we loaded them into the back of the Jimmy with all the other stuff that hadn't been unpacked and decided that I would put a quart of oil in it and then jump in and Dan would drive as far as we could on it and then add another quart and see how far we could go that way with the 5 quarts. We made it through one quart and came to where the stream intersects the road. He stopped the car, we added another quart and the engine didn't even turn over. it was completely dead. It was around 3 in the afternoon by this time and we needed to get back. The others didn't even know where we were! Well, we had no other way to get back so we loaded up the essentials, the guns, 
some ammo, playing cards, speakers, a sweater, and the spices and proceeded to start walking back the 3 miles home. After just a bit we passed two people walking toward the spring... one was from England and the other California. A few minutes later, 3 guys passed by and two were from Australia. Then some girls from Russia and New York, some more people from Florida, Canada and somewhere in Asia. There was a bus tour that had stopped on it's travels across America to let the people hike to this obscure little hot spring in the obscure little town of Wells, Nevada. We passed two bus loads of people and by the time we got to the buses we were so thirsty, having run out of water before we had begun walking. We lay on the ground under the jug of water on the bus, and let the water chase impending death from us. Ok, ok, maybe that's little dramatic... we weren't going to die... we were just super thirsty. We walked the remaining half mile and I jumped promptly into the pond when we got home. Dan, trying to keep moral high about not having all our stuff told everyone about the people at the spring and how we all had to go back and party with them. Me, having just walked all the way back, did not care to 'show them where it was' and would have liked to just stay home... but... as Dan and Danny had to get stuff for dinner, I had to bring them back thereby providing entertainment. So, this time we drove about a mile of the way and walked the rest. It wasn't long before the people from New York passed us, and the girl from Russia, and the Australians, and the Californian... By the time we got there every last tourist was en route to the bus which left just the 5 of us. We got to the spring and I decided that I wanted to go in that hole where the hot water came from. I was able to go in far enough that they could just see the ends of my toes but then it was too tight and the air in my lungs wouldn't let me find a way through. Then we relaxed a while, 
and played a while and then decided we had better be getting back before the sun went down any further. We were supposed to wait for Dan and Danny, but it was just taking too long. about halfway back to the car we came upon them hiking in, and we all walked back out together. I chatted with Mellina most of the way and we got home a while after dark. When we got there, the ranch hand, Carl was there. He is an older man, probably in his early 60's, and was born deaf. His wife had died six years ago and he was living on the property helping out wherever he was needed. I understand some sign language, and can fingerspell reasonably well, so I became the translator for the evening. It was an absolute delight for me and it was great to talk with him. He was so child-like in his thoughts and at the same time he had such wisdom because of his years. He was just completely untainted by the world. He didn't ever watch tv, or never heard the radio. He was so good and kind. 
I asked him to teach me the proper way to prepare a duck and we spent the next hour preparing one each, he showing me what to do on his duck, and then me doing it and getting tips on exactly how to do it. Then, I showed Dan and Mellina how to do it and supervised as they did one of their own. Once it got to the part where you get their intestines and stuff out I opted to just let the boys do it. I know how, should I ever need to, but that would be the only time I ever woul
d. With the ducks cleaned and our spaghetti dinner ready, we all sat at the big dining table and Carl was the guest of honor. As I ate, I watched with amusement as the boys tried to communicate with Carl using some form of charades, acting out every word and exaggerating every word along the way. Hahaha, come to find out he could read lips very well and was far more capable than we knew. He told us stories of his travels and things he had learned from the Indians. He said that he is a good hunter because he can smell the animals before they can be spotted and that at one point he was hired in Arizona to hunt rattlesnakes because of it. The boys were like entranced 5 year old listening to the hunting stories, and were amazed by all he had learned from the Indians. We stayed up very late talking with him and I was glad to finally be in bed when I got to it. Everyone else stayed up playing with the horses and shooting rabbits, which Carl had told us that most of the rabbits were diseased and that shooting them was ok to do. The next morning when I woke up, the sun was shining through the curtains and the day was calling me to it, promising fun, adventure, and new experiences. I went downstairs and breakfast was almost ready. As we were eating Dan asked who wanted to drive with him to pick up our rental car we would need to drive home. If it were earlier or later you could have heard the crickets. Nobody. I really wanted to enjoy the grounds and play and relax after spending so much of the previous day hiking, and the 4 remaining boys had been able to do that yesterday and stay up half the night as well. Some coaxing, still nothing. More coaxing, still nothing. Just as Dan was about to think that we were all extremely ungrateful for all of is efforts on out behalf, I volunteered to go with him. We left as soon as breakfast was over and drove to Ely, first stopping at the grocery store for some things for that night's dinner. We got to Ely and picked up an Explorer, which Dan drove back as I followed in Mellina's car. When we arrived back at home, about 3 in the afternoon, Carl had just come over. He and Mellina went to find some good sagebrush and we decided we'd go up to the lake at the very top of the mountain and go swimming. 
The 7 of us and Carl piled into the Explorer and took a quick detour to the old abandoned high school that looked as if it had never been finished. It was alone out it in the middle of the desert looking like old ruins from the 60's. It was quite a peculiar sight. As soon as we got out of the car, Carl told me that he smelled rattlesnake, but they weren't near, and so to not wander far. 
We took some pictures and were on our way. We drove up to the very top of the mountain and came to the lake. Now, even though this was the last week of August that high up, at that time of day, was quite cold. The water was low and the boys were skittish to jump in... except Dan. He jumped right in to prove that it was fine, but only 2 of the other boys jumped in and one only after being jeered at and being called a 'pansy' by somebody on the other side of the lake twenty minutes after he first started to attempt his jump. That was hilarious. He wasn't aware that the bowl we were in made it easy to hear every word from his perch. 
We stayed a while and again left as the sun sat low in the sky. By the time we got down the mountain it was dark and honestly, I was kinda tired of translating. Confined to the car everyone had lots of questions for Carl and he, sitting directly behind me, was not easy to communicate with. Dan, wanting to provide new experiences, decided to take us to tour one of the two working brothels in town... Bella's. That was quite the experience, and quite the arduous task to explain to Carl where we were going and why. I figured, there's one more thing I have never done before! We got there and rang the doorbell. A woman who looked like she played that role in a movie, answered the door and was surprised to see not only all 8 of us, but the two girls... myself looking rather young having somehow left all my makeup in Utah. 
She explained to us that we would be touring the place and that in a few moments would be selecting our tour guide in the traditional fashion. The tour guides presented themselves and we made our selection, which was weird... then it got weirder... and weirder, and more and more awkward as the tour went on. I took the tour with Dan and I was glad he was with me. What did I have to ask? I did feel kind of dumb at one point for asking an obvious question, but Dan was awkward too which helped, and then Carl joined our tour too which helped even more. Talking to our tour guide and another tour guide about some of the details of their occupation and how they came to acquire that job I tried to keep the look of shock off my face and really just felt sorry for them as I left. I must say, I have a lot to be grateful for, so very very much. When we got home, we cooked the duck on the grill and had a good dinner, again with Carl, but this time not a formal dinner. The did the packing, cleaning, and had an uneventful ride home. I slept almost all the way back. It was a very, very fun trip!!
sounds like sooo much fun! I love living vicariously through you!
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