Seldom Seen

Dead Horse State Park
Arizona

I awoke Friday morning next to a field stiff with thistle and dewfrost, on the slope of the Sunset volcano. It was 23 degrees. I left Page late Thursday, after finally getting and sending my ballot in the mail. I sent for it on the 10th. Plenty of time, I thought. Finally got it on the 28th, five days before the election.

If registrars are this efficient all over the country, there's going to be a bunch of gypsies, like me, that don't get counted.

I arrived at the volcano in the dark, and found the campground closed and gated. I slept by the side of the road, in a turnout, beneath one of several "no parking" signs.

Necessity is a mother, ain't it?

My converter blew a fuse again. I am increasingly convinced this is caused by the Charge Wizard. It does not happen when it is not plugged in, and the function light in the thing is out. In any case, it has been almost a week since plugging in. The generator just doesn't keep up with it. Time to find another outlet.

I drove the circuit round from Sunset to Wupatki, stomping briskly through a couple more ruins, trying to stay warm. Hate to say it, but after a month in northern Arizona, I'm about ruined out.

But it must have been something to see, on a certain morning over a thousand years ago. To feel the ground shake, and the earth roar and rise up. They must 've run away for all they were worth, but how could they fail to look back? Even as Lot's wife, everything they knew, everything they had, was being buried around them, under cinders and ash.

No doubt it seemed the world was ending. For some of them, it did.

There's a crackle of ice in shadows along the road this morning, even though it hasn't rained. Maybe it's time to go south for the winter. Time to turn toward home. Odd how all migrations are ultimately circular, no matter how long they take.

Home. Why does it always looks so different, when you come back round at last?

Eliot had a line about that:

"You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,
That time is no healer: the patient is no longer there."


Lots of snow piled up in Flagstaff, and several of last night's wrecks still to be towed away. But the roads are clear, where they are not blocked.

Several people had told me to be sure and drive down Oak Creek Canyon. Well, I've seen it, and it looks a bit like suburban Los Angeles has been crammed down into what may once have been a pretty little canyon.

Sedona is the epicenter of a fashionable demographic disaster.

It's late October. Nearly Halloween. This has to be the off season, but every parking lot is full along the road. There must be fifty cars parked at Slide Rock State Park. No chance of getting a trailer in there. Oh, and they charge for parking - "Red Rock Pass Required" - like this was a cutesy Disney enterprise instead of a national forest.

Hell. Maybe it is. "Come visit 'Canyonland'. See what all the fuss was about! Buy your tickets here!"

God knows what sort of crowded hell this little slot is in the summer. Once upon a time it mighty have made a nice small national park, but it's way too late now. Might as well sell it off and line it with McMansions.

The clutter of cuteness that is modern Sedona begins to clear out a bit toward Cottonwood, which is where I pulled into Dead Horse State Park. It's a typical desert campground. A few sites down along the trickle of a sometime stream, among the straggly mesquites, and many more above, spaced out to make a sandy parking lot. About all it really has to recommend it is an electric outlet at every site.

And that's enough.

I paid the $19 and went back into town, on a quixotic hunt for No. 6 Melitta coffee filters. That's the size of funnel I have. These things have mysteriously almost disappeared from grocery shelves everywhere. When I find them, I buy in bulk.

No luck in Cottonwood. But I did find "Seldom Seen Steve".

He was set up on the side of the road, with about 60 feet of leather goods and fake fur blankets hung up on wooden racks, all in front of an interesting homemade RV of sorts. He has a 1969 Volkswagen Van that he bought 33 years ago. All this scatter of eclectic goods fits inside, and behind it he hauls a trailer made from a 1969 Vanagon, the one with the tilt up tent. Actually, he says, it's got parts from about 10 different VW vans, of various vintage. He sleeps in the trailer with a wolf-looking dog. This dog tracked me with attentive cop eyes as I walked around the trailer, but didn't get up. Still, he managed to convey that I'd better watch my step, or he'd tear me a new one.

I bought a belt. I've only had two belts since 1973. And the same belt buckle. I bought the buckle at a BBQ joint next to a dance hall in Copeland Texas. It's what I did that night instead of getting laid. It's a solid brass Armadillo. I bought both belts from a leather worker at the Renaissance Market on the Drag in Austin.

I can't find a good belt in a store. I'm not talking about a "dress" belt. I've got a couple of those flimsy things, of course, and wear them about as often as I wear a suit.

I bought the first belt from a couple in their twenties, and came back about 18 years later to find the guy still running the stand, in about the same place. So I bought another. He said he recognized the pattern as his wife's work. In the interim she'd run off to Hawaii to be an acupuncturist.

I tried to hook up with him a couple of times in the spring, but he comes and goes. Seldom seen. But from what I'm told he still shows up from time to time. Steve listened as I told this story.

"It's one thing to peddle piece work in your twenties," I said, "and maybe sell a little pot on the side. It's an adventure. But it's odd to find a guy doing this stuff for his whole life."

Oops. Have you ever tried to close your mouth before the words got all the way out, and fail? I have.

"Hey, man. I'm nearly 60 years old. I've been doing this for 40 years. I work maybe 2 days a week, travel around the rest of the time. That's why I'm 'Seldom Seen' Steve. It ain't so bad. I like it. There's not much money in it, but there's more than I need."

And there you have it. That's why I've got a new belt. Purchased out of pure embarrassment.

O well, it's been 13 years or so. It's time. And it's a pretty good belt, though maybe not the equal of the earlier two. Inch and a half, plain brown, full grain cowhide. Fourteen bucks.

It'll do, to hold my pants up. Maybe I should get another for my mouth.

Maybe in another dozen years.


Bob

A Hole in the Ground

North Rim Campground
Grand Canyon


I've been waiting in the rain at Page for my ballot to show up. It didn't. I guess they are overwhelmed down at the Williamson County Clerk's Office. Helluva a way to run a country. It might be a while. I decided to go have a look at a hole in the ground.

The trip to the North Rim is pretty spectacular in itself. You go down and then up the Vermillion Cliffs. In a turnout halfway down, I stopped to take a couple of pictures, and look over a line of Navajos selling trinkets and jewelry. There was a bunch of Germans on a junket there, all of them on big bikes, and between the guttural gabble, the blat and mutter of the idling bikes, and the crowd pushing and shoving, it was hard to get anywhere near those card tables.

That's all right. The last thing I need is jewelry.

The tourists, however, were quite a sight, all dressed up in leathers and attitude. But even when playing at being the "Wild Ones", their meticulous native penchant for organization asserted itself. For instance, this middle-aged band of Brandos was followed everywhere by a big panel van full of tools, coolers, tires, and assorted spare parts. Probably an ATM back in there somewhere.

Wild. But not too wild.

I crossed the Colorado at Marble Canyon. Snapshots can't capture this country. You can only take pictures of the parts, and tiny parts at that. It is the whole that is truly impressive. The parts are ordinary. Sand and rock. A few stunted plants. That's what is in the pictures.

What is before your eyes is the work of eons, a timeless striving mired in time, a rising up and wearing away of stone at once so slow and so unstoppable it makes your life seem small. And your pictures pointless.

I took a bunch anyway.

While climbing back up, and onto the Kaibob Plateau, I met a ski boat crammed into the back of a pickup. It rested at a sharp angle on the ladder rack, its nose stuck high in the air. The truck itself was being towed by a motorhome. The whole thing looked so weird, and flashed by so fast, that it took a minute to figure out what it was I just saw.

Jesus. How the heck are they gonna launch that?

Then it started to snow.

By the time I got to Jacob Lake it was getting hard to see, and snow piled in drifts along the roadway. This had been going on some time. I stopped at the gas station and restaurant. Unleaded $2.37. That's the high for this trip.

I started down the road to the canyon, but in just a few miles there was nearly a whiteout. Strong wind. A big sign, stating that the road ahead was not plowed. Hmmm. You know, this might be a good time for lunch. Yep. I found a wide place to turn around and went back. Sat by the fireplace. Read a week old paper. Had a milkshake. Dum de dum.

I was contemplating the likelihood of plowing down a snowcovered slope, pushed by the trailer. That happened to me last year, at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. I got out my best manners. Rubbed off some of the rust. And somehow got permission to drop the trailer across the road from the parking lot.

Better safe than sorry. Even cliches are sometimes true.

Things lightened up a bit. I set off in the truck. As luck would have it, not more than 10 miles down the road, the skies opened up and the forest dazzled in broad sunshine. I met two snowplows. What the hell.

I drove straight to Angel Point on a smooth, dry, paved road.

Unfortunately the Canyon was filled with cloud. I took a picture anyway.

Then I checked out the campground. Nearly a foot of snow everywhere. You could tell where the road was by the gaps in the trees. One tent trailer, apparently abandoned, at least for the day. No snow under it, but lots on top. And a sign I could not resist: "Camping is free. Pick a spot."

So I drove back 45 miles and got the trailer. Twenty bucks worth of gas, offered at the altar of the gods of caution.

Slippin' and slidin', somehow I got into a campsite just as the sun went down. Right next to the bathroom. Then I snaked an electric cord under the Men's room door. And there you have it. A free electric site, and solitude to spare.

I looked across at the only other camper. An truck had appeared beside the popup. Seemed blue and cold and miserable over there, back under the trees.

So I went inside and cranked up the heater.

God, is it quiet here. I could get used to this. Every now and then, for no particular reason, you find an unexpected crack in the proper scheme of things, and get a little more than you deserve.

In the middle of the night I woke up. I don't know why. I slid the window back, and looked out at magic. Moonlight on the snow. I got up and dressed, and went for a stumbling, wondrous walk. Stark bars of light and shadow lay between the trees. Snowcrust crackled beneath my boots. The moon was full, and ruled the world. My breath was smoky, rising in the crisp air. I was a dragon in the night.

Somewhere in there I decided that the secret of traveling well is knowing when to stop. This might be a good place.

I stayed 3 days. The last two I truly had the place entirely to myself. I took walks, where the snow allowed. I took lots of pictures of the canyon, once the clouds began to clear. I watched deer, and a gaggle of spindly-legged turkeys, pick their way past my window. I even got a campfire going Sunday night, by making a sort of platform of logs above the snow. Sometimes, in the afternoon sunshine, the pines would drop piles of wet stuff on me petulantly.

I didn't care.

It was a wonderland.

Bob

A Desert Drowned, Part Two

Lone Rock Campground
Lake Powell, Arizona

Rain and wind have set in here at Lone Rock, after a pretty sunrise. Most of what passes for rainfall out here goes overhead pretty quickly, but today is looking more like a winter rain, settling in to stay. Not too cold yet.

I'm glad I went on the boat trip yesterday. Tight as I am, I was put off at first by the $100 price, but that didn't last. It is worth every penny. A hundred bucks won't get you much most places nowadays, but here at Lake Powell it will still buy 8 hours of wonder. Of course you can get it free, some places, if you don't mind walking up to the edge of a cliff.

The Lake is low after several years of drought, and Antelope Island isn't any such thing just now. We had to follow the serpentine narrows around by the dam, sticking to the main channel of the old Colorado. A white bathtub ring of calcite shows the high water mark, more than a hundred feet up from where we are now. The mark will lower as we travel upstream. Our guide says that the depth of the lake falls about two feet for every mile in that direction, following the old bed of the river. Wind is really whipping up the waves in this channel. The water has no place to go but back and forth between the walls, making a moire chop we cannot escape for the next 5 miles or so.

Round and round.

We passed the mouth of Antelope Canyon, a narrow cut that goes a considerable distance back into the Navajo Nation. Far enough to support a thriving industry of tour guides. Antelope is famous for its high walls, "narrow, eerie slots", and for a flash flood that took 11 lives back in 1997.

My neighbor back on Jemez Creek above Albuquerque had told me about getting caught in something like that, out here somewhere. He and his wife were puttering around in a small canyon, getting ready to fish, when suddenly the wind whipped up and came roaring down the slot, and water with it. He had about half a minute to decide whether to abandon the boat and climb, or run for it. He turned and ran. Thank God the motor didn't stutter, and they didn't meet a tour boat coming in. That wall of water partly caught and pushed them, but gradually the force was spent as the channel turned and widened and turned, and then they were out in the main channel.

The odd thing, he said, was that looking back you couldn't tell anything had happened. Just dark clouds overhead, and a strong breeze.

Much like today. A typical heartbreaker of a day, if you happen to be a Navajo farmer. All clouds and no rain. Every now and then I think I feel a drop, but it's just spray from the keel cutting the water.

That stops as we turn a corner and troll slowly past Antelope Marina. Everything is being expanded here, perhaps doubled in size. They are going to have slips for over 300 houseboats. Some monsters are already in place. Houseboats? HouseMansions, more likely. Megabucks stored away here, hidden in an ancient crook of the Colorado, calmly riding the lake level down as the drought goes on and on.

Some of these barges look like they'd have trouble negotiating this channel. They'd certainly want to try it one at a time. Back and fill, like a motorhome trying to get into a California Stopandshop for gas.

As we cleared the last flat wake buoy, Charlotte kicked it up again, until we were moving at a good clip. Fifty miles to go, and 3 hours to get there. The wind quietens down a bit as we turn past the mouth of Navajo Canyon. Many an Anasazi left his bones beneath the waters back in there. Then we take a right into Utah, and come out into Padre Bay.

Back in the not-so-old days there was no place to cross the Colorado anywhere within 200 miles of here, but that didn't stop a party of Mormon settlers. They just blew up the side of a massive cliff to widen a crack, and used ropes to lower wagons and horses hundreds of feet down the canyon walls.

Give some guys a little gunpowder, they are apt to redefine the term "accessible".

From there on it was just vista after vista, with miles and miles of side canyons coming into view. Out here in the middle it doesn't look like the lake is low.

It wasn't quite as much fun as watching Mormons blow up stuff, but all we had to do from then on was just kick back and enjoy the ride down the middle of the main channel for an hour or so, until we reached the narrow canyon that led to the "world's largest natural rock span". Helpfully, the Park Service has placed a floating sign in front, so you can't miss it.

The predominant colors in here are rust and chalky white, with a fringe of green on ledges here and there. Apparently there's nothing alive out here larger than a crow, the frankenstein of squawking birds.

Apart from you and me, that is.

Mars might look like this someday, if we ever get round to being big enough in the breeches. There's 30 people on this boat, including a gaggle of unrepentently gabbling French tourists, but there was an automatic hush as we enter between walls hundreds of feet above our heads, and the gorge seemed to narrow down to barely more than the width of the boat.

Round and round and round.

The Rainbow Bridge cannot be seen from the boat, this time of year. Or any time in the last four years. It's a mile and a quarter walk, along a dry creek where small brush is beginning to take hold where water ought to be. A floating dock is gradually pushed up and down the creek as needed. A Korean couple carried a pram with their toddler in it most of the way up, shedding clothes as they climbed.

The air grew rapidly warmer as we climbed.

And there it was. Remarkable. There was many a "Merci" as we exchanged cameras to take each others smiling picture beneath the arch. I even got a short bow from the Korean. We spent about an hour up there.

You know, I climbed out on an arch almost this big halfway down the cliff at Canyonlands National Park last year, but the arch was flatter. If you are on the website and look to the right, you'll see a picture of that. Not so pretty, but the fall is much farther. Teddy Roosevelt never visited that one, so it remains relatively obscure.

As you might expect in a National Park, there's a "Don't climb on the Arch" sign. Something to that effect. Oh, and don't pass under it. The Navajos don't like that, or at least the old ones didn't. Since both acts are difficult, or at least require effort, for once I had no difficulty following the rules.

Back at the dock, the water was roiling with enormous carp and striped bass, which apparently have become addicted to the potato chips included in the box lunch that comes with the tour. Some of these fish were monsters. Charlotte said someone had caught a 48 pound striped bass up here.

These were about a quarter that size. If the bass get that big, then somewhere in this lake there is a carp large enough to eat your boat.

You have been warned. Dum-dum. Dum-dum. Dum-dum, Dum-Dum. Harry, did you hear that? Harry?

The trip back was relaxed, the same views seen anew from a different angle. The few flashes of sunlight we got on the way down had disappeared, and the dark clouds grew close, but still it didn't rain. Most of my photographs were spoiled by the darkness, and rendered slightly out of focus by the motion of the boat. I suppose there may have been some ineptitude involved. I've only had the camera 5 years or so. Someday I'll get around to reading the directions.

I stayed topside. It was a fine ride.

It's supposed to clear off a bit on Friday. I'm headed down to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I hope none of this wet stuff turned to snow. If not, the road should still be open. Then I have to return to Page to pick up my mail-in ballot. After that particular date with destiny, I'll have to decide whether to go up to Bullfrog Basin and rent a boat, or resume my trip south into the Hopi lands.

The weather will tell me where to go. How's that for a plan? It's about as organized as I get these days.

There it is again. That stupid grin. Sometimes I just can't get it off my face.


Bob

A Desert Drowned

Return to A Deliberate Year





Lone Rock Campground
Lake Powell, Arizona


I have been slow to write lately. But I have to get some of this down now, or I may lose it. I just got back from a trip to Rainbow Bridge National Monument. When Teddy Roosevelt came here, it took a week on mule and horseback, in the care of laconic Piute and Navajo guides. It was, as he recorded, a "toilsome" journey.

I traveled in a large launch, on the waters of Lake Powell, for half a day. There was a Navajo guide and pilot, but she was anything but laconic. Her name was Charlotte, and she kept up a rapid and informative patter about the sights all along the way. Unfortunately I only heard about half of it over the drumming of the hull against the water, and the blasts of wind that kept trying to take my hat off. That's okay. It may have been more comfortable down below, but up top is where I had to be. My head was swiveling so much, it's a wonder I didn't screw myself down into the superstructure.

It is the most amazing and unnatural thing to see a desert drowned. Imagine Monument Valley, awash in the Biblical Flood, those penitential waters lapping the tops of sandy buttes. Now leave penance behind, and imagine a moonscape you can float around in, indeed make the occasion of casual sport, with water skiers weaving slaloms out of the red mouths of canyons, fishermen trolling sleepily from the backs of houseboats, lifting a beer and waving as they pass by.

It is a vast realm of visual dissonance. Here and there among the windstirred waves are floating tumbleweeds, doubtless flabbergasted, in their mild vegetable way, to find themselves at the end of the long dry journey of their lives in the midst of so much water. Lake Powell is the second largest reservoir in the United States, in terms of volume. Lake Mead is deeper, and holds more. But nothing matches the convoluted and dramatic shoreline here. According to Charlotte, taking in all the side canyons, the shores of Lake Powell are longer than the Pacific coast of the United States. And it's 500 feet deep at the dam.

You could spend months here in a power boat, idling in and out, fishing for your supper, and never cross your own path. In a kayak, you could spend years. I asked our guide when was the best time to be here for an extended period.

"It's still a little nippy in March, especially at night, but the weather gets better every day. Right after the end of May, it starts to get hot and crowded. Kids are out of school. April and May are best. It stays hot until October."

Houseboats are ideal, but rent for $2000 per week, plus gas. And you have to have a lighter to get up into some of the canyons. An 18 foot boat will go just about anywhere, and if you pick the right boat you can sleep in it. I'm thinking a 12 foot Foldbote, a 5 horse motor, and a tent. Move the fifth wheel between the 4 marinas accessible by road. I can see it now. Am I still young enough to make this work?

Lake Powell from March to May - what a great start for a trip to Alaska! Maybe next year. Maybe next year.

I believe she said the Lake was 184 miles long. The map shows 139 miles from the dam to Hite Marina, and there's many miles of canyon past that, as the lake gradually turns into a river again, up near Moab. It was 50 miles by water just from Wahweap Marina to Rainbow Bridge. Three and a half hours, one way.

Just past the narrows by the dam, we passed by a houseboat towing a large flatbottom barge full of sacks, and another small boat behind that. It was the Trash Tracker, a voluntary effort which is also a good cheap way to get to know the lake. Volunteers go out for a week at a time, cleaning up the shoreline and campsites, living on the houseboat. You bring your own bedding and pay for your food.

Most people being pigs, of course, the work never ends.

Charlotte says the old guy running this effort knows the Lake as well as anyone, and is happy to share his secrets. In a week you will pass by many a good fishing spot, colorful campsite, and little known petroglyph. By the end of the week you should have a good start on your BS, majoring in Lake Powell.

If you are feeling spry and adventurous, or just want to do a good deed, you can write for information, or ask any park ranger about it. I should know more in a few days.

That's enough for now. It's time for bed. More later.


Bob

Rare Sights, and a New Wrinkle

Navajo National Monument
Arizona

I've been roaming through the Navajo Nation, enjoying the free campsites, hoping to meet a Hopi, and I've been coming across campers that are seldom seen. These include a very short Burro, perhaps 10 feet long, and a couple of Scamp 5th wheels. One fellow from the Texas panhandle said he bought the Scamp fiver after selling his Itasca motorhome for the crime of being an unrepentant gasaholic. He claimed the Scamp had more storage room than the MH. Plus he gets 16 mph while hauling it with a 4WD Ford Ranger.

Fortunately both he and his wife are under 6 feet tall, and thus able to stand up in the thing.

While at Chinle, I saw a small motorhome called a Tiger, based on an Astro van. The whole top popped up to allow headroom, much like those low-profile truck campers that crank up to expose canvas sides. They slept in the resulting overhead above the driver's seat. This little van was complete with toilet, shower, kitchen, couch, etc. It looked like a regular Class B that had accidentally been put through the hot cycle.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

And here at the Navajo National Monument, there's Jake Jacobson from New Hampshire. Jake's a Harley biker, a former construction worker, and hauls a 25 foot Aerolite standard trailer. But what he pulls it with is an "express van" with an 8X12 box, just like you may have rented from U-haul. I think it's about 6 and a half feet tall inside. Maybe 7.

Jake especially likes the slide out ramp, which allows him to ride the bike right up into the back. Enormous storage, a 350 V-8, 1 ton dually, comfortable seats, 10 mph, and an inside door into the back - makes an impressively versatile package. And he claims he bought it brand new in 1999 for $22,500. I had no idea panel vans could be had so cheap. That's less than many a pickup.

Jake's been traveling 4 years now, long enough to grow his hair out as long as his beard, which makes him resemble a somewhat raggedy dandelion in a mild breeze. If you can imagine a dandelion with a Bahstan accent.

For someone who wants to haul multiple bikes, a short boat, a workshop, etc, this in combination with any trailer is a pretty good alternative to a toy hauler. The whole back opens up with the standard overhead door. The only problem he's had is that the Aerolite is only 7 feet wide, the van is 8 feet, and it's hard to see the rear of the trailer when backing up.

Bump. O, was that your cat? You want it back?

If you don't want the trailer, the van still might be a good start on a small home-made motorhome. His rig is standard, with a 350 auto, but these trucks can be had with a variety of engines and transmissions at extra cost.

And if you paint it dark brown you can park it right in the middle of the street in almost any town from coast to coast!! :o)


Bob

Out of Nowhere

Cottonwood Campground
Near Jemez Springs
New Mexico


About the middle of the morning I walked up to the camp host's trailer. She took a while getting to the door.

"Miz...Radel?" I read the name off the sign. "I was wondering if you could tell me where I could find the nearest laundromat?"

"Oh, my..." she looked at me. "There isn't one."

"There isn't one?"

"Well, maybe in Rio Rancho. That'd be the closest."

I was stunned. "Fifty miles? That's the closest? Nothing down in the pueblo?"

"No..." There was a voice from inside. "Wait just a minute, please..." She went back into the gloom. A few minutes went by. I was seeing the whole day disappearing into my laundry bag. Then she opened the door.

"I'm sorry. My husband...he just got out of the hospital. Pneumonia."

"Oh...well, never mind then. Sorry to bother you."

"Wait. I guess... I guess you could use mine..."

This was unexpected. "Your washer?"

"Yes. It's out in the shed."

"No. No, that's a kind offer, but I don't want to bother you now."

She sighed. "You know, I think I'm way beyond being bothered. Go ahead. It's open. You got soap?"

And it was right about then that I discovered just what a low snake I really am. I didn't want to drive a hundred miles to do laundry. So I took her up on it. If I'd been her, I'd have probably chased me off with a chain saw.

"Well, okay, if you don't mind. I'll be quiet." She nodded, and closed the door.


I got the wash done. She didn't come out again. Later on, while I was eating a sandwich outside at the picnic table, my neighbors came over to check my permit. This lovely couple were Rich and Ellen Jerome from Florida. They were just campers like me, but they had volunteered to do Peg Radel's job for her while she got some rest. Turns out this was just the latest of a whole series of ambulance rides over the last few weeks.

"Peg's just worn out. Clyde's got lung cancer. They keep sending him home, 'cause there's nothing they can do."

Now I really felt bad.

"Tell her...tell her if there's anything I can do, just let me know. Maybe go to the store or something..."

"We'll tell her."

And I'm sure they did. But I never heard anything. I kept walking by the trailer, but I sure wasn't going to knock on the door and wake them up just to tell them I wanted to help. I'm not quite that self-absorbed.

Finally decided the best thing to do was just let them alone. I carry some firewood over to the Jeromes. We talked a lot about Florida, and full-timing.

Gradually it became clear there wasn't any way I was ever going to make up to Peg for that load of wash. Not directly anyhow.

But I definitely owe somebody a favor out there. It's open-ended, and it's on the books.


You know, this is one aspect of full-timing I hadn't considered. Clyde and Peg had been hosting in this campground, year round, for four years. Gradually he had gotten sicker and sicker. This flat spot out in the middle of nowhere was their home. No family anywhere near by.

And he was dying, as we all must.

But out of that nowhere came plenty of help, from complete strangers. Such help as could be had. Different campers volunteered. There was more people than things to do. Rich and Ellen changed their travel plans to stay there longer, and Peg's work was taken care of. Another young couple volunteered to spell them. The Sheriff came by to check on the situation.

While I was there, Clyde had two more trips into the VA hospital in Albuquerque. And came back. He hung in there, and things worked out, day by day. After a couple of weeks, I moved on. There was no lack of hands.

All these people working together, and all of them strangers a couple of weeks ago. Just goes to show, we are not as alone as we think we are. No matter where we are. Even us gypsy full-timers.

Where there's people, there's help.

Whether we know it or not.


Bob

Another Wilderness Fridge Raid

Jemez Springs
New Mexico


Well, podnahs, I've written before of my gourmandizin' adventures out here along the trail. Right now I'm sittin' on the bank of the Jemez River, having lunch.

The biggest problem in the boonies seems to be too much food rather than too little. I tend to overbuy at the grocery store when I pass through what passes for civilization, and rather than trouble with cleaning out the fridge I just push the dated stuff to the back. Much like the venerable wall cemetery practices in the French Quarter, down in Noo Orleens.

If it weren't for the starving Armenians, it wouldn't matter.

You know about them. Every family has their own version of the starving Armenians, some popular, pitiful, and alarming tale of ancient deprivation, a fabled time when a miserable ragtag band of neglected humans were insanely happy just to suck rocks, which the Lord provided. They are continually resurrected, through the generations, to remind us that there are Those Less Fortunate, Who'd Like To Have What's Sitting On Our Plates Right Now.

"What do you mean, you don't like turnips? Eat your greens and be grateful. What did you just say in the Blessing? Right. "God is great, and God is good". You could have been born in Armenia, you know, a stick-thin victim of the parsimonious harvests of heathen lands. What? They're Christians? Armenians? Don't you get smart with me. I didn't slave over a hot stove just to raise a couple of smartmouthed, willful, vitamin-deficient children.

You eat that. It's Good For You. And sit up straight, while you're at it. "

Ah. We never outgrow the lessons of childhood. I think even the most culinarily rigid among you can see why I can't just throw this stuff away. So what if it has more hair than I do?

Sooo, let's take a look. Hmmm. A bag of green beans, getting rather limp. Red onion. A large, gorgeously orange, but somewhat dry and misshapen yam. A forgotten deli ziplock of smoked ham, flattened beneath all that, just past it's prime. Sniff. Just.

Garlic, dill weed, salt and pepper. Cornbread and butter, which tastes good with anything. Have I got an egg for that? Yessss.

Why, it's a feast!

And so it turned out. The only really odd ingredient larger than a bacterium was the yam. But it turned out right tasty, and made a more colorful dish than the usual bland pile of white potatoes.

Boil it up, you'll like it. Beats driving into town. Especially in an area where "town" is a nebulous concept, possibly in another time zone.

Unlike almost anything else you might be eating, this doesn't taste like chicken.

Besides, you know it's Good For You.


Bob

Inarticulate

Jemez Springs
New Mexico


You may have noticed that I spend a lot of time trying to get off by myself. Some have wondered why. Let me see if I can tell you.

Two years ago I retired from the Austin Fire Department. Chapter closed. What now? Just what the hell is all this travel for?

Well, I'm looking for someone. He's around here somewhere. Way back when, he used to write letters to the man he thought he would become. He asked for help. In the end he got precious little of it. Sometimes he thought there was a nudge or two, but for the most part there was just this formless buzzing silence in the night.

After a while he got involved in other stuff.

Then he disappeared.

I've got the letters. I'm trying to get in touch with him. But his is such a faint voice. It may be distance. It may be merely reticence. But he is easily overcome by the incessant "me, me, me" that clamors in my mind.

Add the bright babbling of others, and he fades out altogether. It is a bit like being haunted by children you never had. All those possibilities.

Think of it. One morning, deep in the sports pages, you hear a knock. You take the paper with you, still reading, your glasses sliding down unnoticed on your nose. Opening the door, you find a grown man standing there, someone you have never seen before. And yet he seems familiar. Very familiar. For a long moment neither of you speak. And then he grins, holds out his hand, and says "Hi, Dad."

A stormy meeting, surely, full of portents and silences. Silences. That's the key. Silence is not always inarticulate. It is entirely possible there will be nothing to say. But if there is nothing to say, I want to hear him say it.

First I have to find him. For me it is a matter of memory. For him it must be something stranger still.

And so it is that I always seek a modest solitude in my travels. Silences. Sometimes, like everyone, I hear voices on the wind. When that happens, I try to pay attention.

I've gotten pretty close. Once on a ferry halfway up the inside passage, I could feel him breathing right beside me. Oddly, it wasn't scary at all. It felt comfortable. It felt safe.

I have to keep trying. If I am not to be the fireman any longer, who am I to be? He once held all the possibilities within him. I want to ask him certain questions, much as he asked me. Maybe I'll have better luck.

What it is that I need to do? I think he knows.

Meanwhile, I've found a wonderful campsite here, next to the Jemez River. If you want voices in your dreams, a burbling river is right up there with the wind.

The water runs red with silt from the recent rains, and a cottonwood, shaggy with green and gold, droops over it. The tree is bent, and a little raggedy. One limb is a snag. But it is quite alive.

The leaning leaves stir slightly. Perhaps they mean to fall.

To the right is a small arroyo, and empty land beyond. To the left a site as yet unoccupied. It could be worse.

Wait. Did you hear that?


Bob