23 January 2004 Postscript:
Via email, I alerted Michael McCarthy of the rebuttal to his website article, posted on my website.
He responded, and I had to admit to him that his article afforded me an opportunity to take unfair advantage.
Unfair? Sure, because I knew his article was supposed to be humorous. But I largely ignored that fact. Why? Because by doing so, it became a perfect foil for me.
I also made little allowance for the fact that what he was describing was one of those vacations where nothing is as envisioned and nothing goes as planned.
They hit Death Valley after a huge rain, and typically life in that area is totally disrupted at such times. Roads are closed, proprietors of some businesses have to attend to potential damage to their facilities or even their homes, etc. And the scenic byways wash out. It happens. Infrequently, but dramatically.
One thing Michael shows very well is that once a disappointment or some other negative event mars the start of a trip, it is easy to have the whole trip ruined, psychologically. Then everything takes on an ominous or negative tone. Everything looks wrong, feels wrong.
I have had trips like that. Imagine yourself starting on vacation, and as you head out of town you get an expensive traffic ticket. Not only that, but the ticket is undeserved and your attempt to say so is interrupted by the irritated jabbering of an equally irritated and obviously humorless traffic cop. As you get back on the road with dark clouds in your mind, you find yourself incapable of bursting out in joyful song for quite a few hours afterward. Things that would otherwise be seen as bright and beautiful turn gaudy and irritating.
Michael’s trip started on the wrong foot when he drove over a snow and ice slickened mountain pass and was passed repeatedly in such a way as to endanger his own and his family’s well-being. They cold have been injured or killed rather easily.
That may partly explain the negativity felt at the next two day’s worth of stops. I can fully understand that.
But hey, the people and places he then blasts as an outlet for his aggravated state don't deserve what is heaped on them anymore than Michael and his family deserved the very unusual experiences of those two days.
So he wrote a humorous article, and by my shoving aside that humor I was able to write a rebuttal That satisfied my need to express my own view on the area.
Then Michael wrote a rebuttal to my rebuttal. I reproduce it here with his permission:
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Abe:
Thanks for the letter and taking the time to write. Rebuttal read and appreciated. Sorry I didn't get a chance to look inside the Amargosa Hotel; it looks interesting from your photos. I wish I had met the proprietor for an interview. I'm sure she would have been very interesting too.
Yes, the one single day we went to Death Valley was the day AFTER it poured, so virtually everything was closed. Hopefully the next time we go the weather will be better.
I'm not sure I ever want to go to Pahrump again though. I think you may have it wrong; I DIDN'T enjoy the casino/hotel and all its free food. My little son did. I DID enjoy the desert and was pissed off that everything was closed.
I didn't write the article for publication. As a fulltime, professional writer I just felt the need to write something - anything - after 10 days away from the keyboard. So I tossed out 7000 words in about two hours, and what you see on my website was unedited. It was noticed by a few publishers, however, who considered it for a book of travel humor, but they wanted it edited or rewritten and (as I said) it wasn't really written about anything in particular, so I just left it alone and stuck it on my site.
One small comment, though, which you seem to have missed in your very thorough (and appreciated) critique. The article is indeed "humor," and therefore not meant to be taken literally. Obviously I enjoyed my trip, and my frustrations were not about Death Valley, but about carefully planned events not working out the way we had hoped. Perhaps the humor is too subtle. If I were to publish it anywhere in print it would require a good polish.
I noticed that hotel you now mention - the one just across from Furnace Creek Resort - and I was not aware that it's "budget accommodation." Perhaps the next time we go that way I'll surf the Net and see what I can find out about it. A warm, heated swimming pool sounds very attractive.
Sorry we missed Titus Canyon too, (closed due to mud) and all the other canyons we drove so far to see. Again, all closed. We did hike to a lovely oasis in a canyon just west of Panamint (sorry, name escapes me momentarily; is it Panamint Springs?). As I said in my horrible diatribe, I am a water person and not much given to hot and dusty deserts, but if you know of any other springs or oases in the area, please feel free to let me know.
Thanks again for writing. All the best,
Michael McCarthy
San Francisco
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So, in response to that emailed rebuttal, I did correct who liked the Pahrump hotel.
What oases are there in the area? Furnace Creek and its many springs come to mind.
There is very little surface water in the region. Come back in the next ice age and that will change. It will then be cooler and wetter. Trees (Pinion pines, Utah Junipers, and Joshua trees) will come down to the valley's edges. It'll be a great place to live. Promise!
There is an oasis at Ash Meadows on the northeastern side of Amargosa Valley (I have a picture page on it as part of my Amargosa River story).
The Amargosa Canyon and its tributary spring-fed canyons around China Ranch and Tecopa are true oases.
I just posted pictures of the first third of Amargosa Canyon. On that series of pages’ first page, I link to a website that shows the entire canyon, and I plan to go with the author of that site, later this Spring, to explore the center third of the canyon.
Then sometime later this year I’ll do the bottom third.
The center third has quicksand. Cool! Free mudbath, but a permanent body-wrap if you wiggle! I'll forego wiggling.