As stated in my Monday post about traveling along Highway 395 in the eastern Sierra Nevada of California, there are lots of beautiful places to see, old towns, a film museum, the remains of a Japanese internment camp, and many spots to get away from the noise and mayhem of modern living. This video will give you a little vacation for a few minutes when the characters on the screen start to blur or a moment of sanity is required to cope with the day.
This tour starts in Genoa and Minden, NV then continues southward through Bridgeport, Twin Lakes, Glacier Lodge, Lee Vining, Lone Pine and its Alabama Hills where many movies have been filmed. Their film museum is always fun to visit and the displays change periodically so it is never stale. Manzanar is the setting for the autobiographical novel, Farewell to Manzanar, which tells the story of the internment of Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into WWII. That’s a must-see monument.
Further down the road are the 19th Century charcoal kilns and Fossil Falls, an ancient lava flow where waterfalls drained the inland sea that once covered much of the Great Basin. We end up at Trona, another relic of this region’s volcanic past.
The last photo is Ma and Pa Cauhape and their trusty Jeep Wrangler that took them up canyons and over desert roads to beautiful places. I hope you’ll enjoy this peek at a spectacular and diverse landscape.
If you enjoyed this post feel free to explore other poems, essays, and stories in the Ring Around the Basin Archive. I also love to read your comments, so please share your thoughts. Let’s start a conversation. And if you wish to support my writings, please consider subscribing or upgrading to a paid subscription. It’s now only $50/year. And even better, please share Ring Around the Basin with your friends. Thank you!
All my books, Paradise Ridge, When the Horses Come and Go, and Ghost in the Forest are currently available on Kindle.
Ghost in the Forest, is also available in paperback for ten bucks. Paradise Ridge is out-of-print, but the Kindle version is re-edited and better quality. Hard copies of “When the Horses Come and Go” are gone unless that dusty box in the corner still has some.
Book Review of Ghost in the Forest:
"Ghost in The Forest" is a great read! Take note People. If you love stories about environmentalism and nature, its clash with urban mindsets, as well as personal transformation, this is the book for you!
"Ghost in The Forest" is a quick 126-page read. It's the story of Dori, a woman trapped in a mix of grief over parental loss and refusing to accept how her hometown and her friends have changed over the years. Because of this, Dori has become a recluse and a self-imposed misanthrope who finds more comfort amongst the hiking trails around her hometown of Morristown than in her dealings with the raw reality of other humans.
The book, in some ways, resembled Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire” in that the story follows a protagonist's love of nature and angst about humans encroaching on it. In this case, it’s how Morristown is transforming into a mountain biking destination where cyclists run rampant on trails and nature.
However, a tragedy involving said mountain biking becomes a major pivot point for Dori, leading to a series of events that eventually bring about personal evolution and discovery.
If you're a nature lover, this book is a must-read. It beautifully portrays the clash between environmentalism and urban mindsets and the journey of personal transformation. The book's vivid descriptions of nature and the protagonist's love for it will surely intrigue you.
Paradise Ridge Review by western author D. B. Jackson:
If you draw circle roughly around an area that includes northern Nevada, southern Oregon, and southern Idaho, within that circle exists a culture and people who live a lifestyle largely untouched by modern values. These are the "buckaroos" and Basque characters author Sue Cauhape brings to life in her literary novel, "Paradise Ridge".
Leandro, the illegitimate seventh son of patriarch Xavier Arriaga and his mistress, Gisela, is at the center of this intriguing story that travels exceedingly successfully at both the personal level of the characters, as well as the compelling level where the story is told.
Cauhape writes in a literary style that reminds me of Annie Poulx. Paradise Ridge, on the surface, appears to be an upscale Western novel...once inside the pages, you will soon discover a potential classic waiting to be discovered.
I rated this book a 5...because that's all the stars there were.
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