Smile-breaks
Rest of the road trip
Leaving Big Rock Candy Mountain we're back on Highway 89. It's a pleasant drive down this two-lane road out in the middle of nowhere. Not entirely nowhere; 30 miles down the road, a sign pops up. "Butch Cassidy's boyhood home ahead." What? I know very little about Butch Cassidy other than there was a movie, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," and that he was some kind of an outlaw in the Old West. Vacation's always a good time to learn! So…
We turn into the gravel parking area. A small log cabin sits back among trees. One is a huge pear tree, some say sixty feet tall. Over to the right, a walking trail bordered by low split rail fencing winds its way across the valley and up a steep hill.
"Wanted, Dead or Alive" signs and old newspaper clippings posted in the parking area tell the story of Butch Cassidy. At the cabin you can see through cloudy plastic sheets covering the doorways. The rooms are furnished as they were back then—sparsely.
In the parking area there's a public restroom for tourists. It's modern looking, but basically an outhouse.
I spent a lot of time here, along with several other vacationers. No, no! Not in the restroom, in the cabin Butch lived as a teenager and in the parking lot, reading the news clippings about him.
Moving on, we drive on down Highway 89 a few miles and come upon a small white house. On the weathered porch a weathered, white-bearded fellow in bib jeans is calmly surveying his kingdom— which includes a wooden sandwich-sign board: FREE WORMS SELF SERVE.
I'm not particularly hungry and Nellie prefers liquid nourishment so we don't stop. I know, the worms are bait for fishermen, but Nellie and I have a good laugh as we motor on.
Back in Mesquite, after settling into my spacious room at Holiday Inn Resort, I venture over to Peggy Sue's 50's Diner. Best cheese quesadilla ever! Lots of cheese and sour cream, guacamole and fresh salsa. Dessert? Not so good. The lemon meringue pie looks like anything but lemon pie. The "lemon" is the color of spoiled bananas. I left it on the table.
For the next few days I explore Mesquite and find neat, trim houses with unusual outdoor décor, friendly green parks, a modern Mesquite Recreation Center where I happen upon a pickleball game in progress. The two couples playing are…good! at it and I've never watched a real pickleball game, or a fake one for that matter, and so I sit and watch.
I hear about The Donkey History Museum, run by the Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue, and drive around town to find it. There it is! The history is fascinating. Who knew donkeys played such an important role in our history? In pop culture, the military and internationally… The nonprofit's mission is to rehabilitate and adopt out donkeys that have been abused or lived out in the wild. Want a donkey? Take two—they need the company of another donkey, or horse or pony, so you have to take two.
Vacation ends with four o'clock Saturday Mass at La Virgen de Guadalupe Catholic Church in Mesquite and Sunday morning I'm ready to go home. The ride home is uneventful—other than a 30-minute traffic jam right after we cross into California. A burnt-out shell of a car further up the freeway explains the jam.
All in all, it was a pleasant, fun, relaxing road-trip. Best of all, I was able to do it, at the ripe old age of --- whatever!