A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. -William Styron, novelist (1925-2006)
It was this way for me when I first read The Lord of the Rings! Exhausted, been to places new to me, and sad it was over.
I return to Middle-earth once every year or two.
When I travel, I often wonder: Where in Middle-earth am I?
ALBACON, www.albacon.org , has its hotel for 2010: Best Western Sovereign Hotel – Albany, 1228 Western Ave., Albany, NY 12203; +1-518-489-2981; http://www.sovereignhotels.com/ .
We hope to have on-line registration up and running real soon now. Y’all come. We give good con! Allen Steele is our Literary Guest of Honor.
For the past couple days I’ve been scanning in papers from the Tolkien conferences I ran in 1969 and 1971: The 1st & 2nd Conferences On Middle-earth. I may add a couple more that I have which are contemporary with them. It is very interesting to go thru these papers which were based solely on The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings.
These are the papers which didn’t make the cut for “A Tolkien Compass” edited by Jared Lobdell.
One idea is to publish them under the title: “A Tolkien Lodestone.” They being sort of not quite ready for accurate directions in Middle-earth.
It might be fun to hold another Conference On Middle-earth for fans of Professor Tolkien, the books, music, art, films, etc. A small get together in the “Green Dragon” for a nosh & a natter.
The so-called Westboro Baptist Church is again in the news. All I can think of is that Sauron would be smiling. This family, and that is about all the Westboro Baptist Church is composed of, is anything but God fearing or holy. They insult the truly religious. – I have a further question. Who is paying for them to do this? They are all over the US bleating out their message of hate & bigotry. Are they rich and can afford all the travelling they seem to do? Maybe someone is behind these simple minded puppets of hate and bigotry. It would be interesting to follow the money, as the expression goes. – A good primer on dealing with terrorists, [And I consider the so-called Westboro Baptist Churc as such.] such as this group, is found in a very interesting SF novel by Dean Ing: “Soft Targets.” It came out at the end of the 70’s. Well worth looking for.
Recently read/viewed “JRR TOLKIEN – Artist & Illustrator” by Hammond & Scull. It is a fascinating look at Tolkien’s ideas visualized. While I thoroughly enjoyed the book and Tolkien art as well as the commentary by Hammond & Scull, I’m not quite as overwhelmed by Tolkien’s art as they are. Tolkien’s art is quite good. However, he was not an artistic master. It is very interesting to see how different works grew in the drawing as it were. It was interesting to learn how Tolkien recycled some of his art work for publication. All in all it is a book well worth adding to one’s collection of books by Tolkien. I’m glad I did and recommend it to you.
On the 19th, the closest to 22 September, I sat down in front of my computer with its 24″ monitor & watched the extended version of TLOTR. It was a grand way to spend the day. I love the film, the books, and even enjoyed the musical. – Of course, I did much junk food, including Pizza, Pepsi, chips & dip, & ice cream. How much better can it get? – I would love to find someone with a BIG screen to host a hobbit party to watch the film. I’ve done it, but it just doesn’t work on a small screen.
I had a very good time at ALBACON. You should have been there. I did a few panels, mixed with everyone, went to parties, got not enough sleep, the usual.
Next year ALLEN STEELE is the literary GoH. Y’all come on by. We give good con!
What panels do you want to attend there?
Saturday, 20 June 2009. I awoke to another fine day. It was sunny and comfortable. I decided I would catch breakfast up the road. I did my shoulder exercises, packed the car and headed north. Drive was quite pleasant with light traffic. The scenery was quite nice and the road wound between and through fields.
Just south of Phillipsville I got off of 101 and onto the Avenue of the Giants. I took my time and slowly drove down the road that wound between giant trees. It was most relax will. In Phillipsville I asked about the whereabouts of Hobbiton, USA. It turned out and that I had passed the overgrown sign to Hobbiton, USA next to the sign that proclaimed The Chimney Tree. I returned both the café and Hobbiton, USA were closed. I took a picture of the sign and then started walking up the path. It turned out that there are some tenants living on the grounds and warned me off as I was trespassing. Darn! While I was there, at least 10 cars slow down to give the area a look.
I think the owners are vastly underestimating the attraction of Hobbiton, USA. Granted it would cost a fair bit of change to bring the area back to high standards. However, I would bet and donate some money that if the owners asked for help on The One Ring.Net and The Frodo Franchise blog, they would attract more than enough talent who would be willing to work for free in order to restore Hobbiton, USA to splendor. All they would have to do is put up a plaque afterwards indicating which human, Elf, dwarf, etc., had helped with the restoration. Moreover, they could host an annual picnic on the weekend closest to 1 May, which I believe is the date that Bilbo returned to Bagend, to do a spring cleanup on the grounds for the following tourist season.
I sorrowfully took my leave and slowly headed up the Avenue of the Giants. It is truly a magnificent experience to slowly drive this road. Some of the trees along the road appeared to be about 10 feet in diameter. Further away there must’ve been even bigger trees than those along the road. It was truly an invigorating experience for the soul and mind.
It was a short drive after the Avenue of the Giants ended to Eureka where I stayed for the evening. Once in my room I’ve read for awhile, then went to the adjacent restaurant for dinner, called up a few friends to work on meetings along the road and then read some more until I turned out to light.
I also decided I would spend an additional night here as I was meeting an old friend for a late lunch and rather than try and drive on afterword would put my feet up, make some phone calls and read little bit. I would head out to some parks on Monday morning.
Thursday, 18 June 2009. Got a fairly good night’s rest and awoke to find a hazy overcast and cool morning. I headed down to Denny’s for a grand slam breakfast and on the way back I noticed the cloud cover, probably high fog, had more or less listed in the sun was out. About time to get some work done on my diary. While I didn’t upload diary entries to my blog, I did get about five or six days recorded. I should catch up with over the next day or two and be able to post my entries.
About noon, under bright sun, I headed up Highway 1 to the San Francisco area. The first portion of the trip up to Santa Cruz was slow, rather pleasant but nothing special. I did get a look at your grocery stores vegetables being harvested in the field.
The drive north of Santa Cruz was exceedingly nice. The only real problem was getting through the CF that is known as Santa Cruz. This is where I once again had some problems following almost nonexistent traffic signs. Highway 1, the rest of the way, hugs the coast and is well worth the drive. The drive it has gentle hills and curves as it runs almost on the beach to cliffs overlooking the sandy beaches. For the most part I was not bothered by insane drivers, though there were a few, and could enjoy a leisurely drive up the coast.
Ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately, it also leads to driving on a road that appears to be the only one, it isn’t really, from the coast to San Francisco Bay. Route 92 is a very beautiful drive marred only by the fact that there is a continuous heavy stream of traffic from one coast to the other. The road snakes through rising hills almost to the Bay before dropping down onto the coastal roads. It would be great fun to drive without the traffic.
After petrol I found my motel and called Janet Coyle who arranged the Middle-earth Tours for us. I dropped by for a lovely chat. All too soon I headed back to the motel. I once again tried to call a couple folk but to no avail.
After reading for a couple hours I headed back into Belmont to Toto’s Pizza where I had some ravioli. It was quite good. Dessert was some Baskins and Robbins ice cream. I headed back to the motel, watched some TV and read. No response from my friends. After a shower standing in a tub that didn’t drain, a call to the night.
Saturday, 6 June 2009. Over the continental breakfast in the lobby I had a lovely chat with the young couple from Italy. They were heading for the Grand Canyon, and I suggested, they drive route 66 all the way to Williams before heading up to the Grand Canyon.
Taking Route 66 I wended my way through Needles, up I-40 for short while, then off onto the old road. It was warm but not hot under a mostly sunny skies. I turned off US 95 and headed down Goffs Road. While this was not quite as lonely as I expected, it was pretty empty. Nothing but desert for miles in all direction.
I stopped in Goffs to take a couple photos of the restored schoolhouse which was built in the mid teens. I believe the town has 13 people living in. From there I drove to Fenner where I got some gas, a full tank is a good thing in the desert, and had a nice chat with a couple from just outside of Sydney, Australia. The wife enjoyed not only The Lord Of The Rings but the Upfield novels as well. Obviously, they’re very nice people. The husband had to take a picture of me with my car and license plate.
I pressed on to Essex for a few photographs but along the way I did stop and if not smell the flowers at least photographed them. Haven’t the faintest idea of what they are but they’re quite pretty. Maybe somebody can take a look at my picture and tell me what the flower is other then some flowering weed along the road.
From Essex it was a long slow drive over a low pass and then a straight shot into Amboy. I did get a nice photo of the road stretching off into the far distance as they came around the bend down from the pass. There is a lot of lot of nothing out there. However, it is still very pretty in a desolate way.
I stopped that Ray’s in Amboy for a snack. I learned that it was open seven days a week and I could’ve gotten gas there rather than in Fenner. However, I spent a delightful period there chatting with the various people who had also stop there. There was a couple from France, a number of people from within 100 miles who decided to drive or bike out, and an American taking a couple friends from Germany out to see the desert and Roy’s in Amboy. This was topped off when about 25 biker showed up in the were doing a bike tour from LA to the Grand Canyon and back. Members of the tour were from all over Europe and the UK. I gave the tour leader the e-group card and mentioned this company should take an advert in the Route 66 Pulse.
I had decided to make this a short day and headed back around 1:30. Back at the motel I watched the Belmont, to some e-mail and relaxed. I eventually wandered over to the adjacent Denny’s for dinner. My motel key got me 10% off the price. After dinner I puttered on the computer for a while and made a couple phone calls. I was able to contact my friend Kim in Mira Loma and arranged to crash there on Tuesday night. From there I could backtrack and finish off a portion of 66 I still needed to cover. This also means that the meeting of the “Tasty Mongols’ Horde” would be on Thursday evening, 11 June.
True to my intent I actually not only got into bed but turned off the light well before midnight. Tomorrow more desert, the Bagdad Café and Barstow, California.
