Baker's Surprise

Baker's Surprise

Noel Laflin

2-17-16

Fifty years ago this summer, a hitchhiking field mouse snuck into our car in a Jackson Hole, Wyoming campsite and drove all the way with us to Baker, California.

Can you imagine the surprise on his tiny face – this descendent of cool and hardy Teton rodents - when he jumped from the backseat of our old Ford and hit the hot rocks of the Mojave Desert?

I witnessed the escape, but not his face, as it was near midnight and dimly lit in front of the old diner off Baker Boulevard – the one that beckoned to weary humans, such as us, with its promise of air conditioning and ice cold malted milkshakes.   But as it was still a hundred plus degrees that stifling August night, half a century ago, I can only imagine the shock and dismay that must have wilted the whiskers on our diminutive traveling companion as he scampered off into the sagebrush and cactus – a thousand miles from home – at the very Gateway to Death Valley itself.

I have often thought of him over the decades – especially when we pass through the town of Baker.

Chances are that he was toast by morning.

But then again, I like to think that he not only survived, but thrived – and has since spawned a hardy race of mountain-desert mice – the very likes with which the tiny town of Baker still contends.

I’ll have to ask our favorite waitress about such mighty mice the next time we are drawn into the local Denny’s there off Baker Boulevard – the one with its promise of air conditioning and ice cold malted milkshakes.  For I believe it now sits where the old diner of long ago once beckoned to fellow travelers – four and two-legged alike.