Travels with Shadow

Nevada and Utah

In order to allow more liberal use of photos without causing long download times, I am mostly using black and white photos

The trip from Redding to Salt Lake City is 740 miles with a stop in Reno and Wells, NV

Reno, Nevada
Just west of Reno, I camped in the RV park behind a casino called Boomtown, which advertises that it has 1300 slot machines. Walking across the massive game floor I did not see the estaticly happy people that appear in their advertisements, in fact, they all looked pretty grim.

Gambling has certainly done well for Reno, but at what cost to the sheep they shear? Having worked as a statistition, I am appalled at the lack of sophistication of the masses that flock here. Did they all flunk math? I am not trying to climb on moral high ground here, it is simply a matter of practicality. ONLY THE HOUSE CONSISTANTLY WINS!

If anything immoral is going on here, it is on the part of the casinos. It is sad, but variable reinforcement works every time. If these people were told they had a one in a hundred chance of winning a million dollars, but a one in a two hundred chance of dying right there, they would still play, especially after someone else died.

Lake Tahoe sits on the border of California and Nevada and is a real jewel. I went south to Carson City, a pretty little town, to do some research. I then took the scenic drive back which curved around the north east rim, and looped over roads best taken on good weather.

Lake Tahoe from the north shore

Although the trip to Reno took me south again and hundreds of miles out of my way, I had to check the 1910 census records for traces of my errant grandfather, Milo. Nothing was found in the 1910 index and the 1920 census has not yet been indexed. It was in Nevada that my uncle Percy happened upon him while in show business, perhaps in the All American shows. Other relatives suspect that he was hid out in Yerington, NV after a failed trip to the gold fields in the Yukon.

When I got to Utah I stayed in Layton, about 20 miles north of Salt Lake City for six days. Thanks to the Mormons I managed to get some research done as well as donating some of my research to their archives. I managed to pick up the trail of my great grandfather's brother George Jones and his four children, George, Stephen, Della and Mabel who lived in Kansas in 1900. Another of my grt grandfather's brothers, Stephen died in Hersey, Michigan and left one daughter, Mary who was born Feb. 18, 1855 in Michigan.

With the exception of the treasure trove my cousin Ross had in California, the fruits of my research were minimal, but I managed to travel through some mighty impressive country. Most people who fly today have no concept of how large and diverse this country is. You have to travel at ground level to get a feel for that. I wish more people had the time and opportunity to travel this way, perhaps we could be more tolerant of each other if they did. It is strange that in the jet and information age, we have become more parochial, intolerant and ignorant of each other's ways.

Well from here it is on to Montana and then across the Dakotas and home to Minnesota. I hope it has thawed by then.