Moving On Again

Haviland Lake
Colorado


It's been a lovely and a lazy stay here. But over the last week there's been two snowstorms just 10 miles from here, up in the pass. It's below freezing at night. And for the last three days it's been raining down here.

Time to move on.

I've done what I wanted. Taken a deliberate approach to traveling. A week here, two weeks there. Three weeks at Haviland. Between breaking my big toe and learning to use the hammock, I've perforce gotten a bit of sitting and reading done, when not at nap practice. This rigorous discipline has kept my gas bills under $200 a month.

Even at 8 mpg.

Too much deliberation, however, is the opposite of travel. Tomorrow I'm headed down to Albuquerque, to take in the hot air balloon festival. Perhaps I can convince someone that I'd make a lively bit of ballast.



30 Sep 04 Chaco Canyon New Mexico


Got here yesterday, late afternoon. The last 20 miles at 10 mph, over a rain-rutted washboard dirt road that put the test on the permanence of my fillings. Amazing I went that fast. In places, the steering wheel almost jerked completely out of my hands.

There's only one campground at Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Thank God it wasn't full. I'd hate to go back down that road in the dark.

Last evening at sunset a spectacular storm swept through the buttes, with a roaring wind that sent camp chairs tumbling through the sagebrush. Not that much actual water, though. Whatever the details of the religion practiced by the Anasazi here, it had to deal with angry skies and not much rain.

I took the tour of Pueblo Bonito today. These people built solid. The architecture is ceremonial, aligned to the sun at the equinoxes. It is also whimsical at times, with the occasional door stuck up in a corner. The guide said the larger rooms, up to 10 feet high, were used as granaries. This guide was knowledgeable, and took many questions in stride. He was an unpaid volunteer.

Expertise wasn't enough to please everyone, though. I overheard one old grump fussing to his wife on the way back to the parking lot:

"I like'em to be in uniform. And with a haircut. The Parks are all going straight to hell."

I suspect this same guy voted for the people that cut park funding. He was lucky to get a volunteer to talk to him, long hair or not. Otherwise he'd be even more pissed off, wandering around down here with a squinty look and a printout.

It's been mostly peaceful in the campground this afternoon. After the abundant green of Colorado, it's entertaining just to sit and watch the light change on the canyon walls.

But not entirely peaceful. For half an hour everybody got to join in the Great Kitten Hunt. A guy with a British accent wandered disconsolately from site to site carrying a short rope with a tiny collar dangling down from the end of it. Kitty had slipped the noose, and gone off hunting in the rocks. My neighbor cheered the guy up with tales of the voracious fox and bobcat hordes lurking hungrily on the bluffs above.

Then we all formed a posse and went meowing around. I'm happy to say that the little black thing was finally found mewling under a motorhome.



2 Oct 04 Fenton Lake State Park New Mexico


The electric sites here at the park are a bargain at $14. The place was empty when I drove in. They had a bad fire here a couple of years ago, that swept right down to the south side of the lake. As a result, they've been thinning trees over on this side, and there is a plenitude of firewood for the cutting. I laid about mightily with the chain saw, piled the truck high with logs.

Some of it was greener inside than I liked, so I spent an hour splitting it into sticks of a size likely to dry sometime this century.

Later in the evening Friday, as you might expect, the sites filled up with several large families. Lots of screaming kids chasing around scaring each other in the dark. This went on till around 11, when the ranger came by and told them to shut it down. One of the advantages of having the ranger live right up the hill.

Tomorrow I'm moving back down to Jemez Springs. I passed by several quiet looking sites on the way up yesterday. Seems like I spend half my time just hunting for a quiet place in the woods, and the other half gathering firewood.

Hunter-gatherer, that's me. Travel sure is exciting.

But it is also mundane, and anyone who doesn't think so hasn't done much of it. Even life out here in the passing lane still has to be maintained. Water has to be found, and propane, and groceries, and occasionally an electric outlet. Laundry still piles up.

Which reminds me.


Bob

In the Pines, In the Pines

Haviland Lake
Colorado


I am living on the shore of the Lake, along a stretch of campsites known informally as "Texas Row". We've had a couple of useful Newmexicanos, but soon as they pull out there's always a Texan of some sort hovering nearby, waiting to get in. Nary a Coloradoite in the place, save perhaps the assistant camp host.

Texans tend to dominate the backcountry crowd here in the summer and fall, to the generalized complaint of the townie natives, who nonetheless take our money with abandon. Texans themselves complain mightily about each other within the Sovereignty Itself, but tend to throttle back a bit out here in the dependent territories.

There are so many volunteers already available, when it comes to carping.

I can generally recognize a Texan right off. Take Weldon from Comanche, two sites up. First thing he said to me was "If you see anything you need over at my place, just go get it. No need to ask. I got most everything."

Now that's a Texan in the woods.

Weldon goes well beyond the normal concept of camping. What he does is create an encampment. The other day he came by on the road while I was reading.

"Wanta take a ride?"

"Where to?"

"You need firewood. I got a chain saw. Don told me where there was some dead trees. How about it?" We came back with about a third of a cord, as much as we could load in the back of his Tahoe. He cut up about as much more and left it stacked on the ground.

"Somebody else might come along. Might as well finish up what we brought down."

Weldon introduced me to the Wood Grenade, which I promptly bought at Wal-Mart. It is a pointed wedge, with raised planes reaching up the sides. Sitting down with this thing and a 5 lb. hand sledge, you can split wood about as fast as anybody standing and swinging a splitting maul or an axe. And you can control how it splits and the size of the piece, if the bole is not too knotty. It's fun to beat on things.

Add a light hatchet, gloves, and a cheap electric chain saw, and you have all the kit an RVer might ever need, to keep himself in campfires. Assuming there's dead trees where you are.

They are everywhere in Colorado. The bark beetle is deadly to pines, especially the great Ponderosas here along the lake. There is a constant rain of brown needles from these so-called evergreens. I suppose 4 or 5 years from now, if you come here, you'll be camping among the snags and wondering what all the fuss used to be about.

Right now this is a cool, tree-shaded, light-dappled, wind-ruffled, critter-filled paradise. But the needles are ever falling, falling, falling. Softly covering the deep floor of the woods.

Coming down the Dolores from Telluride a couple of weeks ago, I was looking for early color along the mountainsides, and exclaimed to myself when I saw the rusty lines among the green. How pretty.

Right.

Then I shut my mouth. It wasn't pretty at all. Those trees are dead. The bark beetles got 'em, and the pests are spreading. The only defense pines have here is a sticky sap, which they can just manage when there's plenty of rain. There's been a drought for the past 5 years.

Last year the snows came. It may be too late.

In any case, there won't be a shortage of firewood for a few years yet. Lots of dead and dying trees in these parts. My hammock is tied between two of them. As the trees sway in the breeze, the gentle rocking effect is like sleeping on a small boat in the water.

Restful it is, right up until needles start pelting you. Well, nobody ever told me hammock lessons would be easy. Mine has been empty more often than not.

While wrestling a stump over to the table to be split a couple of days ago, I stumped my right big toe on an upright piece of iron the forest service had helpfully provided. It was welded to the grate on the fire ring. I was hobbling around the next day in houseshoes, and my new Texas neighbor offered his wife's services.

She's an Acupuncturist.

She asked me where it hurt. No, I didn't have to disrobe. Just a general idea. Outside of the ball of the right foot? She took my right pinkie in her hand, and started pressing the inside of it with a car key, just by the nail. Does this hurt? Where does it hurt the most?

"Okay, now hold that spot." She bent down. "The scientific part of this," she chuckled, "is picking out just the right rock." The one she chose was tiny and pointed, like a grain of sand. She pressed it into the spot selected on my pinky.

"Does your foot hurt now?"

I'll be damned. No, it doesn't. It had been throbbing. She taped the rock in place with a piece of band-aid.

"Now whenever your foot hurts, just press this spot. Leave it there a few days. It won't cure whatever's wrong with your foot, but it will alleviate pain."

And it did. To hell with Ibuprofen. In partial trade, I sat in the sun and sharpened her knives. Weldon brought over a pile too.

I started to ask her, just in case, if she had anything for a broken heart. But no. The only rocks suitable are probably rattling around in my head. And how would I ever apply the appropriate pressure?

There's another reason I didn't ask, of course.

I was afraid she might tell me.


Bob, on line, in the pines.

Ever Hopeful, Bob Buys a Hammock

Haviland Lake
Colorado


I was wandering Wal-Mart last Friday, looking for 1411 DC bulbs, when I came across a fine piece of Retirement Monitoring Equipment. It is known outside the RV environment as a "two person hammock". This is a misnomer. Except in preschool and certain sections of South Africa, I know of no two persons in the world who could fit in one at the same time and meditate in comfort.

I can confirm that it accommodates one standard Texan with ease.

There is a children's model called a "one person hammock", but this is a mere plaything. At most a night-time Evil-RV-Robber-Tripper. At worst a potential trap for the unwary owner, out for an impromptu pee without a flashlight.

I've been wanting one of these things.

After nearly two years of preparation and training, I have a sneaking suspicion that retirement will never truly arrive until one can master the "two person hammock" for periods of more than two hours of somnolent calm at a stretch. Two by two.

This would be the "standard test".

Certain fabled masters of the art have been known to stay in the things for days, but it is uncertain whether these individuals have taken retirement to a new level or simply passed away.

It is best to have your spouse and patient help-mate monitor the situation when you are attempting such higher evolutions. Monitoring is achieved by having her periodically ask the following question in a low, persistent, but polite tone of voice:

"Would you like another drinkie, Dearest?"

Non-responsiveness after two hours is not necessarily a bad thing, but it requires the Monitor to initiate a second level test, otherwise known as "poking with a long stick."

Unleashing the grandchildren upon a Master in Full Meditation is considered cheating. If you do it anyway, and there is STILL no response, it is probably time to call 911.

Or else plant him where he lies, with a suitable marker.

All this comes straight from the Retirement Handbook. I can't argue with any of it. It's well beyond my present state of Illumination. I haven't even passed the Standard Test.

However, as usual, I do have excuses.

Stuff Keeps Happening. The most I've managed consistently is the simple Mount, Swing, and Dismount. This proves nothing, even though I've never once fallen on my kiester in the process. Neophyte City. Somehow I have to develop the discipline to stay in the thing, but so far I have disgraced myself, because Stuff Keeps Happening.

I do not speak of the usual barking Squirrels, nattering Nuthatches, noisome Steller Jays, cackling Crows, or chattering Chipmunks. Even the occasional unpremeditated bonk from a pine cone does not bother me unduly.

I remain serene.

When I say Stuff Happens, I mean Stuff that requires me to get up and (gasp) Work.

For instance:

I was giving the new hammock a 30 minute test drive Saturday, just cruising through the beginner steps, when a powerful thirst sent me to the trailer for refreshment. This is not serious. Exceptions must be made for those who have no Monitor available. I left the hammock idling. No harm done.

But as I approached the door, I heard one of those numerous BEEPS that are incessantly reminding me that all is not well in Trailerland. This time it was the low voltage alarm.

What the heck? I've been hooked up to 30 amps for a week now. Okay, time for Master Scientist Mode:

Breaker on? Check.

Power from panel? Check.

Voltage output from Batteries? 8.5 Volts.

Ooooo. Never, never ever, been that low. Even the radio won't stay on, and the lights have a wan look. Hmmm. Master Scientist stumped. Time for the Dumbass Ex-Fireman to start breaking things.

It is always helpful to have alternate personalities to call on.

I removed all the kitchen drawers and dug my way back to the converter. Checked the AC outlet it was plugged into. Okay. Unplugged the Charge Wizard, whose "on" light, I noticed, ominously remained "off". Aha. The interior 30 amp fuse is burned out. Well, more like melted. I put in another.

Is a 30 Amp automotive fuse supposed to light up like a birthday candle? I had to throw the breaker and let it cool a few minutes before I could remove the still warm and tacky remains.

As luck would have it, Steve from Farmington was my neighbor, and he overheard me whining and cursing. Steve is an electrical engineer, and possesses a potent Meter, capable of foretelling the recent past.

Batteries okay, but depleted.

"You've got 4 golf cart batteries. Series and parallel. 420 Amp-hours, or thereabouts. When you get 'em this low, these babies can draw 50 amps or more. Where were you plugged in before you came here?"

"Uh...I wasn't. I was up in the woods above Dolores."

"How long?"

"About a week."

"Did you use your generator?"

"Uh. A little. I don't like the noise..."

"Well, that's it. You are drawing 50-75 amps through a 30 amp charger protected by an internal fuse. Or trying to. Have you got a separate charger?"

I brightened. Felt minutely smarter, along the level of a pillbug. Which was definitely an improvement. "Of course."

"Try this. Leave the fuse out of the converter. Hook up the external trickle charger overnight. There's a thermistor in there that will shut it down periodically when it draws too much current. Right now that will be every 10 seconds or so. When it reaches 12 volts or above again, sometime tomorrow, try the converter. It should work. The fuse saved it, I think."

It did. I made Steve a ritual gift of plentiful firewood Sunday afternoon, and heaped praise on his punkin head. Abased myself. Laid on the grits. You NewMexicanos is wunnerful folks. Truly.

The Charge Wizard is fried, though, or its connection inside the converter is. The converter puts out a steady 14.4 V now, so I have to turn it off periodically or cook the water off the batteries.

I am the Charge Wizard now, God help me, at least until I get to a place that will sell a substitute. Where did I put that wand?

And it's not a matter of simply buying a larger converter. Say 60 amps. For the wire run I have, according to my electrical books, that would require replacing my AWG 8 wiring with AWG 4. You can't just change one thing. It all fits together.

Hindsight is the most wonderful thang.

This trailer came with a single 12V battery. When I quadrupled the battery bank, I set up the possibility of the current scenario. I've gotten away with it thus far by never using my batteries down below 50 per cent.

But I'd gotten so used to everything working okay, for the last two years, that I just quit monitoring the state of charge. When I plugged in here, or maybe even before, out in the woods with the generator, it drew more than 30 A, and the interior fuse blew.

Unbeknownst to me, because I wasn't checking, the voltage then got lower and lower and lower, until even the radio didn't work.

That's low. Loooowww. Why should I check? After all, it's plugged in. Right?

Here's what will work now, I think. Check the state of charge, daily, regular as prayer. My own self. If it starts to get low, crank up the generator and leave it on until matters improve. Never mind the din. If the state of charge falls below 12V, use the external trickle charger for a while at first, to keep from melting the converter fuse.

Oh, and buy another charge wizard, to prevent overcharging. Hope it works when I hook it up. If I've slagged some of the converter innards, I may have to buy another converter of the same size.

The alternative is to rewire the trailer and upgrade the converter. Lotta work, cutting waaay into my hammock training. Ain't gonna happen soon.

So. Now you see. How can I ever Master the Hammock, if Stuff Keeps Happening?

Every time I think I've finally broken free, they puuulll me back in.


Bob

Campground Gossip

Haviland Lake, Colorado

At any one time there's a dozen stories going round in any campground. And that's just the humans. Animal stories are mostly straightforward and sunny in the summer, turning darker when the snows come. Human stories are apt to turn dark any time.

I am parked within a short walk of the water, and directly down slope is a beaver lodge. It's an impressive edifice, made of mud and wattle, poles and brush, about 3 feet high and maybe 12 across. It's been here a while, because grass has grown half-way up the shore side, but appears in good repair. I've been trying to catch sight of the enterprising owner, but it's hard. He's dug a clear channel about two feet deep and as many wide, twenty feet out into the lake.

So he doesn't have to break the surface of the water, entering or leaving.

Apparently he doesn't consider any of his business to be any of my business. I've thought of planting an American flag atop his hill, a la Iwo Jima, just to annoy him. But then there's those big yellow buck teeth to consider. I may want to go out on this lake.

Animal stories proceed at a stately pace. Human stories are mercurial, and can turn on a dime, even allowing for inflation. Shortly after she took my check for the week, I overheard the host tell my neighbor that she was feeling better now. The Lyme disease she got from a tick on these premises seems to be in abeyance.

Things like that can give you an itchy perspective on paradise.

The fellow who was evacuating my intended site in fairly good order yesterday didn't tell me about the ticks. But he did say there was something of a fight in the upper campground over Labor Day. A fellow was trying to improve his situation and found an empty slot he liked, so he put a chair up in the entrance until he could go back for his trailer. When he came trundling up the road, perhaps 15 minutes later, some lady had come along, thrown his chair in the weeds, and was in the process of leveling her class C in the site.

When he objected, she more or less told him to go piss up a rope. And take his chair with him.

The supervising hosts were no help. Possession is all the law, prior to the permit, and it seems the rule is that they will not issue a permit unless you are actually occupying a site. The chair-marker convention depends entirely on voluntary compliance. I'm not sure what would work against a surly competitor like this lady was. Quickly staking out, if not assembling, a cheap tent kept solely for this purpose? Perhaps a couple of official looking orange cones, thirty feet of police tape, and the spray-painted outline of a body at the entrance?

It's worth a try.

How would Tony Soprano handle a situation like this? Nah. Never would even come up. Way too far from the Bada Bing.

Early this morning I was taking what used to be called a constitutional walk through the campground, carrying a cup of coffee, when the sound of a chainsaw ripped though the peace. Down slope, not far from the entrance, a guy and his wife were cutting a downed pine into three foot lengths.

"You're mighty ambitious for this early in the morning..."

"Did we bother you? We're almost through." As usual, the wife was assigned a role as the delaying diplomat, while the guy kept on grunting upwards with the logs.

"You guys gonna turn those into smoke?"

He stopped a second. Sat the stump down. He had big hands.

"Nope. Bowls."

"Boles? They're already boles." I am sometimes burdened by a sense of humor.

"Bo-wel-s. Like salad bowls."

Salads have bowels? No, I didn't actually say it.

"Look, I'll show you. See these grey radial stripes, away from the heart? That's where the tree was attacked by fungus. For years. When this is shaped and polished, that'll make a nice pattern."

That reminded me of a story. When you are as old as I am, almost everything reminds you of a story. And you just assume everyone wants to hear it.

The first time I visited San Francisco, back in the middle '70s, I took the ferry over to Tiburon. Right where you got off, on the left side, was a store called Nautical Antiques, or Nautical Brass, or Nautical Something or Other. They bid on odd lots, when ships were being dismantled and broken up. Brass trim, silverware, china, nameplates, official stationery, ship's clocks, compasses, doors, lighting fixtures, anything they thought they could sell. It was a warehouse.

Outside, at the end of the parking lot, piled in disarray as though delivered by dump truck, were 50 or 60 walnut burls. From the Philippines. Someone had cut a huge walnut tree, 3-4 feet in diameter, into 8-12 inch slices. They were rough, the bark on, but you could still see a nice pattern in the grain. Some had been in water. The saw had grooved the surface in places a quarter inch or more. They had just been ripped up like trash.

The guy said they had been used as ballast. They were 10 bucks apiece.

"Ten bucks?" My bowl-making acquaintance seemed stunned. "Why, something like that would cost you a thousand dollars, today."

"They were sort of oval. Indented round the edges. Would 've made great coffee tables. But man, they were heavy. Dense. Take a couple of men to lift one. Maybe more for the thicker ones. I thought of putting a couple in the back of my old chevy, tying the trunk down, and bringing them back to Texas. Probably would 've broken the springs before I cleared the state line. I thought about renting a truck. I thought about a lot of things for a few minutes there. Hell of a situation."

He nodded. I could see the story was working on him. Walnut. Here he was out in the woods on a Thursday morning, waking people up, collecting fungus-addled pine.

"Ten bucks. When was this?"

"Around 1976. Even back then, they could 've found a better use for a tree like that. And no telling how long those burls sat in the bottom of that ship before it was broken up. The guy said there was something like a thousand of them in there. Maybe more. It just wasn't practical to bring 'em home. I don't know if I could 've found a commercial planer big enough to take 'em. They'd be a lot of work to smooth down. And you really needed to slice them into two rounds, which might be delicate. Three or four inches is plenty thick."

He shook his head, standing at the back of his truck, leaning on a long pry bar. This guy wasn't big on words, but working with wood was obviously a large part of his life.

It was just a funny story to me. But for him it may have been something close to the heart of darkness.

Campground stories. There's lots, but just now I've been interrupted by the strangled rude barking of a large gray squirrel. Never seen one like it. Big fellow, whitish, with a black stripe running down his back. And that's a beautiful bushy tail to be dragging through the dirt like that. Long silvery hairs fanned out from the central short black fur, like a thin halo or fringe.

Beautiful. But man, is he obnoxious. Doubtless he has his own stories to tell.


Bob

A Day in Durango

Haviland Lake
Colorado


Some people, whose capacity for curiosity is matched only by cats, have asked how I organize my explorations, especially upon entering an new area. Well, it's real deep. In fact it was a complete mystery to me, too, until I decided to tell all. Perhaps the following will help you to understand the methodology.

First, I dump the trailer.

I breezed through Durango from the West, stopping only for 80 bucks worth of necessary groceries and the moderate allure of a place with a sign out front that said: "Serious Texas BBQ", and under that, "Miniature Golf". It was okay, considering that I was neither serious nor in Texas at the time. It did seem to have been cooked on a pit of some sort.

I passed on the golf. They were using stupid balls. That's what I heard a young girl say as I walked by, anyway. "Stupid, stupid ball." I have enough trouble when the balls are being sensible.

Heading up, and I mean up, toward Silverton, I found a campsite by the waters of Haviland Lake. It had only been recently abandoned by Those Who Must Return To Work, a sect I once nominally belonged to, but whose philosophy I never fully embraced. They left behind a container of Kool-Ade and a small pile of wood stacked by the fire ring. Using makeshift tongs, I disposed of the drink in an environmentally murky manner.

But I never turn down firewood.

Still, what I really wanted after a week in the woods was an electric site. I canvassed the grounds and found a fellow occupying one. On the lake. I then conspired with him to enter right on his heels as he left the following morning. Mission accomplished.

The plot thins a bit at this point.

Three years ago, when I first got satellite radio, hardly anybody in your average campground had it, and I got bragging rights. Now everyone has it. But I discovered a new wrinkle, something I'd not noticed before. I backed into the site, onto the leveling blocks. Ahh. The occasion warranted a little big band music. On with XM 004, "The Forties".

No signal. What?

After applying a curious phrase or two, first learned in a locker room, I was no nearer to Harry James. So I pulled the trailer forward and checked again. Signal! It was only Sinatra, but a good signal. I backed onto the blocks. No signal. I backed further, until one axle was off the blocks. Signal.

Man, this is precise, and doubtless caused by a single nearby tree in the way. So I moved the blocks back a couple of feet. Problem solved. But from now on, it seems, I have more to think about than just leveling fore and aft, and side to side.

Now the trailer must also be tuned, treewise, for Satellite Radio.

The science of RVing advances, step by laborious step. I hope future generations, the ungrateful whelps, come to honor this effort with a suitable holiday.

Tuesday morning. Wash day. Back to Durango. See how the strategy unfolds?

The washateria was notable for so called "double load" washers, costing two bucks apiece. Also a green house atmosphere, largely due to a trio of huge fronded plants behind the washers. These jolly green giants had a wingspan of 6-8 feet, and the dangling leaves had to be repeatedly swept aside for me to find a surface on which to finger through my change for quarters. It was a bit like shaking hands with an over-friendly alien.

Beam me up, Scotty.

The upside of the establishment was an abandoned Durango Herald announcing recent and upcoming events. There had been a biker rally in Ignacio, which I knew about from the overflow traffic. Sixty thousand Bikers in the middle of the Southern Ute reservation. As a counterweight, over in Pagosa, there was the Four Corners Folk Festival.

They still have folk festivals?

Both these events turned out to be soggy affairs, but were defiantly deemed successful by the newspaper. Thank god I missed them both. I don't want to do anything with 60,000 other humans. In fact, my tolerance for bush apes, myself included, starts to top out at 6 or 7.

About the number I could barbecue for. Up to that I like 'em fine.

What's coming up? Here's an item. Kathy L'Amour, Louis L'Amour's widow, announces a Silent Auction for various goods, at her ranch near Hesperus, in support of the Mesa Verde Foundation. Next Saturday. Public welcome.

It might be interesting to see Louie's old digs. Whoooops! Tickets, $100 apiece.

That's how they weed out the riff-raff. Like me.

Nothing much else going on. Good. That means I am free to plan my own party, unencumbered by organized recreation. My first thought, after loading the dryers, was that I needed a pie. I am fond of pie. I was told by a fellow washerite that the only bakery he had heard of, besides the blah efforts in grocery stores, was the "french baker" down on Main. I went down there.

I knew as I entered I had the wrong place.

A perky blond behind the counter looked up and asked, "Seating for one?"

"No. But maybe you can help me. I'm looking for a bakery."

"This is a bakery."

"No, this is a restaurant, of sorts. You are selling ambiance. I'm looking for someone who sells pies."

"How about a tart? This is a French bakery. We sell tarts." She looked at a list. "We can sell you a 9 inch tart. Would that do?"

She was game, I'll say that for her.

"How much is this 9 inch tart?"

Hard question. They may never have sold one whole before. She called another girl over, and they put their blond heads together. Finally she looked up brightly.

"Twenty dollars."

"No thanks."

Twenty dollars for a French Tart. What is the world coming to? Whatever happened to Mademoiselle from Armentieres?

I went around the corner to the Wells Fargo Bank, to buy a couple of rolls of quarters. Passed by the Smoke Shop. Keep walking, keep walking, keep walking.

There was a substantial line in the bank lobby. The last fellow save me wore a prominent scowl. He had the sort of complexion caused by not eating often or well, and spending a lot of involuntary time in the weather. Sallow and pale and rough and ruddy, all at the same time. Unshaven, unshorn. His jeans were as greasy as his leather hat.

He smirked up at me. "Man, for a minute there I thought it was Halloween. You fall off your bike?"

I remembered the mark on my forehead. Part of my RV dues.

"Nope. Ran into something."

"I bet you did. How many stitches is that?"

"None. I taped it up myself."

"Man. Ain't that the way it is? Bang your head, and you can just bleed to death. Nobody gives a damn."

"It's not that bad. I'll live. Looks worse than it is."

"I hope so. Man, this world is just a crock, isn't it? Every day I stay here, it's worse and worse. And nobody gives a damn."

I was beginning to sense a little of his mood. "Well, it's a pretty day, anyway."

We shuffled forward in line. He was unimpressed.

"O yeah, but what does that mean? There's no love, man. I used to live in Hawaii, and it was beautiful every damn day, but there's no love, you know? So I left. What's the point if there's no love?"

I was beginning to think that love was well down the list of things he needed. I could be wrong. I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but by then I was being pressed from behind. The line advanced.

"George Bush, man. He's got the plan. I bet we're all in a world war in 5 years."

"So vote for Kerry."

"Kerry, man. He's just slow poison. George is fast. Fast. I say go for Bush, man. Get it over with. I'm tired of all this waitin' around."

The line advanced. Not long now. Maybe I could throw him off his stride. Break the rhythm.

"I'm sorry, but... well, see where I hit my head? It just knocked the Devil right out of me. Nothing in there but smiles now. Smiles and butterflies. Sorry. God bless you, man. It's a beautiful day."

This almost worked. I could see him chewing it over. The scowl deepened.

The line advanced.

"No, man, that's naive. It's not that easy. This world's a crock, man."

"NEXT."

He went to his teller.

"NEXT"

I went to mine. Handed her a twenty. "Two rolls of quarters, please."

"Is that all? Why, you're about the easiest customer I've had today."

She smiled. So did I.

"Well, good. I'm glad I could be here for you."

I walked out into the sunshine. It really was a pretty day. Now all I had to worry about was getting back to the truck without going into the Smoke Shop.

Dryers ought to be done by now. Time marches on. So do I.


Well, there it is. You have it. The secret is out. Bob's Own Plan for a Traveling Retirement.

This is how I try to organize my day, no matter where I am. I miss opportunities to join crowds, keep myself in clean underwear, stick to pies when offered tarts, and stay out of banks as much as I can.

Give it a shot. You might have the gift.

I'm still working on it.


Bob

Small Miracles

Above Mancos
Colorado


It rained all day Saturday. The first bad weather I've seen since June. Perhaps a sign of winter coming down.

I read most of the day. Not much else to do.

Around 5 o'clock cabin fever got the best of me, and I decided to drive down the road a bit and get my email. I carried the laptop out to where the truck was parked, parallel to the back of the trailer. A handy place to hook up the generator.

You know how you walk through the rain? Hunched over, head down, hood up, skipping over and around puddles, rushing a little to get to shelter? You've done that.

BAM!

It staggered me. Knocked my glasses off, but somehow I held onto the laptop. The basic instinct of modern Homo Intelensis: whatever you do, save the data.

Bright blood spattered down on the silvery cover. Somehow, though I had the whole field to walk around in, I had managed to collide head first with the leading edge of my trailer overhang.

I had to lean against the truck for a minute, holding my head with one hand, blood streaming down my arm. Then I set the laptop on the hood and went back inside to survey the damage. Dripping all the way. I ran through a lot of paper towels in the next few minutes. It wasn't easy to tell through all the blood, but it seemed like there was a 6-8 inch gash running at a slant from high on my forehead to just above my left eye.

The bleeding slowed. I drove the 15 miles into Mancos chittering down a rain-rutted road, one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding pressure against a folded and refolded and bloodsoaked hunk of paper towel.

It was raining in town, too.

Women. I have yet to meet a woman who did not melt at the sight of young animals, or fail to focus with grim satisfaction on the prospect of playing nurse.

And certainly not in Mancos.

Everywhere I went, women gathered round me with a mix of concern and exasperation, as though I was an errant but somehow still beloved child. In the filling station, I had to back away from a woman not much younger than my mother would be, who actually licked her fingers and reached out as though she had every intention of wiping me down like a soiled kitten.

Everywhere I went I was offered bathrooms, Kleenex, paper towels, and sage advice. The best was from a clerk at the liquor store, where I purchased a medicinal 6-pack of "90 Shilling" beer. One handed, no less.

"Butterfly bandages. You can get them across the street at the store."

Right. Over there I got the same reaction. I must have looked a sight. Both of the female clerks left their customers standing at the register while they fussed over me, brought me a variety of dressings, and cleared off a section of counter to lean against.

They'd have bandaged me right up, too, if I'd allowed it.

The men just shook their heads and shrank back out of the way while women did their thing. And all these women had that same look of exasperated focus. It must come with the double X chromosome, a genetic unspoken certainty that men just never are going to grow up.

Made me feel like a young boy caught with a frog in his pocket.

Maybe it was the fascination of a facial wound. Had it happened to them, no doubt they'd have been devastated, sobbing at the prospect of losing their looks. To me it was just a pretty good chance at another mark on the exposed reef that once was my skull. With any luck, I might be able to pass it off as a fencing scar.

"Olympic trials, you know. Summer of '68. Old Dieter gave me that. Made me thank him for the lesson, too."

It did take 6 of those butterflies to close the wound. The thing started throbbing, so on the way back I opened up some of the medicine I'd gotten at the liquor store, and applied a little to the back of my throat.

Halfway up the hill, it started snowing.

I had to stop in the middle of the road while a doe and two unspotted fawns tried to figure out what I was, and what they wanted to do about it. It's amazing how quickly they can disappear amid the snow and trees, once the decision is made. Like wraiths.

It was about 7 o'clock as I came up the final approach, perhaps half a mile from the trailer. There was a car parked in front of a stock gate, beside the cattle guard. Hood up. When I stopped, a guy in camouflaged coveralls came over and told me they were all right. They'd dragged their muffler loose in a field, and were trying to get it all the way off.

There were a couple of women in the back seat. They were bundled up, and didn't look too happy.


On the way I had noticed that a lot of the impromptu campsites previously filled had been emptied. People just got discouraged with the rain and cold, I guess. Not a very good weekend for playing outdoors.

I am parked next to a patch of trees, in a relatively isolated spot, but the trailer can be seen from the road. Around 10:30, after supper, I was having ice cream and watching a little TV, when suddenly there was a knock on the door. The blinds were up, but I couldn't see much out there. Whoever it was could certainly see me. I looked at the clock. 33 degrees.

I picked up the big maglite and opened the door.

It was the camo fellows from the parked car. They asked if I had jumper cables. They'd been out in the weather all this time, and had walked a good ways through snow to find me.

I must have looked strange to them, there in the woods, a bald man standing in a doorway in shirtsleeves, brightly backlit and toasty warm, his head held together by bandages, carrying a heavy flashlight like a weapon while the TV droned on about weather they already knew way too much about.

They just looked cold to me.

As soon as I got them hooked up, the motor came to life with an unmuffled roar, then settled unto an uncertain chunka, chunka, chunka, chunk. They seemed satisfied. They handed me my cables, jumped in, and drove off noisily down the hill.

Wahoo.

_____________________

That was yesterday. A day of small miracles. One is that I didn't knock myself completely senseless in the rain, or put out my left eye. Another is that Mancos is a town full of helpful and determined women, who saw me patched up in spite of myself. Still another is that the camo guys were able to find me in the dark.

And finally, of course, there is snow. To a boy raised in central Texas, snow is always a miracle.

The ground looks hard out there. 35 degrees. A good bit of the snow is gone, melted or blown away. The sun shines fine and very bright on what is left.

Sunday. The skin on my head feels tight.

I hope this is an uneventful day.


Bob

To Hell With Hemingway

Among the aspens
Colorado


I got this email from a young girl in the UK:

>> Hello Bob, never replyed on one of these before :)

> Me and my husband to be have built our own motorhome, the van started
>life out as a iveco turbo daily pannel van, and we took her upto a coach
>builders in wigan up north in the Uk, that was in november last year, we got
>her back in march 2004 and started working on her, converting her into a
>motorhome, we finished her in late april in time for a motorhome show down
>in Newbury,
>
>since then we have just been around the midlands and down south to the new
>forest, but soon we will be going on tour of scotland :)
>
>my boyfriend could write about our trips but he says he's not as good as
>you, but when he sent me an email last year about his trip in the van to get
>the fridge for the motorhome, he wrote it with lots of detail and really
>well, it felt like i was there with him along for the ride, he described his
>trip really well, i keep on saying to him why dont you write about places we
>have been and things, but he just says nah, and thats it?
>
>can you tell him about how you started out and that he can do it if he puts
>his mind to it, imean we are both young, i'm 22 and he's 27.. :)
>
>we both read your emails and we have both seen your site and i think its
>amazing how you can just let your mind flow like that :) really good.


You guys have more guts than I have. But then you are young. I'm 58 years old. If I tried to build an RV, by the time I finished I'd be too old to be allowed behind the wheel.

Though as a matter of fact I am gradually rebuilding the one I have, as bits fall off.

I don't think you realize how astounding your letter is to me. "How you started out..." Hell, I'm only starting out now. Two years ago I'd hardly written anything. A little poetry, years ago. Half of an annoying master's thesis.

How can I give you, or him, advice?

Some one on the newsgroup sent me this URL:

www.mcmanusbooks.com/biography/dear_bio.html

I think Mcmanus has some pretty good things to say. And he is, or was, an established writer. This is the only thing of his I've read, but I was especially impressed with the idea of sitting down every day and writing something -anything- for two hours. So that's what I'm trying to do.

It's just my life. It seems a modest goal, but it's amazingly energizing. The more I write, the more I find to write about. It grows by what it feeds on, if that's not too pastoral an idiom. It gathers speed.

When writing gets to be a habit, like anything else, then it's not so scary. I think you have to make that habit ordinary. This is not the same thing as making your writing ordinary.

Think of it as swimming out from shore. Your infamous Loch Ness may be forbidding, dark, and deep. But the third time you take a dip, without encountering Nessie, it doesn't seem so bad. I mean, it's cold, but you can do it.

That may be what writers really mean when they wax poetic and gush: "I have to write. I write or die!" They just mean they've gotten in the habit of it, and the days they don't do it, they don't feel quite right.

Like a day without coffee. Or perhaps, in your case, tea.

If I worried about people who were better than me, I'd never get a word out. To hell with Hemingway. In fact - and here's an epiphany - that's probably why I didn't take up writing seriously when I was in my twenties, and became a fireman for thirty years instead.

I'd been to school, and acquired a taste that was above my talent.

Now that I'm old, I find that my taste has suffered to the point that I actually like what I write. That's a liberating thought. I'm only going to seem better and better, as time goes on...

Has your boyfriend been to University? He may have just been loaded up with a surfeit of good taste, as I was. That's a killer. Hard to get over, but it can be done. Don't be intimidated. There are decent things lurking in all of us that we never stop to look at.

Reading gives you tools, like vocabulary, breadth of vision, or even character, but reading is not writing. Just like eating is not throwing up.

My word. What an unedifying thing to say.

Everyone has his talents and troubles. My trouble, all my life, was and is that I'm lazy and mercurial. I get distracted by all the bright and shiny things I see. Ooooooo. Like a magpie. If that is his problem, then I can only offer this plan I've just started on.

Every day I sit down for two hours and write about something. Like I'm doing right now.

Note that I said this is the plan. Not always the reality. I still get distracted. Last winter I was distracted for 6 months.

A more romantic option, and useful in many ways, would be to ask him to write you more of those long letters, every day, even when you are together. As a lark. Like he did on the fridge trip. Try that for a while.

Start with just one. Of course, as he gets his wind up, he'll end up writing to himself as much as you. But that's just men for ya. This doesn't have to be about him. Try writing these letters yourself. You might like it.

There is a danger. If he becomes a writer, and you become his muse, he'll never leave you even if you want him to.

But I'm getting above myself. If I knew anything about the intersection of romance and writing, I'd be lolling about on an estate in Jamaica, sipping on a Red Stripe, married 40 years.

I digress. The mountains do that to ya.

Have a grand time in Scotland.


Bob

Trail Rations

Among the aspens
above Mancos, Colorado


Well, pardners, as we all know, the grub out on the trail is often hit or miss. Everyone has their own favorite sort of "emergency rations". Many a fine thing has been said for beany weenies, and a number of you may favor rat cheese, crackers, and sardines. It has sustained many a cowpoke, and I wouldn't say a thing against it, if you're in the mood.

I knew a rocket scientist once who swore by hard-boiled weiners. Nothing quite like 'em. Pickled pig's feet with boiled eggs in brine are another favorite, though they tend to make the crowd a bit musical later in the evening.

Since acquiring an RV, though, I've come to experiment a bit.

Tradition has its place, but tonight I invented a concoction which, though it may seem odd, I think you'll find quite tasty after an afternoon of singing softly to the lowing herd down by the water hole.

Or even quoting cowboy poetry, to calm the occasional feral four wheeler passing by in a rumbling cloud of dust.

When coming through Mancos the other day, I picked up a 5 pound pork loin roast. This afternoon I put it in a roasting pan and spread it all over with Joy's Chimayo Red Jam (www.joysinc.com). Made from red chiles, it's not quite the same flavor as Jalapeno jelly. But it carries its own punch.

Then I sliced up a couple of bartlett pears into quarters, and set them around the roast. All this went under foil and into the oven at a nominal 375 degrees for three and a half hours, which browned it to a turn. The jam glazed nicely, and the pears combined with the peppers to make a savory jus.

Served it up with mashed potatoes and a pale yellow ear of buttered sweet Olathe corn. Libation was a modest, moderately dry cabernet.

At the suggestion of a fella named Canoli, I even used my mothers old crystal. I must say it looked swell in the flickering light of the Citronella tub candle.

Now I know most of you would rather have Smores, but you got to branch out now and then. Give it a try. I think you'll like it.

In fact I'd like to share this with you all. There's more than enough. But, alas, I don't believe it will travel well.

So I guess I'll just have to tuck into another serving. O well.


Bob,
out where the deer and the antelope play

Sanctuary

Above Mancos, Colorado


"Nothing makes a sound in the trees like the wind does."
- Don Williams

An aspen grove is a delightful place to be. And to park an RV.

I arrived here a bit put out. Even desperate. I was seeking sanctuary from the madding crowd of Labor Day in the mountains, when the public ascends upon the public lands.

Easier sought than done. I walked around Transfer campground this morning, noticing all the little reservation tags.

Abandon peace all ye who remain here.

I went down the hill to Mancos State Park, not really expecting relief. Same thing. The lady at the booth said a lot of family groups were expected. Boats, motorcycles, squalling kids.

She wore a large white cockatoo on her right shoulder, which gave her an odd air of gravitas.

"Don't get me wrong, ma'am. I like kids. But I don't like 'em hollering and running around at 8 in the morning."

She nodded. So did the bird.

"You couldn't live with one of these, then." She inclined her head at the cockatoo, then raised her arm. It was a big bird. Big enough to sit on your shoulder and look down at you. Sensing an invitation, it grasped her collar for support and edged down the arm, settling in just above the wrist. Then It began to nibble under one wing, showing the flash of yellow feathers there.

"She starts screaming every morning at sunrise. Doesn't matter if you cover the cage, she knows what time it is, and wants out. Don't you, precious?"

The bird preened itself, and looked down piercingly at me with one eye. Very impressive. If either of them had worn an eyepatch, I'd think I'd wandered into a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Okay. Campgrounds full. Only thing to do is head for the high hinterlands.

Onward and upward, however, did not amount to progress. Every place I could drag the trailer in was occupied. Some of these impromptu camps had been turned into regular ramshackle compounds, with tarps and tents and multiple trailers circled, even a few Class Cs.

There was a disconsolate, even abandoned feeling to some of them. No one home. I suspect they were dragged out here last weekend, just to lay claim to the spot. Good plan.

There was an occasional caretaker sitting outside. One of them smugly raised his beer as I passed by.

Finally, at a bend in the rutted gravel road, above 9500 feet, I found a spot untaken. You couldn't actually get into the aspens, but you could pull right up to them, and face the woods. I took it, hopeful that some branch of the Snopes clan would not pull in beside me during the night.

As I said, aspens are great entertainment. All those dancing leaves can distract you into dreams as readily as any campfire. Maybe more so, since it is seldom you'll see a family of jays perch and squawk among the flames.

If you close your eyes, as the wind rises, it sounds like a river running by.

This is going to be a golden spot in a week or two. Yellow is already peaking out from the lower branches. There's an icy scent in the air, though the sun beams down undiminished.

Someone's been here before, of course. There's a fire ring made of rocks, and a few large aspen boles sitting about to sit on. I threw one of them, about 2 feet thick and 2 feet high, onto a moderate fire.

It burned readily. Try that with an oak stump, and it will likely put out your fire.

It may rain. The sky is rumbling off to the south. I'll be here through Monday, hiding out, regardless. If the weather doesn't encourage walking, I can always read. And a little rain might hold down the dust from the invasion.

It could be worse. Happy Labor Day. See you on the other side.


Bob

Odd RVs

Transfer Campground
Above Mancos, Colorado


I've seen some odd RVs lately. I was walking around the campground in the evening at the McPhee Reservoir and stumbled on the neatest little pop-up trailer, pulled by an Electraglide. A tiny two wheeled thing, with a chunky plywood top that opens into a tent shelter with a queen size bed.

It's a double lid. The top one folds over to form a large floor. The tent fully deploys as you open it. From road to bed in about 2 minutes. There's a U shaped brace that comes down to hold the free side up, and an additional tented area below that for weatherproof storage of motorcycle helmets, roadkill, short brothers-in-law, etc.

The guy's had it for about 7 years, through 3 motorcycles. It looks like new, and was built by an Indiana company, B&F Engineering.

He paid $400 for it used, 7 years ago. I wrote about it on the newsgroup, and Mike from there found it on the Web: www.bf-specialties.com . Apparently the price has gone up a bit, or else the first owner really wanted to get rid of it.

It's just like those little books they make for kids. Open them up, and out pops a castle, a moat, and a drawbridge, accompanied by a squeal of delight. Same with this tent.

There was also a large beer cooler on the tongue. Nice touch.

I wanted to take another look and a picture, but they had already gone before I got up the next morning. That's the thing about motorcycle campers, even when they are this comfortable.

Any time not spent on the motorcycle is considered wasted.

Late yesterday afternoon here at Transfer, while the lasagna was cooking for supper, I got to talking with the camp host. He says that the name Transfer comes from the old logging days. They'd snake the trimmed trees down the mountain by dragging them with mules, and then transfer them to wagons when they hit a road. Like right here.

"There's another campground over by Vallecito Lake called Transfer Park. Same thing. Speaking of mules, we got a couple over at the corrals."

I walked across the road to take a look. There I ran into Mike, from Ruidoso. He was packing a couple of large canvas and leather bags beside a horse trailer. Turns out he and his wife live in that horse trailer. The back half is for the horses, the front half for them.

"Is there a connecting door?"

He laughed. "Nah, we don't love 'em that much."

This trailer is quite a different proposition from the usual RV. It's a 21 foot gooseneck. In horse trailers they measure just the box. That does not include about 6 feet above the hitch, which is where they sleep. The two axles are way at the back, under the animals, with about a 2 foot overhang, which must make for a heavy hitch. Certainly it has a heavy duty leveling jack.

He hauls it with an F250 diesel, and says it's all the truck can handle. They have been trail-riding for the last 6 months, with a week's break at home in the middle of that for business. They are both in their late fifties. Their parents are in good health, the kids are out of the house. They saw a narrow window of freedom to do what they love best, and they took it.

On the road they carry a John, a Molly, and a horse in the back of the trailer. Off the road the animals carry them. Unlike what you see in the movies, they ride the mules and load the horse with packs. They find the mules more sure-footed on the high trails, though much of that may be just a native spirit of caution, the artifact of animal self-interest.

"A horse can be coaxed into doing things they ought not to do," Mike said. "They are foolish enough to trust people. Mules are another matter."

"Do you have trouble finding corrals like this?"

"They aren't everywhere. But we have a bar that swings out from the trailer to tie them to. The biggest problem is finding enough water. These animals consume 15-20 gallons a day. I carry 30 gallons of horse water, and 30 gallons for us."

"Do they travel well in there?"

"Pretty well. They kinda fit in at an angle. Left to their own devices, they prefer riding backward. They like looking out the back."

Mike showed me a radio device he bought at REI. It's a yellow plastic thing about the size of a man's hand, with a fold down antenna and a sealed battery. Turn it on, and the rescue guys are supposed to come a runnin'. I asked Mike if he'd ever tried it out.

"Nope. That might be a tad expensive. If it don't work, and I live, someone's gonna get a visit he didn't count on."

I believe him.

He was busy packing, and I had to get back to the lasagna. Otherwise I would have liked to talk more. As with the motorcycle couple, by the time I got over there in the morning, they had saddled up and headed for the high country.

I took a picture of their trailer. In the morning light, it seemed a small thing to hold as much pleasure as they seemed to get out of it. They'll be back in a few weeks, when things start to get frosty, or the first snow hits the mountains. Or when they run out of food.

That might be a while. Mike told me how much easier it was to sneak up on a herd of elk, walking beside the horse and using it for cover.

"I guess they think it's a six-legged horse. They're not scared of horses. You can't fool 'em forever, but you can get within 50 or 60 yards. Easy shot."

The longer I stay out here, folks, the more things I find under the RV umbrella. And the more interesting people.

You can talk about it, or you can do it. Mike and his wife are doing it. May they never have a use for that radio thing.


Bob