When it came to talks of wedding rings, Ted and I decided to make our own, out of wood, (with the help of my dad). We wanted to make our rings out of ironwood, because of its strength, and its long life spent in the desert sheltering life while withstanding the weather. After several failed attempts,we took one last drive into the desert to find this mythic wood we were told would be absolutely littering the floor of the Mojave.
We began by driving to the memorial of the internment camp where my grandparents met and married. Those tar paper shacks must have been an incredibly feeble defense against the demands of desert heat and cold and intense wind. We let Poston sink in and eventually found our way to
A nearby KOA campsite to "camp" and soak in their hot tub while conversing with middle age RVing maniacs. In the morning our tent collapsed on us. You get what you pay for...
Then we drove out to Midland. Literally, the middle of nowhere. The most middle of nowhere we had been in a long time. So much so, that when we stopped at a Starbucks at the last edge of civilization and asked the barista if we were heading in the right direction to get to Midland, he answered "You want to get to Midland?! Well, just keep heading down that road, until you look around and you are the only person you can see."
We wandered around for hours, looking for chunks of ironwood lying around.
Easier said than done. It was a really frustrating process, not really knowing what we were looking for and then not finding it. All of the ironwood was either alive and thriving (and off limits for taking) or rotted to oblivion. We were ready to give up, but decided to give it one last shot. We followed the track of a river dried up what seemed like decades before our visit, and then we found it.
But it was way to big to pick up and take. We didn't have any tools with us, so our next plan was to head back into "town" in search of an axe. But before we did, with a stroke of genius, we made a pile of rocks by the side of the road so we would remember where we found it.
We wandered about three hardware stores and one gas station back in "town" asking for a hatchet, and with several strange looks later, we returned to the site with a bow saw in hand. This was accidental genius on our part, because we surmised later that a hatchet would have done next to nothing against that wood hardened by thousands of years of unrelenting harshness.
An hour later. . . the job was done.
Ted carried the heavy log back to the car in two pieces. He may look quite jovial and strong in the picture below, but he was struggling keeping that chunk o' iron above his head.
With both sizable chunks of ironwood stowed in the trunk, Ted did a victory dance with a bubble wand by our genius rock pile road marker.
Then we headed back to civilization.
Several months later, my dad showed us how to make the rings.
Ted helped.
And so did I.
And after very much trial and error, we had a couple of prototypes.
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