Eureka! . . . Utah

Across the street from the abandoned storefronts, we come across a man in a flannel jacket and ball cap. “Can I help you find anything?” he asks in a gentleman's tone. Beneath the ball cap it appears he has a shaved head and above his lip he wears a gray bushy mustache.

“We're just wandering around the town,” I reply.

Of the eight hundred people left in this town, I had just come in contact with the mayor, Nick Castleton. He is very friendly and begins to give me an introduction to the town.

He points to three buildings across the street and explains that a developer wants to restore them to former glory. Not necessarily for the same purpose, as the middle of the three was a whorehouse. He explains that the building on the right would become a restaurant, the middle a dining area along with hotel rooms, and the building on the left they weren't sure what to do with yet. It used to be a bank.

We talk with Nick Castleton on the barren streets of Eureka, Utah, a once lively little mining town nestled in the East Tintic Mountains, west of Santaquin. At one time, there were nearly a dozen saloons in town, and a handful of brothels, countered by a sprinkling of churches.

We stand next to a brick building with a wooden façade, windows boarded up, and iron bars covering the door. Silver Club is painted in large letters on a side wall. According to local records, the building was constructed in 1918. The original function is listed as “unknown.” In the 1920's it served as U.S. Candy Kitchen, a confectionery owned by Peter Bampal and Peter Demos. In 1977, it was a bar. Mayor Castleton tells us that it used to be a brothel.

Built in 1898, The Gatley Building served primarily as a saloon and billiards hall.

He explains that it was the saloons and brothels, not the banks, that were the key institutions for many of the miners. They would come into town with little money. If they promised to buy so much food from the saloons, they would get what was called a “grubstake,” which meant that they were able to stake a mining claim somewhere, as long as the saloon owner received a portion of the profits. After they would mine their claim, they would pay off the saloon owner, and use the rest of the money for more food and then for the brothels.

The Mayor then goes on to tell me about President Herbert Hoover's 1930 Model A Ford wagon. After his second term defeat, President Hoover returned to his original occupation as a mining engineer. He had an interest in several mining operations in Utah, including the Gemini Mine in Eureka. The Mayor points to a nearby hill covered in gray rock. “That is the Gemini Mine,” he says. “It used to be one of the 'Big Four' mines around here.” He then explains that when President Hoover came to Utah, he would drive to Eureka in his Model A Ford that he kept in Provo. He says that the car is now owned by a couple in California and was brought to Eureka last summer for the Silver Days parade.

Porter Rockwell's cabin.

After our visit with the mayor, we wander up Main Street and find an old log cowboy cabin with a metal awning over it. Even though every building on the street is nearly a century old, the cabin appears very out of place. Strips of juniper bark drape the roof. A door at the front of the one-room structure is bolted with a padlock. I peek through the restored glass window and see a table and chair inside that appear consistent with the late 1800's.

This cabin belonged to Porter Rockwell, the infamous bodyguard to the prophet Joseph Smith. Apparently, it was originally located some twenty miles away on Rockwell's Cherry Creek ranch. It was later relocated to Eureka.

Across the street from the Rockwell cabin is the Union Pacific Railroad Depot, which is now a museum. We walk inside the building. I am with my son, Jordan, and his friend, Xavier. It appears we have the place to ourselves. No other tourists, nor anyone running the place for that matter. Several rooms connect together and showcase about anything you can imagine: old mining tools, mineral samples, household furniture, and even a slot machine and poker table. If I didn't know better, I would be mistaken that I had just entered someones shed of artifacts from the 1930's. There is no rhyme or reason to the displays. I suppose some of it is grouped together by some generality: the rocks tend to be together, the kitchen appliances are in the same area etc. But put frankly, it looks like a house full of junk. And if you are into old junk, then it's just the place for you!

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time, or else I would love to stay and browse longer.

At last, an elderly couple enter and look surprised that there are visitors. We exchange small talk and then they suggest we take a look out back at some other displays. “Then be sure you check out the jail,” he says, smiling beneath his gray mustache. Of course, we follow his suggestion and aren't disappointed.

I don't think I've mentioned the beginnings of Eureka. Before it was Eureka, the area was known as Ruby Hollow. Chief Tintic traveled through the area frequently and used it as a hunting and camping spot. In 1869, Mormon cowboys searching for stray cattle found an outcropping of ore on the hill, and almost overnight, the area became a booming town where gold and silver was mined. Eureka became the financial center of the Tintic Mining District. By 1910, Eureka was the ninth largest town in Utah with a population of 3,400. After J.C. Penney established its first store in Wyoming, it placed the second one in Eureka.

Now, Eureka is considered a ghost town. Although some 800 people still live here, that number is down significantly from what it once was. Abandoned buildings throughout Main Street and the entire town testify to that decline.

We are here in January and the hills are still covered in snow. We drive up Beck Street, a narrow road that meanders up the hill and past a few old houses, including a bed and breakfast. Next to the treeline, but beyond the point where we are allowed to walk, there is an abandoned mining structure, perhaps a tipple. It is dilapidated and hasn't been in use in decades.

Nearby is what appears to be an abandoned barracks, or perhaps company buildings. The structures have metal roofs and walls, and there are also a couple of Quonset huts. I really wish that I had someone with me who could explain what all these structures are.

All the ground in this area is covered in gray stone. I notice that this same stone is common in many different locations around town, including the Gemini Mine that the Mayor pointed out to us earlier. I believe that it is used as part of the process when the mine is reclaimed.

We wend our way down the hill and to the other side of Main Street. As I drive on a narrow street on the west side of town, I spy a white church with a tall bell tower that is peeking through the trees. It is the old Methodist church on Main Street. I get out of the vehicle and look for a good angle to take some pictures. A small dirt path leads down the hillside and I follow it and maneuver through the weeds to find my picture.

Methodist Church, constructed in 1891.

This unique LDS church was begun in 1902.  The Gothic-style structure was dedicated in 1904 by Apostle Reed Smoot, then a U.S. Senator.  As of 1977, it was listed as a "two-family dwelling."

St. Patrick's Catholic Church is the oldest standing Catholic Church in Utah.  Although St. Mary's Church in Park City was built first, it burned to the ground, leaving St. Patrick's as the oldest standing.  It was constructed in 1885.

Just as I am about to return to the vehicle, I hear a lady yell out, “You can take pictures in my back yard. There's a good view there!”

I look over and she is standing in the shadow of a tree with her arms folded and looking my way.

“Is this your house right here?” I ask, pointing to a small white house with an even smaller square of grass behind it.

“Yes, it is. It has a great view, especially from the corner there.”

I appreciate the gesture and courteously take some pictures near the corner where the old Gothic-looking Mormon church is visible on Main Street.

“So, what is your name,” I ask when I am finished. She has long gray hair and is wearing a cotton nightgown. A hint of alcohol sits on her breath.

“I am Thelma, and this is my friend, Diane.” She points to a lady in a lawn-chair sipping a beer.

She has lived in Eureka for sixteen years. She asks if I am a professional photographer or a writer for a newspaper. I assure her that neither are true.

I point to the mine on the other side of the valley where I just came from and ask her what the structure is. She explains that a railroad spur used to run there and they would load the ore directly into the car. “There used to be a railroad line that ran right where Main Street is now,” she explains. I've got a picture of it somewhere.”

Amid our conversation, Thelma looks at me and says, “There's a lot of people that come here for ghosting.” Maybe she doesn't say ghosting, but maybe ghost-hunting, or maybe even something else not even related to ghosts. I sometimes don't hear very well. Maybe I am hearing wrong.

But then she says, “We even have one in our house. But it's a good ghost.”

I look at her to she if she is kidding, but she's serious. Diane could sense my incredulity and chimed in, “Oh, yeah. I even have one in my house in West Jordan.”

“It even saved my life,” Thelma says. She then tells the story about how her ex-husband's psychiatrist called her and said her ex- wanted to kill her.

“One day when I walked into the house, I was wearing a cotton sweatshirt, and when I was about to enter the room, I felt this ̶” she grabs the back of my shirt near the shoulder blade and pulls it tight. “I looked back and no one was there. I turned right around and walked out. I know it was a ghost. He saved my life. My ex-husband was waiting and was going to kill me.”

I acknowledge her story and certainly believe in the possibility of intervention from the other side. I guess that a ghost story is very appropriate for a ghost town.

The Bullion Beck headframe, constructed in 1890, served to transport men, mules, supplies, and ore in and out of the underground workings. 

On that note, it is a perfect transition to my next destination. We are running low on time and there is one last place I wish to visit. We return to Main Street and drive southwest of town about a mile. On a dirt road just off the highway is the Eureka Cemetery.

Many of the plots are well maintained, despite the lawns being only wild grass and dirt. The old is mingled with the new, although I find the older graves lie mostly at the far western end of the cemetery.

The unpaved lanes that crisscross the grounds are still muddy from recent snows and an occasional puddle lies in the way. Beyond the vast emptiness of a sage brush desert, I see the snow-capped West Tintic Mountains.

Some of the headstones are very fascinating. One in particular that stands out belongs to Sophia Eastman. To me it appears to be in the shape of a tree-trunk with all the branches sawed off into short stubs. On one of the stubs hangs a scroll from a rope, and on the scroll is engraved Sophia's birth and death dates, and states that it was “erected by the women of woodcraft.”

Some of the burials are unmarked, while others are marked only with a piece of wood, of which any possible inscription has long since deteriorated. Many of the graves are marked with crosses, which probably indicates Catholicism as their religion. Others have names that I recognize from Mormon history.

There are even a few with foreign inscriptions. One belongs to Anders A. Sandstrom and from what I can guess, the writing below his name is of Scandinavian origin.

There are many stories here in Eureka. Like the headstones that lie on the surface, I know that many stories exist. But their true depth and character, like the bodies that lie underground, may never see the light of day again. Many stories of these hardy people may be buried forever.

[This post was a blend of two trips to Eureka: one in January and the other in June.]

Sources


Capsule Histories of Commercial and Institutional Structures in the Eureka Historic District. (1977).  From http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/79002514.pdf

Carr, S. (1972).  The Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns.  Salt Lake City, Utah: Western Epics.

Eureka City Historic Walking Tour.  Print.

Eureka City Website.  (2009).  History of Eureka.  Retrieved June 2015,   from http://www.eurekautah.org/index.cfm

High on a Mountain Top

I left our camp at the side of the lake and walked toward the steep forest hill. I could see tall walls of the hillside through the small openings of quaking aspen and pine trees. It gave the feigned appearance of being just ahead, but I knew that wasn't so.

I stepped through an open space of felled trees, tossed across the tall mountain grass like toothpicks poured from a cup. I stretched my leg over the high ones, sat my bottom on the girth of the tree like riding a horse, then swooped my other leg over and crossed to the other side, just to find another felled tree. Some of the timber I simply stepped across. Gnarled branches, still green with pine needles, blocked certain passage-ways and I pushed the limp branches to the side and pushed my way through.

Beyond the short crest of a hill, the mountain fell away into a ravine of large white igneous boulders. I stepped onto the first rock and felt my footing for balance. Then I leaped to the next, and like a person using stepping stones to stride across a stream, I successfully moved across the field.

At the other side now, the hill now rose steeply. I angled obliquely up the hillside, grasping sapling branches and sturdy rocks to pull me up. My hiking boots dug deeply into the rich, black mountain soil, cutting through decomposing layers of coniferous needles.

The thin mountain air now caused my lungs to heave for breath. Being my first venture at this elevation for the year, they had yet become accustomed to such exertion. I halted for a moment and wiped the wetness from my forehead with the sleeve of my shirt and tasted the salty residue on my lips.

I looked behind and below me and could see the whole of Lower Kents Lake and youth canoeing across the surface and could hear a laughing scream of a teenage girl. White branches of aspen trees blocked much of the view of the lake and I knew that I still had more distance to climb.

Before I left, I had asked the Bishop what time he needed me back to help cook dinner for the girls. He gave me a time frame of an hour and a half, but quickly added that he could handle it himself if he needed to. If I were there, he would use my help stirring the barbeque pork in the dutch oven and flipping tortillas. I assured him that I would return in time to help. Now that I was nearly a mile away from camp and separated by an obstacle course of thick forest wilderness, I wondered about my promise to return.

After a short respite of relatively easy climbing, the route to the top turned steep again. A prickly brier with cactus-like spines grabbed onto the sleeve of my shirt and pulled it taut. I carefully unsnagged the fabric.

I wasn't climbing to the tallest summit on the hillside, but rather a a rocky promontory that I assumed would have a view of its own. As I climbed, slabs of granite bulged out from the hillside and I found myself bouldering up and over these chunks of rock.

At one time, I thought that I was making my final ascent, but as I neared the top I learned that I had yet another steep incline to go. I slung my tripod crossways over my neck and shoulder as I needed two hands for the final climb. I squeezed inside the crevice of the granite boulder and placed my boot inside the natural niches and pulled myself up with both hands. Short clusters of white daisies grew all around the rocky pinnacle that constituted the summit of my climb. At last I was at the top!

The view opened up and below me and in every direction I could see miles and miles. A solitary lake became the prominent object of my curiosity. It sat serenely amidst pine trees in a northerly direction from where I sat. I didn't see people, nor canoes, nor trucks around this body of water. Although I could make out a faint road that led to the lake, I felt as if it were hidden deeply in the mountains and only I knew the secret of its location. It's distance was probably a mile away, but I gazed at its miniature outline and dark blue hue and fancied what it would be like to be there now.

Not only could I see this lake, of which I did not know the name, but I counted four others! All nestled deep in the forest.

Behind Lower Kent's Lake rose the snow-capped peaks of Baldy, Belknap, Delano, and Holly. To the west, lightning flashed and a dark rainstorm passed across the valley. A gust of wind hurled itself across the slope of the mountain and the wet smell of rain blew all around me. This was heaven!

A grove of aspens grew on the west slope below me. The green leaves at the tops of their branches created a perfect carpet on the hillside. This must look amazing during the fall when the colors have changed, I thought. I also imagined the dense canopy of leaves creating great habitat for elk.

A clap of thunder bellowed through the air, followed by another gust of wind. I quickly set up my tripod to capture a few photographs before the storm moved too close.

I think that if I could choose only one place to spend my life, I would not choose the desert, nor the city. I would choose the mountains. There is something about being high in elevation and walking among the pines and trodding the same soil as deer and elk. This is about as close to celestial habitation as one can get on earth.

I thought back to the Bishop and the meal that he would be cooking and how I only had twenty more minutes until I told him I would be back down. Unrealistic? Maybe. He said that he didn't need my help. That's good. Although I wanted to help, the impulse to linger on the mountain was stronger than that to help. I may not find this combination again of storm, smell, wind, the snow-capped peaks, and the lakes. And thus continued the monologue inside my mind and I rationalized staying on the mountain top a little bit longer than I should have.

The storm on the valley was still moving south and occasionally I saw a strike of lightning through the dark mist of rain below the clouds. All the other clouds that hovered the mountain ranged from white to gray, but none of them had produced lightning yet that I had seen.

In the center of this large swath of forest, some five miles away, I could see the cut from the gorge where the paved road twisted up the steep slopes above the Beaver River. There is so much left to explore, I thought, feeling that anxious bug of wanderlust brooding inside of me.

But now it was time to hurry back to camp.

I folded up my tripod and slid it into its case and returned my lens cap back to the camera. Slinging them both over my shoulders, I used agile movements to ease back down the granite boulders and past the clusters of daisies.

Thick drops of rain fell from the sky at a very slow pace. The scent of the forest lifted from the ground and the pungent pine and the musky smell of tree bark danced in the wind.   

Glitter Mountain

It has almost been two and a half years since my daughter, Brittany, passed away. Today was Memorial Day and we brought flowers to her grave and released balloons.

She would have been sixteen now.  Her passion to dream led her to love fairies, distant lands with waterfalls, magical places, and wild flowers. She loved the beauty in life. Perhaps she would have out-grown some of her childhood fantasies by now, but I think she still would have loved Glitter Mountain.

We went with her in mind.

Glitter Mountain is located on the Arizona Strip, surrounded by rugged cliffs and colorful rocks. We only got lost once while driving there.

Rather than a mountain, it is really a gouge in the earth that apparently has been mined in the past. At first glance, it looks as if shattered glass is everywhere. At the correct angle, all the mineral shards glitter in the sunlight.

A walk into the “pit” reveals bare walls of crystal-looking rock that kids can chip away at with a hammer and chisel.

This has sometimes been mistaken to be a mica mine. Instead, it is selenite, a variety of the mineral gypsum. The word “selenite” comes from the Greek word “selēnitēs” which literally means moonstone, or stone of the moon. I would say that it is appropriately named, because, although somewhat transparent, they carry the color of the moon.

We spent well over an hour at the pit, the girls chipping away at the selenite and I wandering around exploring. I found a collard lizard scampering through the rocks. By the time we left, we had a small bag full of crystalline treasures.

I think that Brittany would have enjoyed herself.

Getting there isn't too difficult. It is directly south of the Old Spanish Trail and just southeast of Little Black Mountain. Don't follow the quail. It will probably be running the wrong direction.

Redondo Beach

The first time I walked onto the pier I became engulfed by the smell of sauteed garlic coming from the Chinese eateries. The pier certainly had an Asian feel to it, but there were also northern European names like Brixton and Kilkenney that gave the feeling of an English seaside town.

The pier wasn't your normal pier that only projected in a straight line onto the ocean, but was horseshoe-shaped. We walked near the bend of the horseshoe, near all the shops and the garlic smell that caught my attention. There was also the smell of the sea, especially as the wind blew from the west and off of the dark undulations of salt water that rolled below us through the wooden pilings of the pier.

As we came to the bend, a worker dressed in an orange vest talked discreetly into his walkie talkie. “He is with a woman in a striped shirt. He's at the very top of the pier. I'm not looking at him now.” This piqued my curiosity and I naturally slowed down, hoping to eavesdrop on more of the conversation, but I had to continue or it would have been obvious what I was doing.

We rounded the corner and saw the fishermen, each with their poles cast over the pier and some reeling in little fish and putting them into buckets. I couldn't discern the nationality most of them, but they all had dark skin, probably from Mexico or Asia.

I looked for a lady in a striped shirt to see if I could figure out what was going on. My family rounded the corner with me and we all sauntered at a slow pace, taking in the new experience. I looked back every thirty seconds or so, just to make sure we were all there. Jenelle and I brought all five kids and the thought of one of them getting kidnapped, just wandering away, or climbing on the fence of the pier and accidentally plunging into the frigid water was real in our minds. I turned around and waited for them to catch up and then we continued around the bend and towards the apex of the horseshoe.

That is when I passed the worker in the orange vest that I saw earlier, and this time he was pushing a cart in the direction that we were going. “Turn around,” he said. “There's a crazy man waving a gun. You don't want to take your family there. Turn around!”

Good advice, I thought, so I whispered to Jenelle what the man had said and we turned the kids around and herded them back around the bend and to the left side of the horseshoe.

It was then that we heard the shot. The sound of the blast suggested a medium-sized caliber or perhaps it was louder than I thought and the building that we hid behind muffled the majority of the blast. Many people now were running in our direction, hoping to avoid the fray. Once we were around the building we probably should have kept going, but we felt safe there and as luck would have it, the building that we hid behind was a restaurant with glass walls on every side. We looked through the building, from one side to the other, and then another thirty yards, and watched the whole episode unfold. We didn't know where we were supposed to look at first, but soon a small group of men rushed together across the wooden planks, seized a man, picked him off his feet and slammed him to the ground. We couldn't see too well, but without a doubt, the crazy man that was waving a gun was now at the mercy of some big fisher boys and on his belly.

The cops arrived shortly after that and I felt that it was now safe enough for a man to wander onto the scene. I told my family to stay put and only look through the glass walls of the restaurant. I wandered over cautiously, but bravely, and witnessed first-hand the crazy man who waved the gun. By now he was in handcuffs, but still on his belly, and on his left knee a large bloody cut emerged, probably from being slammed onto the floor. A girl was on the ground also, but soon a female cop came up to her and slowly coaxed her to the side where she could talk. She was hysterical, still moaning and wailing and very faint of strength, barely able to stand. The policemen picked her boyfriend up and marched him off while the female cop stayed with the woman.

Between Jenelle and I, we were able to fit together the pieces of the puzzle. The man was threatening suicide and when he shot the gun, he fired it into the water. His girlfriend was the first one to be tackled, but it was to protect her. They threw her down to the ground then covered her body with theirs and at that moment the man was thrown to the ground also.

We decided it was safe to continue our walk, so once again we rounded the corner of the horseshoe-shaped pier and everyone, it seemed, had returned to normal. The fishermen once again dropped their lines off the side of the railing where just a few minutes earlier the scene was nearly vacant. As we continued walking, we realized that had the man in the orange vest not turned us around, we would have been exactly where the gunman was when he fired his shot.

The sun neared the western horizon and the lights from the dance club and the restaurants now lit up. The building called Kilkenney's illuminated with a shamrock next to it and the full moon rose above the palm trees on Catalina Avenue.

By the time we reached the right side of the horseshoe, the sun was fully flared in sunset mode, throwing its rays onto the rocks of the shore that met the end of the pier and turning the spray of crashing water into a golden delight.

We completed our loop, continuing back to the cluster of shops. A man who had played his drums for money was still there, but now packing up his instruments for the night. We had enough for the evening and decided it was time to return to our hotel.

The walk was only ten minutes, and that was at the pace of little legs. Our hotel was part of the Redondo Beach experience, being so close and being the most luxurious hotel that we had ever stayed in. That, of course, wasn't difficult, being a bunch of small-town hicks that were poor and never saw a beach more than once every three years. Our hotel was a family suite, with a large main room, king-sized bed and a hide-a-bed, a coffee table, a round table, a television, fridge and microwave. The connecting room had two queen-sized beds and another television.

The big bonus for us, however, was the balcony that was big enough to walk about or sit down in chairs and enjoy a bite to eat. This balcony faced west, directly above the Pacific Coast Highway, and the view of the ocean existed beyond the beach-side buildings. Across the street were three shops painted in bright pastel colors and a residential home with a sofa on the front porch. The humid air drifted up onto the balcony, across my face and through my hair.

Our favorite television channel was K-CAL, which had news at nine o'clock. We would watch the news while eating our dinner that we brought into the hotel room, usually something such as fried chicken from the grocery store.

Brittany loved the beach. She could have spent hours, I'm sure, standing shin-high in the water, facing the incoming waves, and and letting the white rolls crash against her legs, wetting her knees and thighs, all the kelp and loose sand brushing at her ankles, then feeling the water fall back into its depths, watching the liquid at her feet disappear, and feeling the sand being sucked across the top of her feet and that arousing perception of losing one's sense of balance, the air and the world moving one way while the ground and everything standing on it moving the opposite direction.

The face of the shore at Redondo Beach was excellent for finding items in the ocean. We found many clam shells and mussel shells and I even found a whole shell with the clam still inside. We searched around for shark teeth, especially Jordan and I. After visiting Aquarium of the Pacific earlier that day, we were satisfied that shark teeth had to be everywhere. Jordan found a large jaw of an animal with teeth still intact. I don't know if this was a shark, or an animal that was attacked and killed by a shark, or perhaps just someone's dog that drowned in the water and whose bones were just now being washed ashore. He also found a lady's shoe.

Jenelle brought some bread along to feed to the seagulls. Before we knew it, the birds were all around us. They looked like chickens scouring the sand for scratch to eat. Some of gulls were smaller, like pigeons, but others were large, their wings spanning wide, and the sunlight glowing through their plumage.

We took plenty of pictures while there: images of the kids playing in the waves, a sailboat in the harbor, the silhouette of the pier, and the long stretch of coast line and hills behind it. One of our daughters buried her sibling, all but her head, in the sand.

At various times in my life I have thought that it would be pleasant to run along the beach, just like in Chariots of Fire. Why couldn't I do it now? I took off my shoes and socks and ran up along the flat part of the shore, far enough away from the water that I wouldn't get wet. My strides were shorter than normal because with every step my feet would sink in the sand and it would take greater effort than normal to move.

The beach was quite sparse with people, allowing me to maintain a straight course without maneuvering around the crowds. The sand was mostly soft, but not fluffy-fine as are some other beaches, and as I ran, the grains of the beach pressed into the spaces between my toes and chaffed as the toes twisted and conformed to the contour of the ground I ran on.

About three minutes into my run I decided to abandon my current path and instead trudge through the swash. This felt much, much better. The wind blew against my body at a cooler temperature and the brisk waves lapped at my ankles. My footsteps imprinted deeply into the mud, but once a wave came crashing ashore, all the prints would wash away.

Some stretches of the run were gentle on my feet, but others, scattered with little rocks and seashell fragments, poked and annoyed them. After six minutes I turned around and returned along the same path that I had taken. I looked again for my footprints, but all were erased. I ran past a man laying in the sun. The spray of the ocean misted my glasses. It felt good. The waves washed up over my feet and sucked back down, pulling thousands of grains of sand along with it, giving the impression that I was running sideways on a giant conveyor belt.

We dried our feet and put our shoes back on. Now it was time to return to the pier before the sun went down. There were no gun shots this time. Just the shops, the fishermen and the smell of the deep green ocean that beat against the posts of the pier, and the scent of the garlic in the food that so infested my mind a couple nights ago.

On Jenelle's list of things to do was to stop at an oyster shop on the pier. For twelve bucks you could pick your own oyster, which the man behind the counter would open and clean. They were guaranteed to have pearls inside. Jenelle bought an oyster and so did Brittany. We huddled around a large shell in the man's hands and he was using a utensil to scrape away the insides of the valve. Then, with long tweezers, he pulled a perfect pearl from the shell. This was Jenelle's. When Brittany had her oyster opened, they were twin pearls. The man behind the counter cleaned them both off and slipped them into a small plastic bag in which we could take them home.

The rest of the evening was enjoyable, but non-eventful. We watched the sun fall toward the horizon and slip behind the clouds, but it never created a powerful sunset. It just disappeared. The sky turned to gray and the sail boats on the water turned into silhouettes.

Thursday was our final day. We spent it in other places in the area including Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. It was dark when we drove back to our hotel and along the way we stopped at Albertson's to buy some food for dinner.

Everyone had bought their souvenirs for the trip such as T-shirts and postcards to remind them of where we had been. I hadn't bought a thing. And that was alright with me. I was just happy to watch the kids, enjoy the smells, and take lots of pictures.

Once back at our hotel, an idea popped into my mind. We parked and I helped carry our many items up to the room, including the supper that Jenelle had just bought: Totino's pizza and canned fruit. The kids got situated around the table, next to the sofa and in front of the television.   Jenelle looked like she had things under control.

“Jenelle, do mind if I leave for a little while and go buy my souvenir?” I asked.

She was gracious and allowed me to go.

I snuck out the room and down the steps of our hotel. On the busy coastal highway I walked south toward the intersection, passing a formal Thai restaurant and a Mexican eatery. At the intersection, I crossed the road and then walked west. I hope I don' t get mugged, I thought. Lights were dim, but certainly existent. I passed an angler who was returning to his home after an evening of fishing on the pier. “Hello,” I said to him in passing. He said something back, but I wasn't sure what it was. The lighting was murky enough that I couldn't tell whether he was Mexican, Asian or something else, and I am not even sure that he could speak English.

I crossed another small street, this one with no crossing lights, but lightly traveled with traffic. Then I came to Catalina Avenue. This was the final street before the ocean. Once across, the road angled slightly inward and from this corner I could see the large neon sign, high above the ground: Redondo Beach. Below it glowed the words, The Pier. Behind the sign the very dark waters of the ocean could be faintly distinguished and all around the palm trees projected into the night.

At the pier, the life there had not disappeared, but had morphed into more of a nightlife. The Brixton nightclub seemed to be the center of activities. An entrance line formed at its doors and patrons were paying money to enter. A group of young adults congregated at a point in the middle of the pier, half of them dressed in costumes. They looked as if they were playing a game and the man in the middle was explaining the rules. As I walked in their general direction, a woman with a mask passed me and flirtatiously asked, “How are you?” I fumbled out an answer and continued walking. You probably don't realize that I have a wife and five kids back at the hotel room, do you?

Most of the food establishments were closed and I was disappointed. The glass windows were pulled down, tables put away.

That is, all but one. It was the Chinese place on the corner, the one that seemed to have the greatest aroma of garlic flowing from it. An older lady with gray-speckled hair and sloping eyes was the lone worker that evening. “May I help you?” she asked in broken English.

“What do you like best?” I asked her back, still not convinced of what I wanted to order.

She pulled out a laminated menu with pictures on it. “Oh, I like it all. Especially the seafood and chicken.”

In a way, everything on the menu looked the same, with slight variations. I found a combination that I had been eyeing earlier and pointed to it. It was a plate of jumbo shrimp, orange chicken, noodles and rice.

“I think you like that very much,” she said.

I paid her my money and watched her go back to the kitchen and begin to prepare the food. I then wandered the much emptier proximity of the pier, just observing what was around. The group of young adults was still there and I couldn't quite figure out what they were doing. They looked like college students and this is probably what they did for entertainment on the weekend.

My order was ready and the old Chinese Lady handed me a bulging Styrofoam container of steaming food. The flap on the container would latch, but couldn't seal all the way around. The warmth of the serving permeated the Styrofoam and onto my two hands that held the container preciously as I walked the dark streets back to my hotel room.