First Day – The Shock of the New

6/17/12 – The first day of the Library Road Trip 2012 was spent driving twelve hours through three states – California, Nevada and ending in Twin Falls, Idaho. We spent most of that time in our air conditioned bubble listening to Ry Cooder and a book on CD called 1491 from our local Noe Valley branch library. 1491 is the great book by Charles Mann about pre-Columbian America. Our first impressions of the trip are: the Sacramento Valley is (still) incredibly hot (103 degrees); Interstate 80 is almost a continuous stream of traffic and sprawl from the Bay Area to Auburn; Nevada is majestic, strip mined and awe inspiring; and Idaho is gorgeous in the evening light. I quickly photographed one library in Jackpot, NV. As the sun set I clicked away at this austere, prefab building as two  Native American kids played basketball nearby. During a quick pit stop at the Cactus Pete’s Casino Walker and I got the distinct impression that this Nevada border town was where the pious Mormons of Idaho come to have a little sin. The road between Jackpot and Twin Falls, ID was filled with police cars stopping the  ones that may have sinned a little too much.