With the fire crackling in the background, my friend said, “I don’t think I ever told you. I am a tin cup.”
“A what?”
“A tin cup. Like the movie with Kevin Costner, but not at all,” he said, staring into the lovely heat.
“I play golf, but I’m not the ball or the club. Or the bag,” he said smiling.
“I’m the tin cup catching putts. Sometimes I move the cup just a hair for golfers I like. I’ve also been known to jiggle a little to get the ball to go in.”
“And if you don’t like them?”
“Same thing. Either way, I’m always ready to help or hurt.”
I nodded.
“But I have to be very quiet, and I can’t let the cameras ever detect it!”
“I’ll bet!”
“Yes. I had couple of friends who were blades of grass. A golfer questioned the lay of the blades of grass during one very high-profile tournament. It was ugly.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But I wouldn’t call it questioned. More accurately, they were cursed at to the high heavens. Both of them had to go to therapy.”
“Oh, I didn’t know they had that.”
“Yesirree. Golf has more therapists than any other sport. All of us have had to seek help at one time or another.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“It’s the truth.”
The fire had died by then. We sat in the dark and I wondered what I would like to be for my second job. If only I had a better imagination, I could be a writer.
When we go away for a weekend, we like to do something. Something different. Something outside, if possible. Something that we will remember for a long time, especially the next time the days are dismally cold, depressingly lonely, or unusually sad. We can recall and relive that day when we____________(fill in the blank), and it was awesome. This was one of those days.
The day started early. We had to leave the house by 6:15 to beat the Los Angeles traffic from Orange County, which can add up to two hours to any standard 40-minute passage from point A to point B. We arrived at Santa Anita Park before 7:00.a.m., and the place was already teeming with activity.
No Horse Races!
So, why did we go if there were no races? Because our goal was to hang out at the CLOCKER’S CORNER. It’s an outside patio area where you can get FREE coffee and watch the horses work out. Parking and admission to the park are free when the horses aren’t racing. Seating is outdoors, children are welcome, and you can buy a hot breakfast (oatmeal, eggs, toast, etc.) from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time Zone. Check the website before you go.
So again, if the horses are not racing, what’s the draw? The draw is that you can go to a freaking beautiful racetrack with gorgeous animals prancing and strutting, running, and snuffling as the people at the Clocker’s Corner swap stories, drink coffee, and smile a whole bunch because they love what they do! There were no roaring crowds, sloshing beers, and crazed wagering–but we’re not into horse racing as much as we are into animals and people doing what they love with other animals and people who feel the same way.
The Day Unfolded in Magic
The November weekday morning was picture postcard perfect. The air was crisp; the San Gabriel Mountains were etched and beautiful, and the sun had just risen to cast long shadows over the horses, the track grooming machines, a smattering of jockeys, and horse race aficionados, and except for the wafting of horse poop and hay–which adds totally to the ambiance–the day smelled both calm and expectant. Everyone knew what they were there for–even and especially the horses. “We’re here to stretch our legs,” they might say. Or “We’re here to look good for our owner. He’s over there having coffee.”
We lucked out. We ran into someone who owned one of the horses out on the track, and he had time to take us to “the back.” That’s where the work is done.
The show cannot go on without the owner, the breeders, the trainers, the veterinarians, the walkers, the farriers (who care for the horse’s hooves), and the assistants to all those peeps. Dozens of other people clean out stalls, wash down the horses, fill the feed buckets, and fluff the hay in the stalls, along with hundreds of different tasks that must be done to keep the horses healthy and happy. The stables are 24/7/365 kinds of places. Horses don’t get vacations, and their caretakers don’t either!
What We Learned
Horses are like people. Some people compete in sports with grass in their teeth, snow on their goggles, or wind in their hair. And some would just as soon watch their favorite sport from the “grandstands” of their living room sofa. Horses are just as variable. Our friend said you think from the breeding of a horse that they may want to win races, but you never know for sure. People who like to gamble enjoy horse racing because it’s a vast, expensive gamble, for which the sport is called “The Sport of Kings.” It’s very costly. For instance, our friend said that one horse trained for one month can cost $3,200 in Southern California. Or more. Owners will enter their horses into “claiming” races and thus put their horses for sale at $20,000 to $50,000. Sheiks and kings and investors of all kinds “own” horses with the hopes of having them win big “purses” at the bigger races across the U.S. and around the world. The biggest purse? The Saudi Cup is notable for its $20 million purse, which makes it the most lucrative event in horse racing.
Meanwhile, I don’t know what the horses think. In the novel “HORSE“ by Geraldine Brooks, you get the impression that the main character, Lexington, who is fashioned after a real horse, loves to race. Animal rights activists disagree. How do they know? I like to anthropomorphize animals…dogs, horses, cats, ducks. I think they have feelings, likes and dislikes. So I believe that horses like to win.
Takeaway
Go to different places near your home…and be a tourist. We loved walking around the empty grandstand, smelling the dirt track, and listening to the silence. We were super lucky to run into someone who wanted to show us around…show us his world. Because isn’t that what we all want? To share the things we love so others can love them, too?
And we got to get close to this beautiful animal. She seemed to say, “Come up and visit me any time.” I wonder if she will remember us. We will remember her. 🙂
In the past, we have used travel agents, then gone without them, then added them back, and finally, we went with a tour company for our last two trips—until recently.
Just last month, we surrendered, tail between our legs, and went backward in travel time. The airline gods would not bless us with a passage from point A to point B, no matter how we tried and how many airlines, travel routes, multiple cities, and layover combinations we searched online. After two hours, we gave up.
“Honey, we have to see a travel agent.”
[Photo credit: Tom Barrett, Unsplash]
We sat across from our local travel agent—the flesh and blood kind—with another person from our foursome. They, too, had surrendered and agreed to pay a little extra for peace of mind. The travel agent cracked an indulgent smile, cracked her knuckles, and began the same search we had attempted. Her smile yielded to pursed lips, then a full-out frown. Then, the muttering started. Sweat all but gleamed on her forehead.
Two hours later, we (she) finally had an itinerary that worked. “It may be tight,” our stalwart travel agent announced. “You have a 45-minute connection between flights in the Madrid airport to achieve your final destination.” She hesitated. Then she looked at each of us individually to gauge our reactions as she said the five magic words: “It is a legal connection.”
I was game. I pulled out the airport’s map and airline gates for each of the flights we’d be taking. “It’s the same airline, for goodness sake, and the gates are in the same terminal,” I told my husband, who always fears the worst. (That would be his nickname, and I would, of course, be Tigger.) Besides, what are the best travel stories ever? They’re the ones when something goes wrong, and you have to sleep standing up in a doorway or something.
You’ve been there. You’re at a party. The conversation dims and slows, and the refrigerator hum becomes the loudest noise in the room. Finally, some brilliant soul begins talking about their latest trip. Then, before you know it, each person engages in travel one-upmanship, vying for the prize of the most outrageous (and memorable) story in the room.
What’s yours???
We travel to see the world, but we also want to find ourselves in the world. Traveling tests our resilience and resourcefulness. If we go to the gym and the library on Tuesdays and Thursdays at home every week, we don’t get to learn how fun it is to “nearly miss our train” (we did that in Pisa) or “take the wrong boat” (which we did in Venice more than once). Traveling is a battle. It’s a puzzle. It’s a joy. It’s sickness sometimes. But there are stories in those times, too!
Traveling is a test—a wonderful, expensive (usually but not always), exciting journey. And with or without travel agents, tour guides, travel companions, or itineraries, travel is always an adventure.
Besides, our travel agent was happy she had redeemed herself and protected her profession. But it was a close one. Whew!
Promontory Summit marks the spot where the Union Pacific (starting in the east) and the Central Pacific (starting in the west) railroad companies finally connected hundreds of miles of train tracks that eventually became the Transcontinental Railroad. The work began in 1863 and was finalized with the “Golden Spike” Ceremony on May 10, 1869 at this very site.
The huge undertaking was momentous and costly in terms of money, lives, and resources. It was a magnet for greed, graft, and corruption, and an engineering and human accomplishment that rivals the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids in scope.
So, you’d think there would be a huge freeway sign or a wide, six-lane highway leading to what is now the Golden Spike National Historic Park. You might want search lights or a water park or something. But no. Like many National Parks, the entrance seems at once anticlimactic and low tech. But then, that’s what makes this park visit-worthy and thought provoking. Here’s the thing: They didn’t have telephones much less mobile phones back then. They accomplished this feat with the aid of the telegraph, invented in 1838 not long before the Transcontinental Railroad (TCRR), with the Transcontinental Telegraph (1861) being an integral part of the Civil War and later the TCRR. The Pony Express was no longer needed. And as with many historical landmarks, there are acres of historical facts hidden in this off-the-beaten-path locale. This short video offers a quick introduction.
How’d We End Up Here?
We went to Promontory Summit because we were visiting my brother and his wife in Utah, but it wasn’t on our touring radar at all. Guess what? It ended up being one of my very favorite places to visit because it sparked my interest in how the railroad got started, how it was finished, and how they overcame all the challenges in between.
“Traveling” can be a hard core launch into planning, hotels, meals, touring, and spending. Oh, yes, spending! Or it can be a spontaneous, serendipitous, didn’t-spend-any-money-except-the-gas kind of trip down the highway that leads you to learning about any country–in this case, the United States.
I took the railroads for granted! And yet building the TCRR was a part of our history–for better or for worse–that I would not have been excited about but for this car ride to the historic site. It’s terrible to hear the stories about slavery, the unimaginably bad weather, hundreds of deaths, and unconscionable hardships that made this one of the most difficult undertakings. But it also demonstrates how humans with big dreams overcome many nightmares in the name of progress.
Soaking It In
Travel in your neighborhood or across the world! Be curious. You’ll be amazed at what you can learn and discover. As the kids say, “It’s dope. It’s sick.” I say, “It’s amazing.” From this end of the track visit, I started and finished a novel. It’s almost as big an undertaking (okay, I said almost) as the Transcontinental Railroad, so inspired was I by the story of it.
How about you? Can you find something in your travels that will inspire you? Maybe you write music. Or you paint. Or you’re writing your memoirs or a blog. Go traveling and start your story. Even if your travels are in your own town. There’s so much to see and do wherever you live.
If I whiff a sunscreen that remotely smells like the old “Sea and Ski” suntan lotion from back in the day, I think of Lake Tahoe, California, where we spent every summer when I was growing up. One of the most enjoyable parts of travel across this wide world is the aromas that assault or massage our olfactory nerves, depending.
For instance, when I exit a plane (or an airport), I inhale. Deeply. It’s a first hit. Before your eyes and ears adjust, your nose has the leading edge, as it were, to breathe in the essence of a milieu, enhancing and enlarging what your eyes and ears see and hear. As you move toward a city’s beating heart, you’re sure to gather the odors of its humanity… to smell the country’s living conditions, if that’s fair to say.
Equally, as you approach an uninhabited forest, desert, or mountainside, they each exhale their singular natural beauty. The tang of critters’ scat or the musky, mulchy loam in dark forests might invite tears. I often find the welling up of such feelings so sudden and unexpected that I am ashamed. “Really? Get it together!” I say sternly to my maudlin, sappy self. Yet, the wise salty flow ignores me, happy in its reminiscence and glad we were caught unaware.
It’s another reason to travel. By traveling, one finds oneself. It’s not the same as seeing the National Geographic version on YouTube. It’s not the same as looking at travel photos and brochures, magazines, or those thick guidebooks. Are they helpful? Perhaps. “Tantalizing?” Yes! They are stuffed with the food you’d like to smell and the sights you’d like to see. The well-written, feels-like-you’re-there descriptions of the animals, people, buildings, art, culture, music, and landmarks of all kinds beckon you to visit from the shiny pages. But all you can smell is the ink. The pages are flat. The animals don’t make a peep. The gorgeous food photo is, in the end, as tasteless as the paper it’s printed on. Please don’t try to smell it or lick it. Bleyah!
When you take your next trip, don’t forget to smell where you are. You can “see” where you’ve been with the snapshots you take. You can “hear” the noise of downtown and the silence of the desert with your videos. You can almost recreate the food with recipes and ingredients available everywhere these days, thanks to the internet. But, alas, you cannot recreate the tropical aroma of Hawaii, the humid, human inner city squalor smells in parts of Bangladesh, or India, or, say, downtown Los Angeles. And best of all, you have to stop and make yourself present in the moment to experience a smell. You can use a photograph and videos as memory cheats for scenes and sounds. But you can’t cheat your nose. It won’t let you! At least not yet.
“Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
It’s a scary place to go–down there in the dark with no net of busyness to protect us from falling into the pool below, where feeling all the feels is worse than the bottom of a wishing well where we keep throwing pennies, hoping for whatever.
We don’t dare lower ourselves in the bucket to pick them back out because we may have to act on the wishes and, oh heck…feel all the feels. The truth is in the mirror at the bottom of the well, right above the pile of pennies. And so it’s easier not to go there at all. Or is it?
With the fire crackling in the fireplace across from us, my friend said, “I don’t think I ever told you. I am a tin cup.”
“A what?”
“A tin cup. Like the movie with Kevin Costner, but not at all,” he said, staring into the lovely heat.
“I play golf, but I’m not the ball or the club. Or the bag,” he said, a wistful look in his eyes.
“I’m the tin cup catching putts. It’s a hobby. Sometimes I move the cup just a hair for golfers I like. I’ve also been known to jiggle a little to get the ball to go in.”
“And if you don’t like them?”
“Same thing. Either way, I’m always ready to help or hurt.”
I nodded. Shook my head. Nodded.
“But I have to be very quiet, and I can’t let the cameras ever detect it,” he continued.
“I’ll bet!”
“I’ll never forget this one time, though. My two friends were working as blades of grass that day and they were questioned by a golfer one. It was ugly.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But I wouldn’t call it questioned. More accurately they were cussed at to the high heavens. Both of them had to go to therapy.”
“Oh, I didn’t know they had that.”
“Yesirree. Golf has more therapists than any other sport.”
“I wasn’t aware of that either.”
“It’s the truth.”
The fire had died by then. We sat in the dark and I wondered what I would like to be for my second job. If only I had a better imagination, I could be a writer.
who owned one of the horses out on the track, and he had time to take us to “the back.” That’s where the work is done.
Perhaps I’ve traveled too far. Perhaps not enough.
It’s a scary place to go–down there in the dark with no net of busyness to protect us from falling into the pool below, where feeling all the feels is worse than the bottom of a wishing well where we keep throwing pennies, hoping for whatever.