Moving Right Along

Farewell Bend State Park
Oregon

I've been piling on the miles. I feel like I've got to, if I want to do more than just get to Alaska, turn around, and come back. I'll return to Washington, but I don't know if I'll ever go back to Alaska. Still and all, I can't avoid the suspicion that I'm skipping over country every bit as good or better than I'll find at the end of the road. The Bear Lake area in southeastern Idaho, for instance. I could have spent a month around there, and another before that along the Green River, and the Flaming Gorge.

But instead I fled up Interstate 84 to Oregon.

I came in towards evening to Farewell Bend State Park, on the Snake River. I often pick a park by it's name, and almost as often I am disappointed. But seldom in Oregon. Their system of state parks is a constant pleasure.

Farewell is a well-tended oasis of broad trees and shaded lawn. It's a stark contrast to the high desert of bare hills around it. I spent a peaceful evening watching the ground squirrels fuss, then kiss and make up. Brewer's blackbirds picked through the grass for seed corn someone had thrown out. These little birds, about the size of a Robin, are velvety sleek and coal black, with yellow eyes. Very distinctive, afraid of nothing. I watched two of them run off a gull 5 times their size.

I camped down by the river in a relatively new area, out from under the more massive shade. Too many people up there. I was afraid it was going to be hot, but I should have known from the way the young trees bent toward the river that an evening breeze could be expected.

I don't know if the name had anything to do with it, but it was at Farewell that I first began to absolutely relax into this trip. Just came to a dead stop, sat back with a beer, and enjoyed being there. Periodically, mile-long trains would pass by on the opposite shore. My neighbor was out of Portland, a refugee from United Airlines. He was cleaning up his boat. Quite a ritual. He had an interesting T shirt, emblazoned with this warning: "I'm Retired... but I've Gone Back to Work as a Part-time Pain in the Ass."

That sounds like a lot to get on the front of a T shirt. Fear not. There was ample room.

Everything along the road is green. Sunshine now, but plenty of evidence of lots and lots of rain and snow last winter, from New Mexico on up. Rivers full, reservoirs drawn down in expectation of flood, horses and cattle ambling fat in the lush fields.

I've gotten to be something of a horse watcher. In the mountains, many of them are scruffy, still half shaggy from the winter. Mares have dropped foals, and these little guys are hopping around stiff-legged, happy to be here.

It was particularly fine to watch a young 'un apparently being taught to trot by his mom. They pranced up and down a fence line, perfectly parallel to each other. His step spritely, his gaze straight ahead, his head held high, you could tell the youngster was proud of himself. Mom kept pace with him, and every now and then would lean her head over and nose his neck briefly. I don't know if that was an attaboy or a correction.

After they reached the corner, they'd rest a bit, to nuzzle and talk it over. Then back they'd come. Gotta get this right, you see. Next week we begin on the gallop.

Horses have a mysterious body language that I can sense, sort of, but not quite understand. And by the way, it doesn't seem to be bad manners to talk and eat at the same time. Or anything else at the same time. Snort and a shiver at the shoulder. A little dance with the front feet only. Looking at each other, then away, then back, followed by a shake of the head. Sudden erect stillness, with flared nostrils.

Well, I guess that last was directed at me. But what's up with all that other stuff?

I guess if they wanted me to know they would tell me. Even at my age, there are lots of things that are still none of my business.

I've been carrying firewood since Creede, where I stopped at a small sawmill and picked up a pickup load for $4. A moment in memory of Silas Marner, please. The only problem with sawmill wood is that it's flat on at least one side, and tends to catch the wind. Couple of times, in the rearview, I caught sight of floaters beginning to take flight back there, and had to stop and rearrange things. The upside of these boards is that they burn well, and (I speak here from recent unfortunate experience) they make a nice platform for the jack when you have to change tires in the mud.

I built a bowed-over fire just now. That's what happens when the breeze is so stiff that instead of going up, the flames form a broad blowtorch parallel to the ground. Sparks a-flying. Fortunately there was plenty of room to sit on the upwind side. I wondered why the grass was scorched that way.

No problem keeping cool tonight. Might need to grab the covers.


Bob

Uncommon Carrier

Montrose, CO

I wheeled into Gunnison yesterday around noon, minus angina, and had lunch with my friend Dick. Afterward we retired, if you'll pardon the expression, to his garage to take care of my gun problem.

He had everything. Boxes galore. Newspaper for packing. And, most important of all - duct tape. I broke down the shotgun and wrapped it and both the pistols in bubble wrap. We cut up an old string trimmer box and padded everything with wadded newspaper. Then we proceeded to make a real duct tape delight out of the outside of that thing. Damn near waterproof before we were through. Made a mostly gray package about 2 1/2 feet long and maybe a foot square.

Perfect.

Dick had downloaded the relevant page from the ATF website:

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/faq2.htm

I quote:

(B10) May a nonlicensee ship firearms interstate for his or her use in hunting or other lawful activity?

Yes. A person may ship a firearm to himself or herself in care of another person in the state where he or she intends to hunt or engage in any other lawful activity. The package should be addressed to the owner.

And further down:

(B9) May a nonlicensee ship a firearm by carrier?

A nonlicensee may ship a firearm by carrier to a resident of his or her own state or to a licensee in any state. A common or contract carrier must be used to ship a handgun. In addition, Federal law requires that the carrier be notified that the shipment contains a firearm...

Fine. Great. I can ship these things to myself in care of my brother back in Georgetown. And in this way, the great and sovereign state of Canada need not fear armed insurrection by a disgruntled former fireman.

More to the point, said fireman can quit thinking about the whole subject, and proceed to enjoy this trip in the manner to which he would like to become accustomed.

Whew.

"A common or contract carrier..." Sounds like UPS to me. I've been fond of those big brown trucks ever since somebody suggested they would make a great RV conversion van. You could park them in the middle of any street in America and get away with it. For a while.

Dick had already phoned, and found out the main UPS office opened at 4:30. So we killed a little time with a tour of the prettier parts of Gunnison, and I picked up a 6 pack of Longmont beer. We talked about the importance of prescience in real estate. A lot of this land could have been had cheap a few decades ago.

But then, I could be had pretty cheap back then, too.

The hour arrived. We scooted on down to UPS.

"What's in it?", Mary asked.

"A shotgun, broken down."

"Are you a licensed dealer?"

"No. I'm shipping it to myself."

"We can't do that."

"But, but, but..." I showed her the printout of the ATF page. She read it. Handed it back.

"Doesn't matter. It's against our policy. Has been for a long time."

Dang. Apparently it is legal to do this. But finding someone who WANTS to do it is an entirely different matter. I groused about it all the way back to Dick's place.

"Hell, I ought to just tell 'em it's a tent and be done with this."

Dick considered it. "If there was some way to make them think that without having to tell a bald faced lie..."

"If it comes to that, I'm not above telling a bald faced lie to someone who's made it their business to diddle with me. It's not breaking the law. It's just breaking their little arbitrary company rule. Why should I care about that? They make these things up for their convenience. What about my convenience?"

Blah, blah, blah. All that was just annoyance talking. I suppose UPS has a right to ship what they want - or not. Besides, I was beginning to remember exactly what the ATF page said about disclosure.

Crap. Foiled again.

I don't need a common carrier. I need an uncommon carrier. I tried Fedex today in Montrose, but they were closed. These places keep odd hours. Besides that, it's Memorial Day weekend.

What's left? I could find pay storage near the border. One of those tin sheds in some little town, with a padlock on it. And a six month lease. Someone suggested a pawn shop, but naah, I don't trust those sleazebags.

Why can't this be simpler?

Dick might keep it, but he vacates Gunnison for Mexico in November, and I may be through here later than that. I usually am. Besides, it sometimes gets down to the minus twenties in Gunnison around that time. If I got killed driving on ice to pick up my guns, maybe took out a busload of nuns, would those be firearms-related deaths?

Hmmmm?

I've gotten a few kind offers from people in Washington state. The guns are all packed up for storage. I suppose the best bet is to impose on my friends. Most of them are not known criminals.

And I don't intend to be one either.

But whoda thunk it would be this hard to obey the law?


Bob,
the Uncommon Carrier

Fiat Lux

Lake City
Colorado

It's been years since I spent any time in Taos, New Mexico. Back in my skiing days much of my winters were lived here, or planning to be here. As I wandered down off the ridge road into Ranchos, I was struck again by the strong light.

I don't know what makes it different. It may be the altitude, or the relative moisture in the air, or the prevalent dust, or simply divine intervention, but the fact is that Taos is favored by an extraordinary golden light that comes and goes and comes again, limning the simplest objects with an unexpected and enigmatic significance.

It renders some things insubstantial, even unworldly, such as Taos mountain glowing over there, floating in the near distance. Other things seem preternaturally solid, imposing, and distinct, such as the Ranchos church, or the mud tumble of the Pueblo. If you have ever been to Italy, and walked along the summer streets of Florence, you know the sort of light I mean.

It is as though one can see not only the surfaces of things, but a little into them as well, into their essence. I once overheard a fellow in a hot tub say, "It's like discovering a whole new season: winter, spring, summer, fall... and Taos."

Perhaps it's only a happy illusion.

Part of the effect may be the earth colors that predominate here. A good bit of Taos is made of sun dried mud, and the rest is modern cinder block covered with a sort of artful stucco pretending to be mud. It is a cheap and elastic architecture that unfortunately requires constant maintenance. The rain washes it away. You have to replaster with a will, or soon it will be with the houses as with those within: "from dust to dust."

This image of apparent solidity and demonstrable impermanence might also be a metaphor for the business community here. Gauche tourism is the ticket. T shirts and trinkets. But decades ago I also mined this place for affordable and interesting art, with some success. Taos has been an art colony to varying degrees for a century now.

All seems changed since I was here, and yet remains the same. I walked down Ledoux street to find my favorite gallery, once obscurely known as the Ledoux Gallery, only to find it had been replaced by an importer of Asian novelties and "objets d'art". I miss that old man and his cat. And now this gallery is itself closing. Most everything was half price. I bought a simple carved wooden bowl and lid of some glowing wood, and a rather heavy little brass Buddha from Thailand to complement the worn wood-and-plaster Guadelupana who serenely watches over all my numerous naps and journeys. You can't be too careful. The Taos light may be a function of the Sangre de Christo mountains, for it attenuated as I passed west through Tres Piedras on Hwy. 64, and then up and over into Chama. Still bright, the light grew thinner, flattening the aspect of things.

It was a slow fade to ordinary.

I stayed the night at the Riverside Campground east of Pagosa Springs. The Spa Motel downtown still runs one of the hottest soaking pools I've ever forced myself to enter. They advertise 108 degrees, but I believe that is the lower part of a substantial range. They also furnish large cotton sheets you can wrap up in and steam, while laying back on wooden benches. Five minutes in the pool, 15 minutes under wraps. Repeat three times, and you too will emerge as wobbily complacent and loose-limbed as Gumbi.

Meanwhile, back at the campground, the San Juan River overflowed its banks, and was threatening to take out a line of motorhomes whose owners had paid extra to camp there, right up next to the river. Be careful what you wish for. Snuggled among the tenters, I simply sighed into the covers. Unaccountably, I enjoyed all that night the sort of sleep reputedly reserved for the Just. Nary a worry in the world. Ahhhhh.

The motorhomes were still there in the morning.

_______________________________________

And now I've been three days at the Wupperman campground, on the bluff above Lake San Cristobal, Colorado. This used to be my favorite campground on this earth. Since my last stent, though, 9800 feet is just too high, too stinting on the oxygen, too rare on the air.

It makes sense, really. Five years ago, I had a stent inserted in a critical artery that feeds the heart. Then, in 2003 up in Canada, I had another stent placed inside that one, further narrowing the channel. Since then I have turned into an amazingly accurate altimeter. Up to 8000 feet I am ready as I ever was to do a day's work. At 9000 feet I'm tired. And here at nearly 10,000 feet, all I want to do is sleep. After two days the high left side of my chest begins to hurt.

Time to go.

Even the 600-800 foot descent into Lake City makes a big difference. Some of this altitude effect, of course, has always been with me. In Georgetown I live below 600 feet. It is normal to feel a little fagged for the first few days above 10,000. After that I used to adapt, and soon began to bound around like an amiable mountain goat, right at the tops of these mountains.

Not any more. Stents are little coils of metal. They do not adapt.

So if I should ever contemplate suicide, I know how to do it. I'll just climb Mount Uncompahgre again. It's only a little west of here. A simple 7 mile walk, up switchbacks through alpine flowers and rubble to the top. Sean climbed it when he was 5 years old. 14,309 feet.

I'll just go up. And never come down. Somewhere along the way, it would be the same to me as being exposed to the vacuum of space.

Bye, bye.

But don't let my luck stop you. Lake City is a beautiful place. This morning I'm going down to Gunnison and visit with a friend, shed a little of this dull ache.

I've stopped on the way at the Lake City Bakery. I'm sitting outside at an expanded metal table, consuming a fresh warm calzone stuffed with spinach, tomato, and ricotta. It smells wonderful. The sun is bright. I close my eyes and turn my face up toward it. I am for the moment as phototropic as any flower.

In that moment, all the world is reduced to a narrow pulsing room of blood-red light. Warmth is a gladness. I can hear... my heart... the caliche crunch of a passing car... a dog snuffling... an awning flap.

You know, there are times when there is no mystery to life at all. It's quite simple, really.

You just have to look at it in the right light.


Bob

Rio Pueblo

Near Sipapu, NM

I woke up in the middle of the night to the roar of incessant traffic. It was hard to get my head up off that pillow. Like pulling a small bush up by the roots. Lots of resistance, lots of connections.

When I was a kid I used to lie back in the dark and listen through the always open windows to the traffic on old Hwy. 81, before the Interstate. Back then, everything had to come through town. All those big semis slowing down and speeding up again, complaining with a clatter that blended in the distance into a rhythmic roar. Like the ocean. Like the sea. Like a tide coming in, lapping and rising remorselessly closer and closer to my bed. I knew in my heart that one night it would reach me, and off I'd go, floating away to a life of mysterious adventures and dangers.

Sometimes I could hardly wait.

I read a letter from Scott Fitzgerald once, in his own illiterate scrawl. Some housewife had written him asking for advice, telling him about her wistful attempts at writing. She said she couldn't seem to make much progress against the demands of love and duty made by her family. The only time she could write, she said, the only time she could concentrate, was when everyone else was asleep, at three in the morning.

"In the dark night of the soul," he replied, "it is always three o'clock in the morning."

All very well for him.

But my sympathy was with the housewife. In the actual middle of the night, the metaphor is concrete. It may be then that you get your best ragged chance to escape for a moment the mirage of who you think you are. Fresh from dreams, slowly putting the parts together again, you may glimpse, from the corner of your eye, who you really are.

Who you have always been. Who you might yet be.

But it's darned hard to remember later. Especially with that incessant roar. Jesus.

I threw back the covers. Yes, covers. I'm up at 9000 feet, above Taos on Hwy 518, and it's 46 degrees inside the trailer. I arrived yesterday afternoon to a turnout beside the Rio Pueblo.

Wait. What the hell. I see. It is 5:46 in the morning. And I know exactly who I am.

I'm an idiot.

Those rising waters coming to float me away are in my bladder. And that thunderous racket isn't traffic. It's the river. Unnnnnh.

I made a dash for the toilet, hop-hop-hopping on the cold floor. Then I dove into the pillows, pulling the blankets over my head, trying to go back to that place where things made a different sort of sense. Sleep. Sleeeeeeep.

No go.

There's no rhythm to this roar, no ebb and flow. It is not like the ocean at all, nor like traffic, nor like any other familiar comforting thing. It is not a dream. It is an inescapable pressure, boring into your brain. Somehow it seemed pleasant when I first got here. I sat out there for a while. Now there is every chance it may drive me bonkers. Ga-ga. Bleeding nuts. Wacko. Round the bend.

May as well get up, then. And let's get some heat in here.

Coffee. I want coffee.


The Rio Pueblo is one of many perpendicular streams responsible for all the narrow valleys in this part of New Mexico. Usually it is pleasant enough, though fast, and in August you might be able to jump across it in places. If you tried that now you would be lost forever.

This river is completely out of her banks, foaming, turbid, churning, mad with the meltwater. She puts out strong arms, making islands, and long, subtle, supple fingers, probing the land with rivulets that thoroughly explore the meaning of flood before returning to her.

Thick grass hides much of that, which you will discover if you walk out there. Yesterday I watched a Stellar's Jay wading carefully high on the far side, picking up each spindly foot and shaking it before putting it down again.

The nominal but submerged banks, seen only in outline, have calved away in places, and whole groups of trees bend over, limbs and leaves trailing, barely holding on, bowing and bobbing to the beat of the pounding waters.

There seems to have been a lot of snow last winter. It is almost June, but there is still a lot, even down low. I saw thick banks of it under and between the pines, coming over the pass from Mora.

This incredible pandemonium will not be over soon.

The old Greeks put a river in Hades, their rather placid notion of hell. They called it Lethe. Those who drank from it forgot their trials and troubles, forgot their lives, sank into sweet oblivion. No wrath, divine or otherwise, no torments, no fires, no troubling dreams of love lost or gained, no roaring memories came to rescue them.

Hell was just a place where you finally lost it, once and for all.

But that wasn't a river like this one. Apparently Lethe was never fed by the melt. There is no peace to be found by the Rio Pueblo tonight.

These waters uproot. These waters roar. So this must not be Hades, after all.

Whew.


Bob

Malefactors

Sudan, TX.

Stopped for a walkabout in a roadside park outside Sudan. It's a pleasant place, for the Panhandle, with large shade trees and a fine view of the highway in front and some red dirt on the side. There's enough breeze to keep the flies moving. All in all, a fine day. There's even a sturdy chain link fence to keep kids of all ages from wandering out onto the railroad tracks.

Even better, as I write this I'm eating the first scrumptious slice from a coconut meringue pie I bought earlier in Slayton. I admit I was tempted by the Coca-Cola Cake, and even more by a dozen or so of those "thumbprints", which are tiny white cake cookies with a dollop of chocolate icing on top.

The icing looks a lot better on the cookie than dotted around on the face of the boy outside. These things are just small enough to tempt the daredevil in him to toss them 6 feet or so into the air and try to catch them in his mouth. I'll give the kid credit. He's not easily discouraged, and as a matter of course picks the fragments up off the sidewalk and consumes them tidily. Here in the Panhandle, education does not cease at the schoolhouse door.

But as I was saying, I was tempted by all these things, except maybe the cookie toss. But I settled parsimoniously on a single Coconut Pie. That's my notion of a disciplined diet.

While I was dealing with these matters, my eye wandered along the counter until it reached the Official List of Malefactors. It seems that the Slayton Bakery is plagued by people who call in orders and fail to pick them up. Their names are prominently displayed on a list.

It's a small town. But there's a couple hundred names there, including several listings for "The City of Slayton". No dates were shown, but I suspect the Slayton Bakery has a long institutional memory. Have they no shame? I for one would rather come across my picture unexpectedly at the post office.

I asked the lady behind the counter what happens to orders that are not picked up.

"We keep them for a day. Then they're thrown away."

"That's how people get on the list?"

"Yes. It's a waste. From then on, they have to pay up front."

I don't know why criminal activity among the good people of Slayton captured my imagination this morning. It is mighty good pie. Might even be worth stealing. It's hard to imagine not showing up to claim it. Even harder to think of throwing it away.

Shades of Conrad. The Horror. The Horror.

But if any of you, Heaven forfend, should ever find yourselves in reduced circumstances, or even just need a good story to tell down at meetings of the Silas Marner Society, you might want make your way to Slayton, Texas. Hang out behind the Bakery. You could do worse.

Bring a sack. Business is brisk.


Bob

A Bone Headed Stunt

Near Post, TX

As is my custom, I am burning up the miles to get out of Texas. Or, more properly, to get out of the heat. Smiley, the inconsequential TV weatherman, says that it's going to get into the triple digits this weekend, down here in the flats. I finally pulled over into a picnic area south of Post because my eyes kept closing. Not good, with 7000 pounds of trailer pushing you along.

At 11 pm, it's still 72 degrees in the trailer, though a bit cooler outside. It takes a long time to shed the latent heat of the day. I told Mr. Edgar, my postman, that I was headed out for any place where I could freeze my butt off. He laughed, but I was perfectly serious.

There's a fan in the bedroom, but you wouldn't know it. Waaay too hot to close the windows. Too hot to even lower the blinds. I got undressed in the dark, and sweated for a while on top of the sheets. The trucks on 84 made an unmitigated roaring racket. I went foraging by feel in the drawer by the bed, trying to find my earplugs.

Unexpectedly, my hand encountered cool steel.

Dang. Dang. I forgot to take the guns into the house before I left. Double dang. There's a 12 gauge under the bed. And double dang dog it. I'm going up to and through Canada, where the Law takes a dim view of personal firearms.

Well. That sure was a bone headed stunt.

Oh, I've got tons of excuses. I was reeel bizzy before I left. And I live full time in this trailer. Just like at your house, there's a ton of stuff I put away and forget about until I need it. And like most people, I seldom really need a gun.

Make that never, so far. Not really.

Oh, the irony. I habitually give both the gun fondlers and the gun phobiacs grief. So much hysteria over a common tool. But one thing you'll have to grant, no one in either group would be likely to simply forget the presence of a couple of firearms sitting right next to the bed they're sleeping in, for months on end. And certainly not until they are 250 miles from home.

No doubt about it, I could probably come up with lots of excuses. But the primary problem seems to be that I have my head up my ass. Do they make a special tool for this situation?

This is going to end up a real exercise in ingenuity. I might even get by with the shotgun, with the appropriate application of 50 bucks for a license. But there's no way I'm gonna sneak a .45 by the border guards. Into Canada. Into the US at Skagway. Back into Canada. Into the US on the road to Tok. Back into Canada on my return. Back into Washington at last.

Nope. Ain't gonna happen.

I've got a couple of weeks to think of something legal. You know, it ought not to be this hard. And it wasn't, yesterday. I suppose I could throw the dang things away. Ouch. Beats prison.

Sell them? Store them?

What a royal pain in the arse. Which, in my case, makes for a blinding headache.


Bob

The Traveling Gourmand

Brownwood, Texas

I'm here for my more or less annual pilgrimage to the Gomez Cafe. It's right on Hwy 84, on the west side, just before you climb up the big hill toward Ballinger. There's plenty of RV parking out back.

The Gomez is an old-fashioned place. There's a big menu, of the roadhouse variety. All the food that's fit to fry. It's the sort of place where, when you ask about salad dressing, you are directed to the orange stuff in the refilled ketchup bottles.

I've tried out most of this menu over the years - steak, chicken, Mexican, burgers - and it's all plenty good. Emphasis on plenty. These plates are piled up high enough to set off plate tectonics. As part of your continuing education, let me describe the architecture of my modest supper - fried chicken livers, a fairly typical entree at six bucks.

In the first place it's a platter, not a plate. The bottom is covered with thick slices of buttered Texas Toast. These are necessary to catch the drippings. On top of that is a hefty pile of home-made french fries. No krinkle-kut frozen tasteless taters here. And no care is taken to leave room on the plate. This is a perpendicular exercise. If nothing falls off on the table, you got took.

On top of the fries is about a pound of chicken livers, crusty and tender, fried to perfection.

At this point, apparently, someone is employed to make a small fist and push in on the side of the mountain. That's where the salad goes. Gravy comes in a side bowl, just in case you prefer ketchup. Or if, perchance, you are particular which goes on first.

The first time I brought Jan and the kids in here, back in the '80s when we went to Taos skiing every year, their jaws uniformly dropped when the food arrived. I seem to remember six-year-old Sean actually laughing out loud when the waitress asked the cheery improbable question: "Can I get you anything else, Sweetie?"

A restaurant exists to serve its customers. I don't think I've ever seen a skinny adult in here. Perhaps not a skinny child. Nor many a tucked-in shirt. Zaftig ain't in it. They come in substantial crowds, doffing their gimme caps, patiently negotiating the front door, proceeding with a rolling gait and serious mien.

Food is not a laughing matter for these folks.

I rather like the rare experience of being the lightweight in a room. After 3 heart attacks, it is entirely possible I shall end my days right here, face down in one of these bowls of gravy. No doubt the other patrons will solemnly gather to pay their respects, upturning the occasional chair, nodding solemnly to their neighbors and muttering "Don't he look natural?"

But not this time. This time I've made it back to the parking lot, surviving once again to eye the waiting seatbelt askance, uttering under my breath the Glutton's Prayer: "God, I can't believe I ate the whole thing!"


Bob, whose mileage is now suffering.

Another Slow Start

Cedar Park, Texas


I spent my last full day in winter quarters Thursday with Sean, trying to navigate the subtle transition from bad poetry to something singable. Of course some workmen showed up unexpectedly, having picked THAT DAY to install new windows in his apartment. Rock saws and hammers. Yikes. So much for using the computer and keyboard. We salvaged a dusty guitar out of the wreck and beat a hasty retreat over to Ellen's apartment.

In a couple of hours we knocked out a couple of tunes. Or rather Sean did. I can coddle a rhyme, but all I know about music is what I hear on the radio. Here's our patented sure-fire method:

1. I bellow out the way I think it should sound, just like in the shower.

2. Sean grimaces slightly, says "What about this?", and proceeds to make actual music.

3. We drink to that.

4. Repeat 1-3.

Amazingly, this procedure works pretty well. I'm a little vague now on some of the details, but I think I can say with some confidence that a good time was had by all. Did you know you can get a pretty good bass line going by blowing on the top of an empty bottle of Sam Adam's Boston Lager?

Here's some samples. First, a little of "One Hit Wonder", whose title I hope is not entirely prophetic:


"I'm a One Hit Wonder,
Sitting in an empty garage.
Just a One Hit Wonder,
Chasin' an old mirage.

I keep tryin' something new,
But all I want to do
is cover your heart,
cover your heart,
cover your heart."

Okay. If you're still with me, here's something from my redneck attempt at a "rap" song, "Bumps in the Dark". Sean improved it from rap to "that's a wrap".


"Three in the morning.
You wake with a start.
She's still in your head.
But not in your heart.

Love is a liquor.
Goes straight to your head.
You fall down drunk.
You wake up dead."

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you vurra much. Finally, a bit of a bit of the blues. The musical arrangement will have to wait for a day when the workmen call in sick. Something with a wandering saxophone and a smoky ruin of a bass voice, with a background trio of slightly soiled doves, in slit skirts, cooing the refrain, in the back of your mind, again and again, forever.

"My baby lies. My baby lies with me.
And I believe her. I do believe her.
She would not lie so if she did not love me.

So I believe her. I do believe her.

She says "Honey, you've got your youth."
I say "Baby, you speak the truth."
She would not lie so if she did not love me.

So I believe her. I do believe her."

Etc. Three more verses.

Right now the working title is "138", after one of Old Will's sonnets. All this and more is coming, sooner or later, to Open Mike Nite at a Grunt 'N Swill franchise near you. You know, one of those places where they have chicken wire around the stage in lieu of liability insurance.

So, what's all this in aid of? Just to show I had a lot of last minute stuff to do, which is why once again I got off to a slow start. Spent Friday morning wresting a Canada calling plan from Verizon. Then I phoned around for a traveling O2 bottle, in case I get another heart attack out in the woods, and have to drive 50 miles through Outer Angina for help. I managed to remember to get a prescription for this, last time I saw the cardiologist, but then promptly forgot about it until the penultimate moment.

There's a lot of variation in price. One place wanted $64 a month for a C bottle. "But you get an extra bottle." Whoop-ti-doo. Another wanted $45/mo. Finally I found what I wanted for 20 bucks flat, no monthly charge, including regulator and a couple of nasal cannoli. Had to drive clear to Cedar Park to get it, though.

No problemo. That puts me right out on Hwy 183, house all shut up, trailer packed and in tow, pointed north, and wahoo on my way.

At 3 PM. Alaska or bust.

Watch my dust.


Bob

Bad Knees and Bifocals

Sunday
Georgetown TX

I just finished, sort of, one of the most tedious jobs yet devised by the fertile mind of man. Right up there with picking cotton, or writing machine code. I spent several eons straightening out the radiator fins on the air conditioner of my trailer. They were mostly flattened by a hailstorm 3 years ago.

Three years ago? I know.

But I seldom use the AC, preferring to hook up and seek cooler climes. Or altitude. This summer I've been delayed, and for the last two weeks I've used the AC every day. Which turned on a light in that little-used part of my brain that deals with nagging. (It's somewhere on the right side, toward the back.) The resulting static drove me to the roof of the trailer, where I saw many things best left unseen. Mold growing all over the rubber, for instance. Small leaves slowly turning to sod in the gutters. Bird droppings. A couple of rips where low hanging limbs dragged across the Dicor. And, of course, the offending fins.

I was a happy man before I owned a ladder.

I repaired the rips with Dicor patch, after windexing the area. Good enough. Well, now I can't wash it until the Dicor sets, so I got out of that for today. The radiator fins look like a metal wall where the hail hammered them. Amazing it cools at all.

Like any right-thinking American, I just naturally assume there has to be a special tool that will make short work of this. Some sort of comb. Some sort of "labor-saving device." That's the American Way: a pill for every ailment, a tool for every job, and maybe even a particular lure for every single fish. Time to go shopping.

I tried Home Depot. No luck. I tried the RV outlet. No dice, but they suggested a local air conditioning supply. I finally found it, back among a warren of warehouses north of the high school.

First thing the kid behind the counter asked me was "What's the density?"

"Huh?"

"How many fins per inch ?"

Nowwaitjustadamminit.

Turns out there's 6 or 7 different types of tool for this. Or I could buy the "multi-tool". I held it in my hand. Twelve bucks. A handle and six tips.

"How well does this work?"

"Not very well, really," he said. "People try to force it. If you're not careful, you'll rip the fins right off the coils. They're just thin metal. These do better if the fins aren't bent too much."

"Mine are flat. How do I fix that?"

"I'd use a dull knife blade, or a small screwdriver. It takes time. It ain't gonna be perfect."

The kid doesn't care if he sells me this thing or not. I like that. I left it on the shelf.

Nearly two hours blown. But time spent shopping isn't supposed to count. It's kind of like practice swings. You just edit it out. My whole life is full of stuff like that. Take out for sleep, meals, and practice swings, and I'm really only 6 years old.

Back to the driveway. Up on the roof, carrying my trusty Swiss Army knife. Bottle opener indeed. I should have known this was an Air Conditioner Battered Fin Straightener. Why don't they just tell you these things? It sure would've saved me a lot of gas.

Now don't spread it around, but I'm getting to the ...ah... well... Age ... That's it, I'm getting to the Age, when climbing up on a roof brings on intimations of mortality. But I'm not so old yet that I'll pay somebody else to do it. Too tight to live, too dumb to die. It's just an embarrassing stage you go through, I guess. Like being a teenager, with half the ignorance and somewhat fewer zits.

I tried kneeling down in front of the fins. Not good. Made me feel like a supplicant. And besides, my knees ached. I tried sitting. Better on the knees, but I still kept having to bob my head up and down to see what I was accomplishing. Not all that much, actually. I'm going to dream of thin metal plates tonight.

Bad knees and bifocals make you slow. So why are the years rushing by?

Finally I figured out this was just practice for Purgatory, so I might as well get comfortable. What worked best was lying on my left side and flicking the little fins up about a square inch at a time, working across the surface.

I don't know how long it took. Decades perhaps, in air conditioner years. But when I came to, outside the Zone, the sun still hadn't set. So maybe it wasn't so long after all.

Like the kid promised, it ain't perfect. But it's done. Tomorrow's Sunday. Day of Rest.

Weather's iffy. Scattered thunderstorms.

Chance of hail.


Bob, gradually getting ready.

North to Alaska

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
-Satan, via Milton, in "Paradise Lost"


Take it from me. In many ways, full-timing in an RV is Life on a Short Leash.

It is true that I have evaded the dubious claims of a particular city, and a particular house, and even a particular yard as meticulously maintained and nondescript as my neighbor's. Instead I spend that time, every few days, searching for campgrounds, dump stations, and drinking water. Even electricity, God help us. Rvs can cost like houses, but they wear like cars. They fall apart. Then you have to buy another one.

Life on a short leash.

Oh, there is luxury in being able to decide exactly where I will spend my time. Leisure feels like wealth to all but the desperately poor. They have too much of it.

I started this enterprise with that in the back of my mind. Saunter round the country, keeping an eye out for the perfect retirement place. Then I discovered there was even more luxury in not having to decide. And it is a curious thing that I often feel most settled when I am rambling.

Imagine my surprise, then, to find that I got tired of it.

After about 7 or 8 months of rambling, I want to sit and read. I want to eat familiar meals in familiar restaurants, have people recognize me at the grocery and the book store, make plans to attend concerts months in advance. I want to see my relatives and friends. Repair the frayed ends of relationships.

I want to be home.

Before I retired, I thought I was utterly bored with Georgetown. After all, I grew up here, and moved back for "good" in 1983 to raise a couple of boys as best I could, given that I was an amateur.

Surely there was some place more interesting than this. I consulted a Yahoo program that asked a bunch of questions about what I was looking for: proximity to a university library, lots of sunshine, near a good sized city, live music, reasonable taxes, good health care, a lake or two, etc., on and on and on. I completed the whole thing. And guess what city turned up on the first search page? Georgetown, Texas.

Arrrgh.

So I emptied the house anyway and went off gallivanting purely out of spite. If you are reading this you probably know the rest, or soon will. It's been great fun. But no place ever showed up that I wanted to live in ALL THE TIME.

I always came back to central Texas for the winter. I find that snow, in particular, is an over-rated attraction.

And then there is the economic argument. You see, I've always been such a cheap bastard there's little possible action likely to improve the situation elsewhere. I made efficient choices decades ago.

In effect, I have outsmarted myself.

For instance, in many parts of the country right now - California comes to mind - people can make immense improvements in their standard of living by selling their impossibly expensive McMansions and escaping to more reasonable areas. Not me. The average increase in housing costs around here have been right about the inflation rate for lo these many years. Currently about 2.5%. I have a comfortable house that's only 10 grand from being paid for. Can't get ahead by moving.

Here at home I can walk to concerts, and read a variety of books, magazines, and papers gratis at Southwestern University, just down the street. I am a persistent dour presence at the Library, rattling around like the ghost of Jacob Marley.

Now and then I startle a covey of coeds. They tend to rise up, flustered to no real purpose, like quail out of season.

By living 30 miles outside of metropolitan Austin, where the action ain't, I save a bunch on car and house insurance. Taxes too. I get my TV off the antenna, and take in bargain matinee movies in the afternoons. I find my clothes and wine and beer and gas and steaks at Sam's Club. I have both the local classical stations on speed dial, and sometimes pick up free concert tickets that way.

All these stratagems are habitual with me. So I can't look forward to much savings from a "reduced" lifestyle. I am already reductio ad absurdum.

So, unless something uncanny happens, I guess I'm going to have to surrender to the inevitability of being happy with my lot. Darn it.

Next fall I'll move back into the house, and spend some bucks fixing it up. And from now on out I'll try to make the most of only traveling to other places at those times when they are at their best. Maybe 7 months away, 5 back in Texas. Just like I've been doing.

Shall I travel? Shall I sit? Do I dare to eat a peach? The immoderately moderate response is to embrace each in its season. And immoderately moderate, alas, is just what I yam.

It's a tough life. But somebody has to live it.

This year I'm off to Alaska, simply because it's there. Read along if you want. I'll be writing home.


Bob