Simple Living and Simple Travel

solstice andsilver jewelry of the southwest Indians

2012-01-03T09:40:00.000-08:00

Well, no bordeaux or Pink for the solstice. Guano. But—I did find a nice bottle of DaVinci Chianti from the town of Vinci in Italy. It’s probably been close to thirty years since I had a glass of Chianti. Tasty. I even picked up some pasta sauce and parmesan to go with the spaghetti rather than prepare it in one of my usual ways. In the morning, I went out and gave thanks for a couple of hours, mid-day I worked with silver at my bench, and late afternoon went for a brisk walk. A little before twilight I poured a glass of Chianti and took M&M for a walk. Afterwards I sat down to a bowl of brown rice pasta and Vivaldi’s Le Quattro Stagioni. I wrapped up the day with a second glass of Chianti, a book, a feline on my lap, Vivaldi’s Complete Works for the Italian Lute, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. So, once again, the 21st was made special—simply. Happy New Year, Earth, from one who cares.

M&M didn’t want to go out for three days. That never happened before. They always want out, if even for only a few minutes. They did not even want to sit out in their window cage. Never did figure out why.

Many people enjoy silver jewelry of the southwest Indians. I thought I’d post some of what I know about it. Years ago I did quite a bit of research and put together a PowerPoint presentation. I pulled this entry from parts of that file.

Might as well start a little further back. People first mined silver for jewelry in the Bronze Age, 2300-1200 BC (Is this too far back?!). Silver was pretty easy to find all over Europe and West Asia. The big problem was, silver ore (the rocks that had silver in them) generally also had lead in it, so that lead mining and silver mining were the same thing. But lead is not the healthiest of substances, so the men who were mining the silver were also being poisoned by the lead. Most lead-and-silver miners died of lead poisoning in two or three years. Because of this, most free men wouldn't work in the mines, and so they forced slaves to work in the mines instead. What a concept.

The Egyptians considered gold to be a perfect metal, and gave it the symbol of a circle. Since silver was the closest to gold in perfection, it was given the symbol of a semi-circle. Later this semi-circle led to a growing moon symbol, probably due to the likeness between the shining metal and the moon glow. Silver is the most lustrous/reflective metal.

Today, the 300 or so silver mines in the world use both underground and open-pit mining. Of these mines, very few are producers of pure silver. Rather, most silver (80%) is produced as a bi-product of other ores such as copper, lead, gold, uranium and zinc. The deposits in Canada, the former Soviet Union, the U.S, and Mexico account for more than 80% of the world’s silver resources.

The word ‘smith’ means ‘to smite,’ to hit or strike. Basically it means that hammers are used for shaping. A traditional silversmith frequently begins with a thick piece of metal called an ingot. The ingot is hammered until it is thin. Traditional silversmithing is fabricating large objects from silver using hammers and various stakes—chalices, serving trays, silverware, vases, etc. and repairs. NOT techniques used by the Indians in the southwest.
You are all familiar with the work of a famous traditional silversmith from the 1700’s. And what is he known for? Riding around on his horse one night, shouting and waking up all his neighbors. This photo shows some of Paul Revere’s work (from his day job).

Contemporary silversmithing is really ‘goldsmithing’—making small works of art out of precious metal.

Indian jewelry is recognized worldwide as a dynamic and stellar art form indigenous to the culture and heritage of the Indian tribes in southwestern United States. The art style is almost all hand-crafted work (or, at least it was).

Can’t talk about southwest jewelry without saying something about turquoise. Turquoise found in the Hohokam excavations in southern Arizona dates back to 200 BC. Prehistoric Indians mined turquoise and turned this mineral into jewelry, primarily drilled beads and other hanging ornaments. Turquoise is a semiprecious, opaque mineral composed of hydrated copper and aluminum phosphate—one reason it is found in copper mines. The ‘sky stone’ is an ancient talisman for health and happiness. It’s typically greenish-blue. Stones with more copper content appear bluer, while those with less copper and more iron are greener. Sometimes it has a rock matrix and varying shades of gray, brown or black veining due to inclusions or oxide stains. Bisbee turquoise is known for its dark matrix. Quality varies. Turquoise from the Sleeping Beauty mines in Arizona generally rates very high. Turquoise found in excavated mounds east of the Mississippi have been analyzed and proclaimed to be from out here. That’s pretty cool. It shows the existence of trading in the lifestyle. It also provides a glimpse into probable status levels of the people.

Okay, here we go. It is generally believed that the Spanish colonizers of the Southwest purposely kept the techniques of metalworking from the region's native peoples. Kind of understandable (Here, let us show you how to make metal arrowheads that you can then shoot at us.). Southwest Indian jewelry can all be traced back to one Navajo, Atsidi Saani (which in English means Old Smith). Atsidi Saani learned the art of the blacksmith, working with iron, from a Mexican named Nakai Tsosi near Taylor Mt, in AZ in the 1850's. Atsidi Saani had hoped that by learning the trade he could make and sell the silver bridles and headstalls that the Navajo Indians were buying from the Mexicans at that time. He applied his metal working techniques, as appropriate, to silver, and he began to teach his four sons and others in his family the silversmith trade.

Navajos were taken on the ‘Long Walk’ in 1864 to Fort Sumner and then confined to the Bosque Redondo (Round Thicket) reservation on the Pecos River until 1868.
When Navajo people returned to their beloved mesas and canyons, their new, more settled way of living led to many changes. Among other things, as they were no longer nomadic, they had greater opportunity to learn from each other. The Navahos had long admired and used metal ornaments and horse equipment. They had used brass and copper wire to create bracelets and coins to fashion buttons.

In the early years, between 1870 and 1920, tools were crude. Smiths improvised and created their own crucibles and bellows. For abrasives, they used powdered sandstone, sand, and ashes. A smith may have only had a hammer, large rough files, handmade stamps, a slab of rock for soldering and annealing, and a length of scrap railroad track for an anvil. Smiths did not have dividers, squares, or rulers—symmetry was by eye. Casting molds were carved out of tuff, a volcanic ash similar to pumice. The dust is very fine. The molds would crack after less than a dozen pourings so sometimes the mold would be carved out of hard rock. It was much harder to do but the mold would last indefinitely. Early smiths sat cross-legged on the dirt floor of their Hogan or outside.

Silver was obtained from silver coins (silver dollars, fifty cent pieces, and quarters), which were melted down for casting or hammered flat and annealed. The decade of the 1870s had been a time of experimentation, of mastering the fundamental skills of turning silver coin into articles of adornment.
The 1880s saw an expansion of both in the number of objects created and in the variety of their shape and decoration, and this development continued in the 1890s. This time is called the Classic Era.
In 1890 the US government forbade use of American silver dollars by silversmiths. Guano. The Mexican peso soon gained new favor among smiths because of this and it also had a higher silver content than American coins (95% as opposed to 90%) so it was softer and easier to work with. Can you guess what happened next? Yep, the Mexican government later forbade the exportation of their pesos. Hard to work with silver when there’s no silver.

Often a local trader would give the Navajo smiths silver in the form of candlesticks, teapots, etc to melt down for their work. In the 1880s, traders took advantage of the new market with silversmiths and began selling tools—pliers, drawplates, sand paper and most significantly, small fine files. They also sold or traded silver slugs. Each slug weighed an ounce and was approximately 1½" square and about 1/8" thick. These slugs where hammered flat and fabricated into a finished pieces of jewelry.

Navajo women did not begin to make things from silver until 1918. They watched their husbands and started to assist them with some of the more tedious tasks. Some women picked up enough to go into business for themselves. But even today, the men far outnumber women in this craft.

The best known example of Navajo silver work is the wire bracelet. The earliest Navajo work consisted of hammered work with file decoration and hand stamping. Fine files unlocked the gate to a vastly extended field of decoration with more intricate designs. At first, the dies Navajos carved into the ends of scrap iron were copied from stamps used by Mexican leather workers.

There were substantial improvements between 1920 and 1940, which factored into the increased output of jewelry during this period. A gas torch replaced the blowpipe and charcoal. It offered more controlled heat for soldering and annealing. A rolling mill enabled a smith to roll out a silver slug in a fraction of the time it takes to hammer one out by hand. Sheet silver, introduced in the 1920s by the federal Arts and Crafts Board, replaced slugs. And wire was commercially drawn, saving another time-consuming process.

Although the Navajo revere turquoise for its beauty, firmly believing in its magic qualities, in their jewelry, silver is of first importance. Turquoise is used to set off and balance the areas of polished silver. As one way of enhancing silver, Navajos use die work with great skill. A negative die, one in which the design is sunk into the surface rather than raised above it as in a positive die, was made by striking a positive die into the heated end of another steel rod.
You’ve probably noticed that triangle wire is a characteristic of Navajo design, found on rings, buckles, bracelets, ketohs (bow arm guards), najas, and bridle members. It does have a pretty distinct look. I like it.
The early Navajo silver work concentrated on concha belts, bracelets, bow arm guards, buttons, and silver bells made from quarters.
There are designs dating hundreds of years ago that were found etched on the walls of caves that are being used in jewelry that is made today…such as the famous hunched back flute player Kokopelli.
Perhaps the most important technical advance Navajo smiths made during the 1890s was to learn to set stones in silver. A stone is fastened to metal by a narrow strip of silver that surround the stone, gripping it tightly. This bezel is anchored to the ring or other object by soldering—a delicate process and one that requires a controllable source of heat. After the Navajo learned to set turquoise in silver, they started using other stones less scarce than the valuable turquoise: native garnets, jet, and malachite and occasionally bits of abalone shell and even pieces of colored glass were set. Turquoise was scarce initially, until larger modern (for the times) mines opened up sources for it. It then started to be used extensively in jewelry.
One popular technique used to embellish a piece was appliqué—soldering small decorative piece of silver onto it.
Another was repoussage—the formation of patterns in relief by hammering or pressing from the underside. They usually combined this technique with stamping, as each sets off the other.

The best-known type of necklace has got to be the squash blossom necklace. I think one started seeing them in the 1880’s. Some of the early Spanish designs inspired the crescent, the silver naja, and the pomegranate blossom (now referred to the squash blossom) and became key to Navajo jewelry design.

In 1872, Lanyade, a Zuni, learned silversmith skills from a Navajo named Atsidi Chon (Ugly Smith). Chon and Lanyade became friends (maybe stemming from the fact that Lanyade was one of the few Zuni who could speak Navajo). Chon came to live for a year with the Zuni. Chon worked in Lanyade's house and would not let anyone watch him work so the Zuni would not learn how to make things from silver. He felt if they learned how, he would not longer be able to sell his silverwork to them. Makes sense to me. Since Chon was living in Lanyade's house, Lanyade had an opportunity to observer Chon at work. Lanyade later traded a horse to Chon in exchange for Chon teaching him to work with silver. After Chon went back to the Navajo reservation, Lanyade had to make all his own tools. For the first few years, like Chon, Lanyade did not let anyone watch him do silverwork so he maintained his market. Sounds familiar. As with the Navajo, the craft is usually learned, quite informally, from a relative, first by watching, then by helping to do the easier, more monotonous tasks (forming bezels, grinding stones, sanding, etc). This aid was frequently accepted in place of a fee.

The Zuni's long-time preoccupation with stones had an enormous effect on their jewelry. The fundamental interest of the Navajo smith, as stated, is silver. He has an innate understanding and love of silver for itself. Softly gleaming surfaces of the ‘metal of the moon’ delight him. Because Navajos feel the beauty of the metal, their work tends to have weight and substance. The Zunis, by contrast, have an inherited love and understanding of stones. Silver they look on merely as a means to hold stones, or as embellishment to set them off. Their work might be said to be more ornate.

Cluster jewelry might possibly be the most characteristic Zuni motif—frequently the stones were cut into small teardrop shapes. Rows of stones and the needlepoint style share popularity with clusters.

Zuni had been known for their lapidary skills for hundreds of years. They carved fetishes out of rock and made beads. The Zuni artist characteristically creates jewelry crafted from sterling silver, turquoise, coral, jet (fossilized coal [a kind of petrified wood that has formed beneath the sea]), and mother of pearl. Each individual stone or shell is painstakingly hand-cut, press fitted together, sanded level and then polished to form a seamless mosaic of color. The introduction of the emery wheel made the process go a lot faster.

In the 1890s, Zunis started to set stones into their work using bezels. In the 1920s, the Zuni developed their inlay patterns of multi-colored stones and shell in mosaics and channels (stone set between strips of silver).

Zuni work differed from Navajo work in three main areas:
Zuni work is characterized by many individual stone settings
Zuni mainly used the silver as a platform for the stonework—there was less silver and a thinner gauge was used than one would find in a typical Navajo piece
Zuni smiths also made much less use of stamping

The settled Pueblo way of life provided better working conditions than that of the semi-nomadic Navajo, one thing being a permanent forge on a frame high enough so that the Zuni smith could work standing up. The whole design of Zuni jewelry was oriented to the display of gems. Plain areas of silver suitable for stamping were gone. Decoration by die work had disappeared.

Now to my favorite, the Hopi, the last to adopt silversmithing skills.
After the massacre at Awatovi, the Spaniards left the Hopis in peace to live on their remote mesas and cultivate their fields. Thus the Hopis had little chance to envy the silver that bedecked the conquistadores. They were also more of less, out of the loop. They did not move about as the Navajos did, nor were they near Gallup, like the Zunis, so there was not the temptation to go there for trade and to see the sights. They used horses and wagons little. With their agriculture and crafts the Hopis were pretty much self-sufficient.

Lanyade began touring the various pueblos selling his jewelry. While on Hopi First Mesa at Sichomovi, in 1898, he stayed with Sikyatala (Yellow Light) for four months. Lanyade would not teach the Hopi how to work with silver (sound familiar?) but from watching the Zuni work, Sikyatala picked up enough to learn the fundamentals of the art. After the Zuni left, Sikyatala bought some tools and tried his own hand at working with silver, which he sold to other Hopi. As Lanyade was taught by a Navajo and the Hopi taught by Lanyade all the jewelry of the period was Navajo in style. Silversmithing did not catch on in Hopiland as it did at Zuni and among the Navajos. Hopi weaving was big business, supplying not only home demand but also that of Zuni and all the Rio Grande pueblos. And because both weaving and silversmithing among the Hopis are masculine crafts, they compete for the time of the men, who must also labor in the fields and take part in lengthy ceremonials. Among the Navajos, it is the women who weave and the women and children who care for the flocks; the men are comparatively free. Hopi silversmiths worked at their craft only in the winter, when they were not needed in the fields.

In 1938, the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, working with Hopi silversmiths, Paul Saufkie and Fred Kabote, began a program of developing a style that was exclusively Hopi. The work was interrupted by World War II. Following the war, a government grant helped the Hopi Guild with a silversmith training program. A Quonset hut was set up and the first class started in 1947 with thirteen men. Casting and overlay were taught as well as basic silversmithing. Students used copper to learn on, then silver as they became more competent.
The ‘overlay’ technique they created involved the cutting of designs in a heavy gauge silver sheet and then soldering this to a thinner solid silver sheet. The base piece was hand stamped and oxidized. The contrast between the polished areas and those still dark heightens the sculptural quality of overlay. The designs were usually adapted from the pottery shards found in the Sikyatki Pueblo ruins of the 15th and 16th centuries. These pre-Hopi designs were mostly bird motifs. The Hopi Guild also used kachina symbols, animal and clan motifs, and patterns from basket makers, weavers, and potters. One prominent characteristic of Hopi patterns is asymmetrical balance, which provides a startling contrast to the static centering of Navajo and Zuni creations. Another conspicuous trait is fluid curving lines, vividly suggesting movement.

Lawrence Saufkie, son of Paul Saufkie, was awarded an Arizona Indian Living Treasure status. He lives up on Second Mesa on the Hopi Reservation in AZ. The three legged bear is one of Lawrence's classic designs. Michael Kabotie, son of Fred Kabote, is another celebrated Hopi silversmith, as well as a painter and poet. I had the good fortune to take a week-long class with these two a number of years ago. The photo is of Lawrence Saufkie at one of the soldering stations and his home setup is pretty similar. Not exactly high tech nor does it take a lot of tools to make jewelry like this. At the time, Michael was working on a set of panels that would be soldered together and set behind glass.

The commercialization of the craft began in 1899 when the Fred Harvey Company first started to order silverwork made up expressly for Anglos who were passing through on the trains. In the 1920s, with California opening up as a resort center and the automobile being used more and more to transport the ever-growing number of tourists, the demand for Indian souvenirs became insistent and practically insatiable. Much of the silverwork degraded to cheap, fast-produced trinkets, often stamped out by machines. Some Indian jewelry from this time was made from German silver rather than sterling. German silver does not contain any silver whatsoever. It is an alloy of copper, zinc (brass), and nickel. Adding nickel to brass changes it to a silver color (but it looks more like chrome to me). Thinner gauges of silver also became prevalent. This thinning the silver, however, destroyed the important three-dimensional quality of the design. It could look pretty chintzy. Luckily things started to occur in the 1930’s and ‘40’s to bring good craftsmanship and high quality back into the trade.

Each of the distinctive Hopi, Zuni and Navajo silversmiths have a style unique to themselves but over the years, these smiths have evolved from the traditional turquoise based silver jewelry to a more contemporary use of different metals and multi-colored stones. Today's Indian silversmiths are in many cases also goldsmiths and lapidaries as well. They cross tribal design boundaries with a will and with abandon. No longer can one look at a piece and say ‘It's Zuni style so it must be Zuni made.’ The artist of today may incorporate in a single piece all the styles available as well as his or her own innovation. Indian jewelry today transcends tribal styles. Over many generations they have developed their skills, talents and designs into an art form all their own. Many people from all over the world have come to appreciate and love the look of the southwestern jewelry that they handcraft today.

December's sixty minutes sixty years: it was tough making the 1800 this month. I racked up 8 zero-minute days during the first four weeks so it was a scramble to make up those 480 minutes in addition to the 60 minutes a day. The weather was definitely a factor. I don’t like to exercise indoors and in the casita, the floor space is roughly only 2’x7’ with a low ceiling. Movements are somewhat limited. But, the appeal of meeting the challenge finally got through and with a hard last week I bagged it with 1900 minutes. Sure hope this does not happen again.

The license plate read: RETRD—for ‘retired.’ That was not my initial interpretation.

Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Native American saying

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

disaronno, blue cover, eton, notebook,a fisherman, and sandbags

2011-12-06T10:40:00.000-08:00

December’s here and that means my annual bottle of Disaronno and Grand Marnier. With the winter solstice approaching, I’m searching for a bottle of bordeaux (fat chance). I should have planned ahead and picked up a bottle while up in Moab at the state liquor store. Next year. Maybe I’ll luck out and at least find a bottle of Pink.

When I was at Siscily’s place in Chama, I noticed she had painted her propane tank covers on her casita. It looked good so I asked if I could copy her idea. She will no doubt be painting polka dots on her cover but I’ll be leaving mine like this.

My solar powered eton radio died so I ordered this new model. I don’t use the radio all that much but the weather band comes in handy from time to time and I definitely use the LED flashlight.

The last couple of weeks I’ve been reading my road notebook. It’s just about full and I will be starting a new one in January. Back in my February 2008 entry ‘the lifestyle—what it’s like to live like this,’ I recommended that one might want to keep a road notebook for making entries on the days you move from one camping spot to another and the kinds of data that might prove useful. Anyway, it’s been a hoot reading the notebook. I had forgotten what my thoughts were like back on my first day on the road and all the various occurrences over the years. I also had wanted to make note of miscellaneous data to add to the new journal in case I get back to certain areas.
Useful data to enter in the road journal: day’s mileage, route, how steep the roads were, what the dirt roads at the end of the drive were like, GPS coordinates, the camping spot, thoughts on the drive, and whatever. Make notes on roads, trails, and other things to check out in the area and anything that mighty be helpful to look back on if you come through that way again or if you want to provide someone with specifics.

Last year I got down to Brantley Lake State Park in early December (early for me to be that far south) and noticed how low the water was. When I asked about it I was told they let water out in the fall for Texas. There was great hiking down on the lakebed so I wanted to get to Brantley early so I could do more of it this year. I needn’t have hurried. The lake never filled back up this year. I took the first photo last year and the second photo is of the same boat this year. All this green growth in new. There are even new creatures out on the lakebed.

I sold two of my silver pieces in the last month. They are going to be holiday gifts. Now that winter is here, I’m back in the NM state parks (the only thing that enables me to do this is I choose the more out-of-the-way parks) thoroughly enjoying indoor hot showers. For eight months of the year taking outdoor sun showers is generally no problem but there have been days in November when I was ready to go conventional. Anyway, when it’s not too cold or windy, I have my bench set up outside. People see me working with silver and come over to have a look. If they ask to see completed pieces, I’ll bring out my display case.

I couldn’t find where this story originated. I’ve come across it a couple times. I like it; it goes along with my conception of simple living. The story is called, ‘The Mexican Fisherman.’
An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, only a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time?
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.” The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “15 to 20 years.”
“But what then?” asked the Mexican.
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!”
“Millions—then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

Like I said, I like the story. But, I find it sad. Most people just don’t get it. Thankfully I’ve never had the status quo ring embedded in my nose.

November’s sixty minutes sixty years: nailed another month with 2030 minutes.
THANKS Diana for your sixty sixty challenge. It’s hard for me to believe how much it has improved my overall health. Prior to taking this up in July, if I didn’t exercise early in the morning, I generally bagged any exercise for the day. But now, if I don’t go out and give thanks in the morning, at least I go out for a brisk walk later in the day. After getting through the first month, now it’s, ‘I have to get in my sixty minutes!’ Not bad. A focus on health should always be a part of one’s mindset.

So, last year I got into medicine ball exercises (using a dumbbell); a stellar way to tone the body. And this year I’ve gotten into Diana’s sixty minutes sixty year challenge, tabatas, brisk walks, and stretching. Not bad since next month I will officially be ‘an old man.’ Last month I’ve added sandbags. For tabatas, I researched dozens of body-weight and light dumbbell exercises. I had no idea there so many to choose from. It’s all come a long way since my high school PE classes. Anyway, one site I’ve been gathering data from covered a few sandbag exercises. Oh man, this is SO cool. After doing a google search for ‘sandbag exercises,’ I now have four pages of exercises to play with and use in my tabatas and on their own. I acquired three different bags differing in style and size and filled them with different amounts of sand. The small army surplus duffle is presently the most fun. One reason I like using sandbags (besides being ‘different,’ which always gets my attention) is that the movements seem to be more ‘real life’ (some more than others), movements used in everyday activities as opposed to the movements using barbells and weight machines. To improve physically, one needs to keep throwing the body curves, or it quickly learns to adapt and starts to coast along. Definitely not a good thing as we get on in years. I’m looking forward to using this new medium in the coming months (although I’m getting some strange looks from people out walking their dogs [not that that’s new]).

December humor— Chicken Little
One day the first grade teacher was reading the story of Chicken Little to her class. She came to the part of the story where Chicken Little tried to warn the farmer.
She read, "....and so Chicken Little went up to the farmer and said, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"
The teacher paused then asked the class, "And what do you think the farmer said?"
One little girl raised her hand and said, "My grandpa’s a farmer and I think he’d say something like, 'Holy Sh*t! A talkin’ chicken!'”

I wonder what I’ll choose for next year’s monthly wrap-up. So far I’ve covered: Night Sky, Full Moons, and Humor. Whatever it is, I’ll probably come back in 2013 with another year of Humor. I’m just havin’ way too much fun.

“One thing you can’t recycle is wasted time.” Anonymous

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

small world, coyotes, running of the bulls,IZ, salmon run, an empty park, and fresh cup

2011-11-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when I’m camped in a nice secluded spot miles back in from the asphalt, the world seems to grow smaller. At such times ‘the world’ is easily defined and it’s boundaries clear. I can feel this when Nature is coming on strong. Maybe I’m running down a trail trying to get back to camp as the clouds are darkening and there’s the sound of thunder off in the distance. Or I’m in my camper as the wind is screaming like a banshee or it’s pouring buckets. The same feeling exists at more gentle times. I might be sitting around a small fire, taking a mug-walk, a bowl-walk, out walking with M&M, sitting under the awning during a warm summer drizzle, or sitting inside watching the snow. Sometimes it’s more sensory. It could be the fragrance of the sage I threw on the fire or the feel of an early morning fog lifting off a glass-smooth pond, the call of an owl or coyote. I can open up to the rhythms and tempo of the natural world—sunrises and sunsets, moonrise, the sound of the wind in the trees, and the flowing water of a mountain stream. It all seems to gradually seep in as awareness expands. It’s like a re-connecting with the simplicity of life. I’m thankful that I can live like this for most of the year. Hopefully, I’ll come up with a way in which I can experience it for even more of the year. As of now however, winters, are pretty much a write-off, but there are other aspects that make the time somewhat pleasurable.
Many don’t understand why campgrounds, the grandiose, and the ‘sights to see’ don’t do much for me. Different strokes. I’m basically content with how I live. Maybe I have a low threshold of satisfaction.

Often I hear a coyote’s call from out in the desert. A sound I enjoy listening to. Other times I hear a pack of coyotes yipping wildly in unrestrained excitement. This sound I don’t care for so much. The pack is celebrating the death of some unfortunate creature. It is not exactly the semi-romantic howl of the wild people most often associate with the animals. It is a frenzied, hysterical cacophony of voices that precedes prey being ripped apart and devoured by the pack. I don’t know, maybe there is too much time to reflect on what I see and hear in this lifestyle.

Well, it’s almost time for ‘the running of the bulls.’ Nay, you say—that’s in July. I say, Ever go shopping between thanksgiving and christmas?

If you have not listened to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole singing, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World,’ check out this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1sj2gQJIKI
Did you catch the two transitions?

Whenever I’m in the Chama area I spend time at Paul’s place down in Tierra Amarilla, the 3 Raven’s Coffee House (pictures and story in my December 2009 entry). Right from the get-go it was a fabulous place (well, after ten years of work) but somehow he manages to improve upon it every year. The 3 Ravens got written up in this year’s October issue of Fresh Cup, the magazine for Specialty Coffee and Tea Professionals (www.freshcup.com). Way to go Paul. Can’t see how he can top this but he probably will. Also, remember that Paul is a drum maker. If you are interested in a custom wooden drum, Paul is the person to get one from. His wood shop takes up a good portion of his building.

I saw Siscily when I was passing through Chama. Remember she used to be a ranger at Heron Lake state park. She still runs a kayak rental business in the summer. I was invited over to her place one night for dinner. A few of her friends and Paul were there and we sat around a fire and drank cabernet sauvignon, ate, talked, and told a few joke. A good time. I might enjoy stuff like this more than most since I don’t get a chance to do it all that often. Siscily also stopped by my site a couple times and brought me home grown tomatoes and some wild apples. There is an apple tree next to the visitor center in town.
One morning I had a nice talk with Anthony, the superintendent of Heron and El Vado. A good guy who is very knowledgeable about the area. He grew up in Chama, went off to college, came back, and worked his way up through the park system. He initially stopped by my site to tell me about the closing of Willow Creek for Halloween. They set up quite a popular event in the campground and have been doing it for the past three years or so. Willow Creek reopens afterwards but then its almost snagging season. Not a time to be staying in Heron.

Whenever I stop at Heron Lake as I head south, most mornings I run the trail. I thought I covered all of it, from the visitor center down to El Vado. The other day, Siscily told me the park had a 3-mile trail from the visitor center to the east meadow. Yep, I had to go check it out. Not bad, but my favorite section is still the Salmon Run Trail section. It’s even better now. They blocked off some sections of the old cart path and routed runners/hikers/mountain bikers onto some nice single tracks.

I met a great couple one morning while I was out on the trail. They’re from TorC and were staying in the Brushy Point cg. They had a small, older 5th wheel but, like me, they also have the camper mindset. I rarely come across people like this. Just about all of them are into RVing. We had a good talk. Things like this can make my day.

I never stopped at El Vado as I meandered south so this year I pulled in to see what it was like. When I got there, there was not a single rig in the park. My kind of place. I stayed there for a week and a half and for most of my stay, I was the only camper. Way cool. It was nice having an electric hookup but it was back to the sun shower bag. Every other morning I ran or hiked the Rio Chama trail and most afternoons took M&M for a walk. Jack, a camper with a Fleetwood/Coleman Evolution E1tent trailer pulled in one day. I was really surprised how much room there was in his rig. The box was only 10’ but the inside seemed twice as big as my casita. We had a good time one evening sitting around his campfire exchanging stories. Not bad.

I was planning to leave one Wednesday but noticed in my pocket at-a-glance that it was ‘Day of the Dead.’ Sounded like it was not a good day for being out on the roads so I waited one more day. As always when heading south from Chama, I stop at the 3 Ravens Coffee House for a mug of Paul’s high octane. One mug and I’m good for the whole day! Also, as always, I stocked up with supplies at the La Montanita Food Co-op in Santa Fe. It’s easy to get to and there’s plenty of bulk bins and a good selection of sandwiches at the deli counter.

October’s sixty minutes sixty years: nailed another month with 2115 minutes.

Exercise is hard. It’s sweaty. But it’s also a chance for me to get out of my comfort zone and see if I can do more than I think I can. I look at others who always stay in their comfort zone and I just don‘t want to look like them or live these last years as they do. I sure as hell don’t think or act like them. Different strokes—never developed the herd instinct. Exercise is not about getting in a workout on a Tuesday. It’s about adding 20 years to one’s life—active, useable years that one can truly live. For most, this seems to be a very hard concept to grasp, let alone hold any meaning. But I like to get out of my comfort zone from time to time. It adds a little spice to life (not that I’m going to take up bungee jumping).
“You may delay, but time will not.” Benjamin Franklin

November humor—George Washington and the Ax
Teacher: George Washington not only chopped down his father’s cherry tree but also admitted it. Now, Joey, do you know why his father didn’t punish him?
Joey: Because George still had the ax in his hand?

bonus humor
This misprint is from a Michigan publication, InTune: “Parents are encouraged to stay throughout the concert and not to heave at the end of their child’s performance.” Oops!

The first wealth is health. Ralph Waldo Emerson

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

art deco, on the rim, flaming cow sh*t,check the water, nasty body fluids,it's a hard life and extended time off the grid

2011-10-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

Ah, simple pleasures—a cold glass of water, a book, and a lowrider in the shade of a juniper. OR
a glass of wine, a book, a feline, and a lowrider with a view OR
a mug of yerba mate, a book, and a lowrider with a view
This lifestyle has WAY too many choices. This can lead to stress. I’ll endure it somehow.

Speaking of stress, I bet you are sitting there stressing over where the term ‘Art Deco’ originated. The name was coined at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels in Paris. It was the predominant decorative art style of the 1920s and 1930s, characterized by precise and boldly delineated geometric shapes and strong colors, and used most notably in household objects and in architecture.
Now you’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep. If not, try an offering to Morpheus.

I finally found a quiet, secluded spot to camp that felt good (how many months did that take?!). It was at the end of a spur road off FR 211 in the Ashley National Forest Uintah Mountains south of the Flaming Gorge area in Utah. Stayed there a couple weeks to recharge. It rained half the days so I gathered quite a bit of firewood and kept it under a tarp. I like bundling up and reading by a small fire when it is not too blustery. M&M and I had some stellar walks just about every day. We could go off in any direction to make a loop. Some afternoons if Meadow was kind of mopey, she would look at me and meow. I would ask her if she wanted to go for a walk and she would perk right up and shoot her tail straight up in the air. Spoiled little twit. Even Mesa has started doing this.
While out walking and mountain biking I came across a number of other secluded spots to camp farther down some other spurs that appeared to not get much use. Not bad. I’ll have quite a choice if I come back to this area. Puddles were iced over a couple mornings and I had to break out my winter sleeping bag. It’s WAY too early for this.
When I was pulling out, 3 forest service trucks were coming up the road. There was a large notice board at a junction down the road and I stopped to read the papers. The forest service was starting their fall burning with 1,500 targeted acres. Some being where I was camping. Good timing.

I planned to scoot into one of the campgrounds along rt191 to fill up my water jugs but the three I passed were already locked up for the winter. I continued on to Vernal and stopped at the forest service office to ask where some places were in town and to fill the Reliance jugs. Called some friends while I had phone coverage but I only managed to talk with one of them. This lifestyle has a few drawbacks. There was a BLM road and a forest road south of town off rt191 that I wanted to check out for a spot to camp but neither worked out. I kept on to a spot south of Wellington that I was familiar with. I REALLY don’t like driving this much in one day.

I stopped in Moab and had lunch with my friend Lisa at the Love Muffin Café. GREAT little place. We sat outside and ate some tasty wholesome food. Lisa and Glen were out of town when I passed through last fall so it was a treat to touch base and catch up. Glen gave me a stellar suggestion for another area in the rim country south of Moab to check out. THANKS Glen.

I came across a nice isolated spot to camp on the rim. The weather was warm and sunny so I pretty much went about each day in boxers and Tevas and from time to time a sun hat. Sure wish life were more complicated. I hate this concept of simple living. (^_^)
While down in the rim country, I had to go back to my summer bag and leave all the windows and two roof vents open at night. Most change their bedding, between light and heavy, by the season. I seem to be changing it by latitude. Oh well, each day I just try to deal with it all.

I had an urge to head south to New Mexico WAY too early this year. Don’t exactly know why, maybe the poor camping spots this summer. I guess I’m just spoiled. If I remember right, I don’t generally get to southern Utah until the end of October or early November, NOT September. When I got to the rim country however, I just wanted to stay there. It just feels so good this time of year. Stellar views with plenty of places to hike down on the rock and enough red dirt roads for mountain biking.
This is one of those areas where the stars seem to come down to the horizon, 360. Two nights around the new moon, I rolled out my exercise mat, poured a glass of wine, laid down on the ground and watched the night sky. M&M would come over from time to time to check on me. As I’ve stated in past entries, I believe once someone reaches 50, they should stop acting their age. And a little regression would be nice.

While trail running this past summer, I kept an eye out for moose and bears. Now I’m looking out for these guys. They’re much smaller than moose and bears but noticeably faster with two sharp pointy parts that are best not to come in contact with—and some real nasty body fluid.

The smell of wood campfires can get old pretty quick. Since I’m back in open range, it’s back to flaming cow sh…, I mean, cowpie fires. I’m thinking about buyin’ a cow.

When I started using the water I got from an outside faucet at the forest service office in Vernal, I found leaf matter in every Reliance jug. Quite a bit of it, not just a few specks. Guano. I put a few drops of bleach in each jug and covered the mouth with a piece of screen when transferring water into my galley jug. I was hoping nothing harmful would start growing in my water supply. Never had this happen before. Now I will be checking EVERY time I fill up the Reliance jugs. So far, I feel fine. All the RVers who use their built-in water holding tank and have not installed a deck plate would not even know if anything, other than water, was in their tank. And it sure would not all come out whenever they drain their tank. I have trouble understanding why so few choose to install a deck plate. It’s a simple procedure and only costs $12. I definitely would not want to be drinking out of a holding tank year after year without looking in there from time to time to see if anything was growing and to give the inside a good scrubbing. Different strokes.

When I come across a secluded place to camp, I frequently stay for a couple weeks and sometimes 3 or 4. But the additional weeks entail making a town run for supplies. I’m working towards nixing the town run so I can stay in one place for a month. Often a town is 30 miles away and at times it can be 60 miles to a town with a decent size grocery store. I’ve been up roads where it has taken me 40 minutes just to get back to the asphalt. I’m talkin’ off the grid here—not in a campground or where there are others camped a few hundred yards away. Well, I guess that’s obvious since I mentioned ‘secluded’. Two 5-gal propane tanks generally last me over a month and for most of the year, a month and a half. I could open the deck plate in my city water tank, take out the bags of grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, and yerba mate and fill it with water—but that is A LOT of weight back there bouncing up and down. It’s not like the weight is over the axle. The holding tank’s location works fine for those who travel the asphalt and stick to graded roads but for rough roads and double tracks damaged by erosion, washboards, and whatnot, all that weight can’t be good for the suspension, frame, and rivets. 15 gallons of water weighs 120 pounds. I’d much rather carry water in the tow vehicle. The frame and suspension can better handle the weight on rough roads. And it’s not like I fly down these roads. Often I’m only going 5-10 mph but even at those slow speeds, everything can really get to bouncin’. Remember I’m going miles on these roads not just a couple hundred yards. This winter I want to look into a 40-gallon water tank that I could carry in the bed of the Dodge. 40 gallons would last me 20 days and I would supplement this with the Reliance jugs that I already have. Sixty gallons of water to cover a month off-the-grid with no town run would weigh nearly 500 pounds (480).
I love living out in Nature and I have so many interests and activities that my times off the grid generally go by faster than I realize, especially if there is a network of trails in the area. That certainly would not apply to most people I meet or hear about; they need to be constantly entertained. Hopefully I’ll come across a place next summer where I can try this. If not, maybe next October in the rim country. But then, this would only be possible if a ranger does not come by and start keeping track of my days. I had that happen once.

I’ve been going out for more walks this month. It’s not something I ordinarily do. I’d rather get my cardio in other ways but I might be getting hooked. I was reading an article about the health benefits of BRISK walking at 15-minute miles or faster. I never walk that fast. Sure was getting a burn in my butt and in my calves, though, if I used proper form. I guess walking for exercise is not as lame as I had thought. But it needs to be at a brisk enough pace to get your heart and lungs working at an elevated level. I need to stop at a high school track at some point, so I can learn exactly what a 4 mph pace feels like. Casey Meyers, author of ‘Walking: A Complete Guide to the Complete Exercise’ is in his seventies and still walks 3 miles most mornings at a brisk13-minute mile pace. Except for City of Rocks, none of the places I’ll be staying this winter offer any decent trails for running but each place does have areas where one can get in an hour of brisk walking without doing circles. Huh. I’m also trying to do a 10-15 minute walk within 15-20 minutes after a meal. It’s supposed to raise one’s metabolism and thus burn more fat. If I don’t feel like a walk—I know for sure that I’m just being lazy or I ate too much. Just call my Porky.

September’s sixty minutes sixty years: must be on a roll, did 1870 minutes—that’s 3 for 3.

As for my September ‘Quad 200’ challenge, not so good. What a dumb idea. I’ve always known to not work the same muscle group (except for maybe abs) on back-to-back days, let alone six days a week and yet I set out to do it anyway. Guess my success with Diana’s ‘sixty minutes sixty years’ and tabata circuits was getting to my head. Too over-confident. I was easily getting in the 200 reps each day, hitting them from various angles using different exercises. My reps, however, weren’t going up; my quads were not getting stronger. Well, duh. Muscles don’t grow on the days they are being worked but rather, on the days when they are resting. When you work a muscle group hard, the muscle fibers tear. You grow muscle and grow stronger as the muscles repair themselves. You have to give them time to do that. One also needs to feed them by taking in enough protein. People say they get enough protein without knowing how much is required let alone know how many grams they are getting each day. Unreal. The RDA for protein is geared to sedentary individuals, not to those who exercise and put some umph into their workouts. So anyway, I bagged the challenge, gave my quads a few days of rest, and shot for 200 reps every other day or two. My reps started to go up. Let’s have another—well, duh!

October humor—Games For When We Are Older
Musical Recliners
Red Rover, Red Rover, The Nurse Says Bend Over
Spin the Bottle of Mylanta
Hide and Pee
Kick the Bucket

bonus humor (if you like cats): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MqHN-4okZ4

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.
Alan Watts.

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

4 out of 5, a dead sony,a bit bigger than a squirrel,and another challenge

2011-09-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

We all know people who might as well be dead (sounds like an opening line in a thriller). These people have so contracted into their limited viewpoints that it is as painful to be around them as it must be for themselves. The flexibility and joy and flow of life are gone. Most anyone can be faced with this grim possibility unless we realize that we need to work with our life. We need to have some form of practice in our day to day existence. We have to be willing to spend time doing something that is not easy. The problem in life is not outside ourselves. Food for thought.
Okay, okay, moving right along…

I spent a month disperse camping in Teton Canyon, just east of Alta, WY. Some great trails for running in the mountains. Just down the road a bit was the Mill Creek trail and up at the end of the road were a number of trails. Not bad. Can’t think when I’ve had such a choice of trails, at elevation since getting into this lifestyle. Sure wish I had more opportunities to run in the mountains. Can’t quite bring myself to run much on the flats so winters in the desert are pretty much a write-off.
My friend Linda drove up from SLC for a few days. That was pretty cool. It’s nice to have someone there to do stuff with from time to time.

I know there has been major cutbacks but… No, this sign on the Idaho/Wyoming border was along a forest road.
I left the casita in camp and went out in the Dodge looking for other places to disperse camp in the area. After spending two 4-hour days looking for forest roads and driving them, I did not come across any spots that would do it for me. If I was merely into RVing, there were plenty of possibilities, but none for a camper who likes secluded spots that feel good. Actually this whole summer has been like this. Guess I was due for a down year as far as camping goes, but then 4 out of 5 isn’t so bad. Maybe the gods thought I was getting spoiled with the nice disperse spots I’ve been coming across. Oh well, there were plenty of good things about the summer. Don’t think I’ll be coming this far north next summer. I’m actually looking forward to starting the meander south earlier than in past years. DeLorme shows a number of forest roads in the Ashley national forest, south of the Flaming Gorge area in Utah. Might spend a couple weeks checking them out.
One cool thing that happened this summer was I got in touch with a lady I used to teach with down in SLC, probably close to 20 years ago. She lives part time in Idaho, real close to where I was camping. We had a nice visit and dinner. Not bad.

One morning while out running the trails, I took the most awesome photos I’ve ever taken of a moose. Later, when I went to show them in playback mode to Linda, the images just appeared white. When I brought the images up in Elements, the same thing appeared on the screen. My Sony Cybershot had died. Guano. The next day I drove over the pass to Jackson and purchased a Nikon Coolpix at DD Camera Corral (great photography shop). Sure was bummed about missing the shots of the moose.

One morning I was reading a book inside the casita and Mesa was lying out in the window cage. Suddenly he sat up, focusing on something, and then he tears out through the cat door. I thought he probably saw a squirrel. Not so. This critter is a bit larger than a squirrel. Don’t know why he wanted to dart outside. But then, I never thought he was overly bright. These shots almost make up for the moose photos I missed.

If I had a place like this one beside a creek to give thanks each morning, my resolve might never waver.
August’s sixty minutes sixty years: snagged it again with 1880 minutes. Hope I’m on a roll. I’m even up to 5-exercise tabata circuits (40 cycles for a full 20 minutes). Now THAT’S some major progress.

It is our responsibility to be healthy. It is our obligation to take care of ourselves—for one’s self, our families, and society. Doctors can help, but your body will more often than not tell you what you need. One just needs to take the time to listen. Most health tips are common sense. When working full time to pay the bills for all one’s possesses, having a young family under the roof and the lack of time, space and attention, our personal health care often moves to the bottom of the list in terms of priority. It’s unfortunate that with retirement and all the free time, space (being outside), and attention, most still keep their personal health care at the bottom of the priority list. And they are generally the ones grousing about our health care system. Those who are the burdens, bitch the most. Go figure.

Besides the sixty for sixty in September, I’m shootin’ for another physical challenge. I’m calling it the ‘Quad 200’—going for 200 reps daily, focusing on the quads, using various types of squats, lunges, step-ups, and other movements—hoping for 6000 reps by the end of the month. We’ll see.

September humor—Children's Books Not Recommended by the National Library Association.

The Boy Who Died from Eating All His Vegetables
Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence
What Is That Dog Doing to That Other Dog?
Where Would You Like to Be Buried?
Why Your Mom's ‘Flashlight’ Vibrates

The most important product of your life is you—why trash it?

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

not quite a hummingbird, doa, carefree children, turkeys in the night, not my realm

2011-08-02T11:08:00.000-07:00

There’s frequently a hummingbird feeder hanging from the plant hanger so M&M are used to looking out at the little birds. But sometimes it’s not a bird. I hate this lifestlye—it’s SO unpredictable. (^_^)

The state of Iowa changed the name of its Elder Affairs Department to the Department of Aging. It goes by the initials IDA, Iowa Department on Aging. Nothing wrong with that. DOA also works.

Well, I’m heading towards Idaho. I’m making a quick stop here in Pinedale to check some things on the web and then I’ll be taking rt191 through the Bridger-Teton National Forest. It looks like there are a few forest roads this side of Hoback Junction so I should be able to find a place to camp for a couple days. I want to make a quick stop in Jackson for new casita tires. There are not many miles on them since I’m not into traveling the asphalt but many of the miles have been pretty rough. I don’t think trailer tires are designed for the primitive roads I tend to explore.

Every once in a while I come across a person who gives me flak when they find out I don’t care all that much about what is happening out in the world. I don’t follow the news, even when I’m on the grid. They say I should be more socially responsible when I say something like, ‘It’s not my realm.’ I’d love it if the world was a better place, people treated each other better, and we actually cared for our planet but there’s nothing much I can do on my own to make world changes. Are you familiar with Michael Jackson’s song, ‘Man in the Mirror’ (stellar tune)? There’s a line, ‘If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself then make a change.’ Then there was Socrates saying, ‘Let he that would move the world, first move himself.’ And Ghandi, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ I don’t see a whole lot of this goin’ on. At this point in my life I’m quite satisfied with what I do. I taught for over 20 years, contributing to social development; I’ve been supporting a girl in the Philippines for quite a few years through Children International (I’m also going to start using Heifer International [http://www.heifer.org] later this year; sounds more practical); I take responsibility for my health; I practice zazen and try to follow precepts; I try to do the friendliest thing, although it’s taking some work (actually, a lot of work); I eat and live lower on the food and resources chain (this does good for beings yet unborn); I worked down to a low carbon footprint; for most of the year I get all my electricity from the sun; I use only 2 gallons of water a day; I bring my own bags into grocery stores; I try to give my friends some laughs; I support grape growers; I provide a good life for two rescued animals, and I guess I could come up with quite a few more things if I had a mind to think about it. So when someone throws something like that at me, I try to think of the first precept (rather than voice what might initially come to mind).

A couple weeks ago, a carload of RVers pulled up and asked if I have seen a German Shepard. Nope. He’s blind. Where are you set up in case I come across him? They told me and drove off looking for the pooch. I put on a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, filled a Nalgene, picked up a length of rope and went out looking for the dog. Didn’t find him. Sometimes I feel more empathy for animals than some humans. But then again, an animal is frequently in trouble because of what a human has done, or not done. These people bring a blind dog to the mountains, a place with strange smells and sounds and don’t keep an eye on him. Unreal. Animals can’t protect themselves from cruelty or stupidity.

I generally keep the blinds rolled up at night so M&M can look out and see what’s going on outside. One night Mesa jumped down on me from the galley counter. Never did that before. It certainly woke me up. He’s not a little cat. He raced to the door and then up onto the back table looking out at something. Then back to the door and then to the tabletop. I was way too tired to get up to see what was out there. Then I heard the turkeys. ‘Forget it, Mesa, I’m not gettin’ up and those birds are too big for you.’ I thought turkeys roosted at night. Stuff like this doesn’t happen to those who have fish for pets. Always wanted goldfish.

Remember what it was like to be a carefree child on a summer day? Riding bikes, exploring creeks, meandering through the woods. Days filled with adventure and curiosity. Or nights, lying on the ground and watching the stars? Guess I never grew up since that’s still my life.

July’s sixty minutes for sixty years: NAILED IT with 1875 minutes. My resolve sure wanes from time to time, though. While I believe in taking responsibility for my health, there are mornings when I’d rather sit back and read a book than go out and give thanks. Luckily it has been balancing out. I think Diana mentioned on her blog or in an email that the first month can be tough (getting into the mindset) and the second month tends to be easier. It was, even though I had quite a few more opportunities for being active while house-sitting in Chama. I’ll see how August goes.

August humor—the note was posted very low on the refrigerator door:

Dear Dogs and Cats,

The dishes on the floor with the paw prints are yours and contain your food. The other dishes are mine and contain my food. Placing a paw print in the middle of my plate does not mean that it is suddenly your food, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.

The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Racing me to the top of the stairs is not the object. Tripping me doesn’t help because I fall faster than you can run.

I cannot buy anything bigger than a king-size bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep. It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other, stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out on the other end to maximize space that you are taking up, is nothing but sarcasm.

For the last time, there is not secret exit from the bathroom! If, by some miracle, I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge in an attempt to open the door. I must exit through the same door I entered. Also, I have been using the bathroom for years—canine/feline attendance is not required.

The proper order for kissing is: Kiss me first, then go smell the other dog or cat’s butt. I cannot stress this enough.

Finally, in fairness, dear pets, I have posted the following message on the front door:

To all non-pet owners who visit and like to complain about my pets:
1. They live here. You don’t.
2. If you don’t want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. That’s why they call it ‘fur’niture.
3. I like my pets a lot better than I like most people.
4. To you, they are animals. To me, they are adopted sons/daughters who are short, hairy, walk on all fours and don’t speak clearly.

‘Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.’
Ralph Waldo Emerson

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

one pot meals, virtual choir, wingin’ it, the winds,way too many porker carts, an evil god,and shootin’ the boss

2011-07-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Well, back in the dog days of summer. Know where that phrase came from? It’s the period between early July and early September when Sirius, aka the Dog Star, rises and falls with the sun. Unfortunately, so do the temperatures. Oh well, winter’s coming.

A thought on preparing meals—keep it short and simple. I no longer like to cook, let alone spend half an hour or more preparing a meal. I also have my main meal of the day midmorning, after I’m done with giving thanks. Since I get up at 5:00 for most of the year, I’m definitely hungry by 9 or 10:00. The rest of the day I’ll generally just snack. Most of my meals are prepared in one pot. Since I’m generally off the grid, water conservation is always a factor (I still only use 2 gallons a day). I eat a lot of spaghetti, buying different kinds when I can: brown rice, spinach, whole wheat (Bionaturae is great), whatever. As the water heats to a boil and the spaghetti is cooking, I’m mincing one or two jalapenos, cloves of garlic or shredding a carrot into the bowl I will be eating out of (saves washing another bowl) and getting other stuff out. Often, three minutes before the spaghetti is done, I’ll break an egg into the water so it can cook. I’ll then drain most of the water and add a big scoop of TVP to soak up the rest. From then on it varies: frozen or fresh vegetables, sunflower or sesame seeds, canned olives or black beans, canned jalapenos, Mexican style tomatoes, tofu, tepines (couldn’t live with tepines), minced onion, nutritional yeast, vegetable bouillon cube, cayenne, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, whey protein, whatever. So I start with spaghetti but it ends up tasting different. Sometimes it’s more vegetables than spaghetti. I rarely use spaghetti sauce and parmesan so it’s not like I’m having ‘spaghetti’ all the time. Just as often, I use cous-cous or quinoa. I get 2 or 3 pounds of it from the bulk bins whenever I come across a natural food store. And yep, most of it gets stored in the fresh water holding tank (Feb ’08‘useful items to have along for off-the-grid vagabonds living in small rigs’). Easy cleanup—one pan, a wooden bowl, and three utensils. It’s just one aspect of being present, living simply and paring my life to its essentials.

A few months ago I sent a link to some friends and they enjoyed the video so I’ll share it here. Some of you will have come across Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir on youtube but this link gives you the background. It’s a pleasure to watch Whitacre’s presentation. You can see he totally enjoys telling the story.
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_whitacre_a_virtual_choir_2_000_voices_strong.html

I topped my roughest road yet, by far (not that I wanted to), pulling the casita down a forest road off rt550 south of Silverton, CO, very, very rocky. We crept along taking 20 minutes to go less than two miles and the casita was really gettin’ hammered and of course, no possible place to turn around. One of those roads where the rear table bounces up off one of the legs. Someone at the natural food store in Durango had said to access this road from the north end because the south end was really rough. Gees Louise, the north end was REALLY rough, can’t imagine what the south end is like. Finally found a place on a short spur road and pulled in. To make the experience even more unpleasant, the ground was covered with powdered dirt. M&M LOVE rolling in powdered dirt. I HATE M&M rolling in powdered dirt. No way are they allowed in the casita lookin’ like dirtballs—baby wipes (a LOT of baby wipes!) and a wet micro-fiber towel to clean them up each time they wanted in. I never leave the cat door open in areas where they can easily get so dirty. The packed-in water lasts noticeably longer if we avoid powdered dirt and sand but some really nice spots have it. This was not an overly nice spot, however. Not bad but not worth the drive in. To make it all par for the course, mosquitoes descended and made setting up camp a real joy. After a breeze came up, I took M&M on a walk down the spur road and found out how short it was. Felt kinda boxed in here. Stayed two nights since I didn’t want to do that road two days in a row.
My rig now measures 37’ with a terrible turning radius and it’s affecting my lifestyle. Not good.

Sure am glad I got a V8 while down in Bisbee. Drove over two 10,000’ passes and one 11,000’. The Cherokee would not have been likin’ it. Colorado wasn’t working for me. The mountainous areas I was driving through offered limited forest roads and many of the ones I checked out on the maps, noticing the contour lines, looked too steep for pulling the trailer and most of the ones I tried were pretty rough with limited places to turn around and very few spur roads. I need more elbow room to get out in the sticks so the area limited my type of camping. For those who do campgrounds, it’s an absolutely stellar state to explore. But in the steep areas, even the campgrounds are right along the road; it’s not like there is an option. So—off to Wyoming. I just need to find a Wyoming DeLorme or I’m screwed. RVers and many campers get by with state road maps. I could never live my lifestyle with those. I need a DeLorme for each state. I need to know where the forest roads are. I need to read the contour lines. They help me decide routes to take and places to explore. I need to see where BLM and state land is. Nope, state maps don’t do it for me.
I felt much better once I decided to bag Colorado. I was having a tough time finding the kind of places I like and I was getting kind of bummed. This lifestyle is all about freedom and spontaneity. Can’t see how most pretty much stick to itineraries, schedules, and lists of sights-to-see. When I pulled out of Chama, I didn’t know if I was going to leave town heading west or north until the day before. It didn’t much matter. When I pull into some isolated spot, I rarely know where I will go next until I pull out the DeLorme. Different strokes. I can’t see how RVers can have any sense of adventure when they lay everything out before hand. Just sounds like a common road trip to me. Then again, I live in the west. Don’t know if I would have even thought about doing something like this if I still lived back east. Since I would not have been able to live this lifestyle back there, I might not have realized there are areas of the country where it’s not only possible, but easy. Guess I’m kinda wingin’ it at this stage of my life. Feels pretty good.

After a horrendous time of trying to give thanks while outside one morning, I stopped and picked up a screen tent. Never had one. The gnats were WAY too aggressive. Reminded me of black flies when I lived back in Lake Placid. The tent is not what I would have gotten if I had a chance to look around on the web but I figured I needed one NOW. The screen tent measures 9’x13’ and the instructions called for two people for assembly. Don’t think so. I thought 9’x13’ would be too big. Once again, I was wrong. It’s a good size for exercises and cardio circuits. For Tai Chi, it’s a joke. I keep having to insert steps to give me room. At least I can work on individual movements and transitions. My six foot table fits in there fine when I need it. Maybe this summer I will finally see if the two jigsaw puzzles I picked up at a thrift store have all their pieces. So far Meadow has only ripped two holes in the screen. One day a stiff wind came up just prior to a rainstorm and a guideline tab ripped out. That led to a broken roof pole. Once again, I thanked the gods for providing us with duct tape. After a month’s use, it is still holding up. Not bad for $40.

When I reached Wyoming, I picked up a DeLorme. Oh man, the current editions are worthless for the kind of camping I do. They don’t show nearly as many forest roads as the older editions. Luckily I have ‘90’s editions for the states I generally travel through. When I get someplace where I’ll be for a while, I’ll try to find a 90’s edition on eBay or some similar site. If one is just going to do national forest campgrounds, DeLorme is still the best thing going. Those annual RV campground guides cater to RVs (well, duh), so if you are into camping, don’t bother with them.
I’m more of less winging it here in the Wind River range. I go up a dirt road a ways, set up camp and the next day or so go off exploring on my mountain bike looking for other places to set up camp, preferably down narrow spur roads.

One secluded spot was at the end of a road with only one BIG rock to maneuver over (no way to get around it). Don’t know what the Dodge is going to look like after a couple years of this kind of stuff. The site had a strong running stream less than 50’ away. I sure do like camping with that sound. Lots of mosquitoes, though. Glad I picked up a screen tent. This spot isn’t as bad as it looks. I’m not set up that close to a road; it ends right there. One evening M&M and I were out walkin’ along the stream. I was looking over at some lingering patches of snow and when I looked back, there was a pronghorn up ahead. Way cool. I don’t see all that many while out exploring, only while driving. Another time I was working at my bench in the casita and I heard some large animal sounds that I wasn’t familiar with. M&M sat up and looked out the window. Two young moose were briskly walking past the casita, not 40’ from us. I am so thankful for all these little occurrences that bring a smile to my face. Not a bad life.

After a couple weeks, I drove into Lander for supplies. I stopped at the Sleeping Bear RV park and campground for propane. The lady also let me use their laundromat, fill my Reliance water jugs and exchange some books. For an RV park, it was not all that bad, pretty laid back and the owner was very helpful and had answers for all my questions. Then I hit the new library in town for web access. Possibly the friendliest library I’ve been in. Afterwards I checked out Wild Iris mountain sports on Main St. My kind of place. Purchased a map of the Wind River range that showed a good deal more forest roads than the new (worthless) DeLorme. After picking up groceries and more wine, it was back to the mountains and a new camping spot.

So far the day had gone well. Now it no longer did. I had come across a neat spot while out mountain biking. It was back in less than two miles but pretty rocky in spots, with some steep dips, and a stream to cross. I drove in, digging trenches with the hitch jack in four or five places and bending the rear stabilizers and the angle iron that supports the holding tanks some more, keeping in low 4-wheel drive. Make a guess here? Yep, someone was in the spot. There was not anything else in the area that looked good to me so I drove back out, with more trenching and bending.

There was another spot a few miles away I had come across while out bikin’ so I drove there and stayed a couple weeks. I don’t like camping so near a road but it ended 100 yards farther along with a tight turn around at the border of the national forest. No vehicles came by other than a few porker carts. It had some good trails for running and biking. Well, there was at first. The second week a group of RVers set up a half mile back down the road. They spent a good deal of time out on the trails on their ATVs. The next time I went mountain biking, the hills were covered in loose rocks that they had churned up and turned the dirt to dust. That was fine in that it made the climbs more challenging but it looked like shi*t.
A couple of mornings I biked farther up the mountain looking for other camping spots and came across a few that would work but nothing stellar. There sure were a lot of vacant RVs parked out and about. It kind of rots when you find a nice spot out in a national forest and find a rig parked there and the owners only coming up on the weekends. Never been anywhere where it’s so prevalent.

There are way too many RVs dry camping up in the Wind River area. I came across quite a few clusters similar to this. One thing that’s good is that they don’t venture far in so they are not going to be in the places I like to camp. However, most of them have porker carts with them so they will be driving by my sites on their ATVs. Wonder if there will ever be an open season on them. These people have no idea of why campers go off to spend time in the Outdoors.

An evil god named Tabata came up with a way to make mere humans huff-and-puff and sweat. He used intervals consisting of 20 seconds of maximum intensity exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest. This cycle is repeated 8 times for a total of 4 minutes. And oh man, do they work. I use two various compound body-weight exercises (the more muscles and joints involved in a movement, the more caloric expenditure) for an 8 minute workout. It’s harder for me to do an 8-minute tabata than run for an hour and a half in the mountains. I try to do two during a workout. I’m working towards using 3 exercises for a 12-minute tabata and if I keep with it, maybe 4 for a 16-minute tabata, but that is probably beyond me. It’s hard to believe how effective this technique is for toning and limbering up and trimming down (and beatin’ the cr*p out of you). Cardio exercise, in general, is the best way to lose fat. The first few days that I tried tabata circuits with various exercises was SO discouraging but near the end of the second week I felt that, ‘Maybe I can do this.’
My first timed runs while in Chama this summer, on two favorite, pretty much constant uphill sections, were about 2 minutes and 5 minutes off last summer’s times. I was in Chama, running in the mountains for only a third of the time I was there last summer. After a couple weeks of tabata circuits, I beat my best times on running up these two hill stretches in the middle of my runs (one roughly 20 minutes and the other about 40 minutes). The tabata technique is a keeper.
There’s also, a nasty little device called the Gymboss. It was developed to prevent nice, gentle, fun-loving people from saying, “It can’t be 10 seconds already! I’ll wait a few more seconds before starting the ‘work’ phase of the cycle.” It’s a great unit that can be set for 2 intervals, work and rest, with a loud multiple beep or vibration going off after each. It can also be set for the number of cycles. After a couple days, I placed my Gymboss on a stump, backed off and shot it. I later came to realize I was being a wimp and ordered another one; they’re cheap. (^_^)

Meadow is always up for our daily walk. Even if she is inside sleeping, I’ll say, ‘Meadow, up for a walk?’ She’ll perk up, stretch, and come outside. Mesa also knows what the offer means but he doesn’t always want to go. He’ll tend to either stay and hang around the campsite or tag along for a while, then turn around and head back. He’ll be there when we wrap up our loop. It’s a treat when he chooses to go the whole way with us. He’ll always go the first couple times at a new spot to check it out, but then it’s like, been-there-done-that.

Presently I’m back in the Lander library posting this entry and doin’ the town thing. Then it’s back for another week in the Winds and on to Idaho with probably a resupply in Jackson. At least I have a ‘90’s edition of DeLorme for Idaho.

‘You have brains in your head, and feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.’ Dr. Seuss

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

bone marrow transplant

2011-07-12T10:52:00.001-07:00

One fall day a guy crashed his mountain bike up in the Wasatch Mountains outside of Park City, UT. A lower leg swelled up pretty bad from all the subsurface bleeding. He went to the doctor and was told to stay off the leg as much as possible and go to physical therapy to have all the dried blood worked out of the system. The following spring the same thing happened but the guy saw his regular doctor, who happened to be a friend, and told him that it was a pretty easy crash and the leg should not be lookin’ this bad. The doctor took a blood sample. Around 10:00 that night, the guy got a call from his doctor who apologized for calling so late but he knew his friend would likely be out the door at dawn. The doctor said, ‘It looks like you have leukemia.’ ‘What’s that mean?’ ‘Well, if you don’t do something about it, you’ll be dead within 3 years.’ The doctor knew he had to say something to get through to his friend or his friend would probably blow it off. The doctor had called down to the University of Utah medical center and set up an appointment for his friend the next morning to see a hematology/oncology specialist to confirm the diagnosis with a bone marrow biopsy. With a white blood count of 184, it was pretty much a given. And yep, it was.

Blood cancer (leukemia) starts with the nine/twenty-two translocation. One arm of the #9 chromosome breaks off along with an arm of the #22 chromosome, translocate, fuse on, and from that point on you’re screwed. The white blood cells are no longer able to fully develop before being released into the blood stream so they can’t do their job. The body tries to compensate by sending out more and more white cells, hence a count of nearly 200 as opposed to a normal count of 5. Not good. The white cells take up a lot of room so the other counts start going down. Like going from a hematocrit count of 47 down to 27 or lower. Does not do a whole lot for one’s energy level.

The doctors can keep you above ground for a couple of years with drugs but at some point one will need a bone marrow transplant. There’s no cure for blood cancer. Once the patient decides to go for it and a donor is found, the fun starts. There’s a week of intense total-body irradiation at mega doses (you have NO idea of the long-term effect of THAT procedure). It’s not the localized outpatient radiation treatments that are the norm. They take you 3 floors underground through a door thicker than a bank vault. You straddle a saddle and are strapped between four upright posts. Then everyone bolts, this huge door hydraulically closes and they watch you on video camera. This guy did this twice a day for a total of an hour and a half each day. Not the healthiest environment. Then there’s a week of mega chemo followed by a week trying to keep you alive while that stuff works its way out of the body. The treatment, hopefully, kills off all the leukemia cells. But then again, the body loses its ability to make blood. Not good. The patient receives liters and liters of blood over the next few months. This most assuredly brings on some concern.

All this also leads to losing one’s taste buds. Isn’t that cool? For a couple weeks food, and even water, is just plain unpalatable. Most patients just suck on ice cubes. When you feel like eating again, it’s not encouraging. Even applesauce tastes like cardboard. Juice is just as bad.

The lab takes out over a liter of bone marrow from the donor and by the time they work it down, the recipient gets only about 2 tablespoons. You’re layin’ there askin’, ‘You all sure that’s gonna be enough?’ Somehow these new cells know how to work their way into the bones and start reproducing. The new cells stick together when they touch one another and these small groups get larger and larger until they fill the bones. BUT there is something called GVHD (graft versus host disease). The incoming cells do not recognize the new body as host so they don’t start to graft and produce. Not good. Actually, there are a lot of ‘not good’s’ during this whole thing.

The transplant did not start off well for the doctor’s friend. Within 5 minutes they had shoved an oxygen hose up his nose and were packing him in ice. Not good. There followed the worst week of my life. Only time I ever contemplated doing myself in. I swear there was not one person on staff that would have bet a plug nickel on my chances of surviving for very long. I was in that room for a month and a half hooked up to IV bags through a Hickman line into my heart. The wall behind the bed was perforated with air blowing through it. My visitors had to stay downwind since I had no immune system whatsoever. They also had to wash their hands in the sink before coming past the curtain into my side of the room. Like where am?!
No access for me to running water for six weeks—no sink, no shower, no flushing toilet. And during this time, every muscle in my body atrophied. Talk about major setbacks.

One night one of the Hickman line clips opened and there I was sleeping with blood pumping out and soaking the bed. The wetness woke me up. That happened twice. Another ‘not good.’ I don’t mind waking up if I have to pee but … Two other nights I woke up with the IV line wrapped around my neck. I was having WAY too much fun.

I had friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and others visit me. There was not a whole lot of stimulation in the room (other than keeping track of how many times the helicopter landed outside my window each day) so I really listened to what people were saying. Ever realize how many canned statements, clichés we have in American English? Responses such as, ‘Everything will work out.’ Reassuring words sound so hollow when they don’t jive with reality. A friend suggested to me that I should desist from referring to them as ‘parrot responses’ or ‘knee jerk statements.’ Even though that is exactly how I look at them. But then again, my social skills are not near the top of the heap. Start to listen and you will hear dozens of them covering all kinds of topics. I REALLY came to dislike such statements. If a person does not want to take the time to come up with something on his own, words to make it meaningful and personal, he/she just grabs a canned one and throws it out. Thank the gods most of my friends knew better. At times I myself, don’t know what to say to someone. So, depending on the situation, I might say something like, ‘I don’t know what to say, but I care.’ Then the person at least knows I’m thoughtful enough to stop and think before speaking. Some people appreciate little things like that. Especially if they are lying there as close to death as they’ve ever been. One friend came in, looked at me and said, ‘You look like sh*t. Are you going to be around much longer?’ I loved it. Definitely got me laughing. Something I really needed for my health. Another said, ‘Are you on your way out? Can I have one of your motorcycles?’ Possibly the best gift I got while in there was laughter. However, being able to finally leave the room after a month and a half, sitting up in a wheelchair rather than rolled out under a sheet was also pretty cool.

I was planning to receive jukai from my zen teacher within a couple months after being released. One of the tasks to do beforehand, was to copy the lineage from Buddha down to my teacher on a parchment chart. I wanted it to look nice but my hands constantly shook from all the meds I was on. It took me a week to copy the eighty-something names of the patriarchs since I had trouble controlling the shakes after only a couple of names. One of life’s little curves. Then there was the rakusu, a short monk’s robe that came into fashion when monks first started to be persecuted (they could easily hide it). A person receiving jukai has to hand stitch one. There was no way the medical staff was going to let me work with scissors, straight pins and a needle when I did not have any platelets. Luckily my teacher gave permission for Genshin, a monk at the Kanzeon Zen Center, to make mine for me. The ceremony is generally performed in a group when a number of people are ready to receive. Since being in groups was definitely not a good place for me to be at the time, the ceremony was held in the zendo with only Genpo Roshi, Genshin, and me. Pretty cool. I still have problems following the precepts but at least it’s a stellar goal to strive for.

During the last week, a nurse asked if I wanted to go outside. I don’t think any child, even on Christmas morning, could have been more excited than I was at hearing that offer. So—on with the mask, into the wheelchair and out of the room. Yee-ha! After a bit I asked if I could try walking. Probably wasn’t too smart since my platelet count was like zero (doctors won’t even operate on a patient unless their count is at least 50). Surprisingly I got a yes. I managed to walk maybe 40 yards and was totally maxed. Thank the gods for wheelchairs.

When my time was near for me to leave the hospital, there was a problem. They were not pleased with my living situation so they moved me over to a medical apartment on campus for an additional two and a half months. FOUR MONTHS I was away from home. There had to be a caregiver with me every night. I did not cope well with that. I also wore an alarm on my wrist in case I had a problem during the day and couldn’t get to the phone, I could activate the alarm. What IS all this—shouldn’t I be out skiin’ up in the Wasatch?

Then I found out about the nails. Remember the intensive treatment prior to the transplant? Well, I learned the body stops making new material for toe and fingernails. BUT, the nails continue to grow out, with no new material following along behind or in from the sides. Not good. The back and sides of your nails start to look like the front, the edges become unsupported and they need to be clipped. Can you make a guess here? Yep, at some point you are going to catch an edge on something and the whole nail is going to rip off. Wakes you right up. One down, only nineteen to go! Never thought I’d be scared to take my socks off. This was all SO much fun.

Once the white cells started reproducing I was allowed to go into stores, as long as I wore a mask and went during off hours. With a white cell count of like ONE, I wasn’t about to argue with the restrictions. Talk about being isolated from society. You know when you walk into a store and employees ask if you need any help? If you are wearing a mask, forget it. It’s like you are invisible. One good thing about wearing the mask is when you are in a checkout line. You know how sometimes the person behind you crowds your space and is breathing down your neck? Not with the mask. People stand a good four feet behind you. It can be pretty humorous at times.

Nurses told me about BMT recipients who got through the procedure and then proceeded to bring about their own deaths. I think it was their way of saying, ‘Don’t be stupid.’ One guy went right back out into bars, smoking and not wearing his mask. He was dead in a couple weeks. Another went out golfing and got a real bad sunburn. This accelerated his GVHD to level 4 and he was dead in two weeks. I’ve had level 3 and man does that rot big time. Get to level 4 and you are probably going to die. Another survivor was just unfortunate. He went out pheasant hunting on his ATV, crashed and skinned his palms. He knew enough to clean them well but mold from the soil got into his system and he was dead within a month. Remember, one has no immune system during the months after a BMT.
This was how it was when I went through it. There have been numerous improvements to the procedure since then—stronger drugs, much shorter hospital stays and whatnot.

Another ‘not good’ was being weaned off the steroids and immuno-suppressants too quickly over the next nine months. GVHD flared up and they had to put me back on all the meds and start all over. I ended up on medical leave for two years. And yep, it was back to the mask. I get all tingly just reminiscing. (^_^)

One does not hear as much about bone marrow transplants as say, heart transplants. Not nearly as many adults make it through a BTM as through a heart transplant, which is pretty much a straightforward part replacement and one is out of the hospital within a week. They have a high success ratio with heart transplants. I was pretty healthy (well, except for the leukemia) when I went in for my BMT but my chances of getting through it and surviving the first year was only 29%. Not good. I talked with four heart transplant recipients over the years, sharing stories, and getting into some of the humor of it all. All four said they would rather go through another heart transplant rather than have a BMT. I agree. I sure would not want to go through one again. Some choose not to go through a BMT after they hear what it will be like. That’s a death sentence. I don’t know, I feel one should go for it. It sure isn’t pleasant but it sure is nice having a shot at staying above the ground.

Prior to making my decision to go ahead with the BMT (my doctor wanted me to wait), I talked to doctors, nurses, did extensive research on the web, and talked to three people who went through a BMT (one died within a year, another died in her second year, and I lost track of the third one. What’s even more sad, the two who died were both only in their 20’s and each had a small child.). After all this I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into. I came to find out I was clueless. No one mentioned the constant fear, among other things. Remember, one loses their immune system. You go out on a windy day, walk past a construction sight, smell the roses or sniff the cottage cheese to see if it is still good, and you breath in some mold spores, even common aspergillus, that you cannot even see—you’re dead within two or three weeks. A few years ago they did not have a way to deal with mold in the lungs. Now they do.

For months I had to make daily visits to the BMT clinic once they let me out of the BMT unit, getting my childhood immunization shots, more bone marrow biopsies, way too many chest x-rays, and whatnot. I walked in once and there were two other survivors sitting there. We were all bald, with a fat hump at the base of the neck and jowls from the steroids. I said, ‘We should rob a bank. If they put us in a lineup, no one could single us out since we all look the same.’ I thought it was funny but the two guys didn’t even smile. The nurses got a chuckle out of it, however. I tried my best to get the nurses laughing whenever I could. The stellar school where I was teaching let me take the laptop I was issued with me to the hospital so I was frequently checking out joke sites looking for stories I could tell the nurses.
After a couple weeks, I got off the elevator at the fourth floor and walked the two flights of stairs up to the fifth floor where the BMT clinic was. Thought I was gonna die. Man, it was tough gettin’ up those stairs. Over the next few months I kept working at getting off at lower floors. At each one it was like starting all over again. Every once in a while as I was struggling up the stairs, wearing my mask, huffing and puffing, pulling myself up with the hand rail, bent over like an old man with my eyelids drooping from exertion, someone on the hospital staff would pass me and say some words of encouragement. I thought that was pretty cool. At the end I was able to walk up from the ground floor with less effort than that first day when I got off on the fourth floor and struggled up those first two flights of stairs to the fifth.

I had to go down to the pulmonary lab a couple times to blow through the hoses. Even something as easy as that tired me out. One time they said they needed to draw some arterial blood. I’m thinkin’ no big thing. The blood lab was frequently drawing 4, 5, or 6 vials of my blood. This was when I learned there was a difference between drawing blood from a vein and drawing blood from an artery. A big difference. I’m talkin’ pain here—intense pain. Who would have thought? The tech told me this was going to hurt. That was my first clue that this would be different. He said a couple weeks ago someone started screaming in the lab and the staff all ran down the hall to the room where it was coming from. A lady was having some arterial blood drawn. This was not sounding good. He said, ‘Okay here we go. Try to stay relaxed.’ You can probably guess what I immediately did when he stuck the needle into a wrist artery. ‘Relax!’ How can it make so much difference between drawing blood out of an artery. Luckily I only had that done once. I learned later that day that no one had called for that test. All for nothing.

Then for the next two years I tried to cope with medical complications and depression. By then I was WAY lazy and unmotivated. Every once in a while I’d get psyched to begin exercising. That generally lasted less than a week and was followed by a couple months or more of living like a slug. This went on for a few years. I was in my fifties and SO out of shape that I had the mindset ‘it was hopeless.’ Almost all of us have areas in our lives that we’d like to change. Sometimes we go for months or years stuck with wanting to change, but never seeming to get off the ground. It rots. A push is needed. For me it might have been self-disgust. It finally started to sink in that I was the only one responsible for my days. I really did not want to waste yet another year so I finally started to make some progress. The sands only run one way.

Well, enough. I think you get the idea. But I just pointed out some of the highlights, there’s plenty more, like when they went to dig out the Hickman line that had been in my chest for over a year and a half (I needed to hook myself up to nightly IV bags).

July humor—Newly Weds

After this guy married, he ordered his wife to keep the house clean, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed, and hot meals on the table for every meal. The first day he could not see if any of this was done. The second day he still could not see if this was being done. But on the third day, some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, and his arm was healed enough that he could fix himself a sandwich and load the dishwasher.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. Charles A. Beard

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

Diana’s Sixty Minutes Sixty Years Challenge

2011-06-21T04:52:00.000-07:00

I posted a photo of a hike I took with Dave and Tim up Miller Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains back in March, the ‘back to Bisbee III entry.’ Well, here’s a photo of that section on mountains now. Dave emailed me the story and photo.
http://www.kvoa.com/full-coverage/monument-fire/
I forwarded it to Tim. He has plans to come back to the area next winter for mountain biking. Tim emailed back saying that Sandy, at Gray Hawk Nature Center where he volunteered last winter, has some evacuees camping there and a couple of her friends have lost their homes. I want to call Lynn to touch base and see what she has to say about it all. She has a friend who was evacuated. It’s pretty bad down there.

A comment from Diane on my ‘aging and disuse’ entry led me to her ‘Sixty Minutes Sixty Years’ blog.
(http://sixtyminutessixtyyears.blogspot.com)

Just before Diana turned 60, a WW challenge caught her eye—choose a goal in minutes of fitness-focused activity to work toward each month. She tweaked it a bit, relating it to turning 60 and making it more challenging—be active for 60 minutes each day for a total of 1800 minutes a month. Makes me feel like a wuss.

Studies show that being physically active may shave 10 years off one’s biological age. Then there’s the fact that regular exercise helps maintain joint function, reduce stiffness, and relieve fatigue. It helps relieve aching joints by strengthening the muscles that support them. All sounds good to me. Many of the supposedly unavoidable and debilitating physiological effects of aging are misguided and downright bogus. Being sedentary is much more of a risk factor for extreme declines in muscle mass, strength, flexibility and endurance than is simply getting on in years. Lack of exercise and a poor diet kills more people each year than does cancer. Studies had previously focused on sedentary older people. When more active older people were studied, the results contrasted with those previous studies. Why am I not surprised? It would be nice, at some point, if this data starts to sink in with people. More and more might start gettin’ off their butts, go out and give thanks for the body they were provided with and improve their health and quality of life.

I’m trying this challenge for the month of June, shooting for 1800 minutes. So far it is going well and I will enter minutes for the last few days the next time I have access to the web. I’m leaving Chama soon and will be working my way up through Colorado in July.

6/1 —105 minutes (80 trail run & 25 mtn biking to the trails and back)
6/2 —35 minutes (dumbbell walk with a pair of 10’s doing numerous exercises)
6/3 —90 minutes (30 working on quads, calves, & pecs and 60 pushing a mower)
6/4 —115 minutes (90 trail run & mtn biking to the trails)
6/5 —70 minutes (40 dumbbell walk w/10s and 30 pushing a mower)
6/6 —95 minutes (50 medicine ball & rim-rope exercises, & stretches and 45 pushing a mower)
6/7 —135 minutes (110 trail run & 25 mtn biking to the trails)
6/8 —60 minutes (medicine ball, tension-tubes, rim-rope & body weight exercises & stretches)
6/9 —60 minutes (ditto but different exercises for each)
6/10 —120 minutes (85 trail run, 25 mtn biking to the trails & 30 pushing a mower)
6/11 —100 minutes (35 dumbbell walk with a pair of 10’s, 50 pushing a mower, & 15 clipping around trees and rocks)
6/12 —45 minutes (mostly new bodyweight exercises)
6/13 —130 minutes (85 trail run & 25 mtn biking to the trails & 20 pushing mower)
6/14 —100 minutes (20 cardio circuit, 30 exercises & stretches and 50 mowing & raking)
6/15 —60 minutes (cardio circuits, exercises & stretches)
6/16 —95 minutes (70 trail run & 25 mtn biking)
6/17 —30 minutes (mow, rake, & clip)
6/18 —60 minutes (cardio circuits, exercises & stretches)
6/19 —115 minutes (90 trail run & 25 mtn biking)
6/20 —20 minutes (cardio circuits and exercises)
6/21 —70 minutes (cardio circuits, exercises & stretches)
6/22 —50 minutes (exercises and stretches)
6/23 —240 minutes (hiking)
6/24 —105 minutes (45 cardio circuits & exercises and 60 clipping, pushing a mower, & raking)
6/25 —0 minutes
6/26 —90 minutes (65 trail run & 25 mtn biking)
6/27 —70 minutes (exercises)
6/28 —0 minutes
6/29 —60 minutes (cardio circuits, exercises, & stretches)
6/30 —35 minutes (exercises – the gnats were WAY too aggressive!)

I made the active 1800 minutes challenge for June (it’s easy where I am house sitting) but missed baggin’ sixty minutes each day. It would be best for me to keep it up. I definitely have the time and all kinds of fitness-focused activities to fill it. I’m also not into harming myself so exercise is important to me. I should at least be able to swing 420 minutes a week if not 60 a day in July. We’ll see. I’m not optimistic. I tend to go in spurts. One thing that gives me a tad of hope is that one can generally break a bad habit or pick up a new one in thirty days, if one works at it every day.

Physical activity has a tremendous impact on every cell in the body, reducing inflammation, increasing blood flow, and in some cases even reversing the natural declines in oxygen efficiency.

I wish I kept the article so I could quote it. The gist of it was a nursing home in Florida started an easy exercise program with a group of boarders confined to wheelchairs. At the end of the program, nearly all of the participants were out of the wheelchairs and one even went into assisted living. It’s never too late to start working on one’s well-being.

People talk about all the freedom they’ll have after they retire but many end up living in bonds. Look around and listen to people to understand how they have let their body, due to neglect, restrict their life. Can’t quite see how that makes sense or why so many just take it as a given and live (?) like that. You can probably image how it goes if one of these people who are doing nothing to help themselves start whining at me.

Some days it’s tough to go out to give thanks and work on my well-being. Just getting outside sometimes is enough to get me started. I also have an iPod Nano loaded with upbeat tunes in a number of genres that I reserve for times when I’m doing something active. I put it on ‘shuffle’ so I never know what tune will play next. And once I’m up, outside and moving around, I’m generally good to go.

When one is thankful for the things he has, he shows it by taking care of them. It all starts with one’s body.

I have a doozy of an entry for July—informative, hopefully a bit inspiring, and somewhat humorous. The August entry will get back to the lifestyle. I’ll probably spend most of July in Colorado. There’s a tentative plan to meet up with a friend around Buena Vista for some hiking in a couple weeks and meet another in the Wind River area of Wyoming at the end of the month for some camping. Should all be new territory—backroads and traveling between the roads.

Some people count time, others make time count. Anonymous

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

short segment north through NM

2011-06-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

This will probably be the last year that I work my way north through New Mexico. I really don’t like driving through the middle third of the state and it’s not the kind of land that I enjoy camping in. I did manage to finally see Taos this year though. Now that is a town that I could live in. Or rather just outside of. Seems like a nice community and there is ready access to some awesome mountains. If I come back this way in October as I head south, I hope to spend some time there.

I knew it was a dry winter down here but it didn’t sink in until I stopped at some spots I visited in the past and found dry creek beds. Not good. They also started fire restrictions in the Gila’s in early April. Then elsewhere there is extensive flooding. Unreal.

Early one day I took Carson National Forest road 439 off rt518 and that could have been a big mistake. It was a fairly steep, narrow, rutty road cut into the hillside. About a mile up was a pipe gate with a ‘road closed’ sign on it. Luckily the gate was open. There was no place to turn around. It was early in the day so I decided to turn around in the meadow past the gate and try another forest road. It would have really rotted backing down that hill with the curves, ruts and a steep drop-off on the side. One of those times I wished the casita brakes worked in reverse. Nope, sure would not have enjoyed that.

Didn’t find any new stellar spots to camp this trip. Some okay spots that would no doubt satisfy most campers but I guess I’m getting too picky since I know what can be out there miles down dirt roads. There were five days where I only stopped for one night. Definitely not the norm. Have no idea what M&M were thinking, being put back in the Dodge each morning after they’ve been out and about for a couple hours. Had a 103 mile day, a 141 (pretty much my max. It’s not like I have the RVer’s mindset.), a 43 mile and a 44 mile (real nice), a 57 mile, and a horrendous 291 mile day. I would definitely bag this lifestyle if that were the norm. RVers take days like that in stride and most do quite a bit more. Hell on earth. Wonder what I’ll come across up in Idaho and Montana this summer.

I enjoyed spending time in the Carson forest west of Taos. Probably would be too many people for me during the summers. Dug my longbow and judo-pointed arrows out and went off huntin’ Ponderosa pine cones. Had some good late afternoon walks with M&M. I swear wind through Ponderosa has a unique sound. Could be wrong but I sure seem to recognize it. I love it. Like the sound of a raven’s wing-beat is so recognizable.

Back in Chama, NM for some house sitting and running in the mountains. Sure enjoyed it here last summer. Looks like I’ll be continuing on north the last week in June. Sure hope I can find a place to squirrel-away in Colorado for the Fourth of July weekend. Stopped in to see Paul at Three Ravens Coffee House in Tierra Amarilla (December 2009 entry) on the way into town. Definitely like that place. M&M flushed a duck on one of our walks and I walked over to look. Tried six times to get a useable focus on her eggs but did not succeed. One day I saw a hummingbird so I went into town for a bag of sugar. One morning the water was froze solid. Birds came over and it was like, ‘What the …’

Here’s the contingent from the house in Chama out on one of our walks.

It seems strange that so many people who move out to the country, bring along their suburban mindset—outside night lights, symmetric planting of shrubs and trees, extensive mowed lawns and whatnot. Many move out to the country for a more laidback lifestyle. Yep, that goes along with spending close to two hours a week maintaining a lawn. I guess I have a more bohemian outlook on it—natural ground cover, native plants, xeriscape, just let it be, etc. Or maybe winding paths, the width of a mower, through the tall grass and open mowed ‘islands’ with a bench, a couple chairs, a sculpture, or an arrangement of rocks or stumps—something zen-like, maybe paths for kinhin. I can understand a small section of cut grass if one is actually going to use it for various activities. But for aesthetics?! Guess I don’t have that status quo ring in my nose and I most assuredly would prefer to be doing something else, week after week, month after month, year after year. As some get along in years, they begin to simplify their life by cutting down on possessions and activities that take up their time, things they ‘have to do.’ Seems to make sense.
Simple living encompasses just about all aspects of life—how one cooks, entertains, decorates, vacations, use their time, look at life and on-and-on. Some even use the concept with friends, choosing to have a few close friends rather than many. The ‘many’ tend to be more like ‘acquaintances’. One does not have to scale down to a small dwelling with few possession. There are people into simple living who live in huge lofts in New York City and San Francisco. It’s a mindset that leads to a sense of being free and all that comes with it.

June humor—what a woman finds attractive in a man

A study conducted by Tulane's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that the kind of face a woman finds attractive on a man can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle.

For example: If she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features.
However, if she is menstruating, or menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with duct tape over his mouth and a spear lodged in his chest while he is on fire.

No further studies are expected.

Things work out best for those who make the best
of the way things work out.

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

aging and disuse

2011-05-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

Aging is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we dread growing old, thinking it a time of forgetfulness and physical deterioration, then it is likely to be just that. On the other hand, if we expect to be full of energy and anticipate that our lives will be rich with new adventures and insights, then that is the likely reality. We prescribe who we are and what we are to become. Most, however, don’t question their perceptions of old age. Research shows that almost everything we have thought about growing old has been misleading. What we once considered to be marks of aging, we now know are the results of disuse or disease.

Nutrition is a key factor enabling healthy aging. It affects the way we look, feel and act. Do you really care about your well-being? Are you truly interested in nurturing your body? The food we eat can make the difference between ending the day with a feeling of freshness and zest or fatigue and exhaustion. We tend to eat too much of what we don’t need, and not enough of what we do need. As the body slows down, we need fewer calories than when we were younger. But we also need at least as many vitamins and minerals as before so choose a varied diet of nutritious foods, possibly lower on the food chain.

An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled ‘Disuse and Aging’, briefly stated, if you make a list of all the changes in the human body that are ascribed to aging—changes in the muscles, bones, brain, cholesterol, blood pressure, sleep habits, sexual performance, psychological whatnot, and so forth—and then make a similar list of changes due to physical inactivity, you will notice a surprising similarity between the two lists. The near duplication of the lists shows that many of the bodily changes we have always ascribed to the normal aging process are in fact cause by disuse. Geez Louise—they needed a STUDY to figure this out?! Simple observation and common sense should be enough to tell one something so obvious.

Evidence suggests that exercising regularly during middle age and beyond is an enormously effective way to promote just the sort of age boomers dream about—independent, robust and fee of chronic disease or disability. But one sure does not see much of this. If you had to pick one thing, one single thing that comes closest to the fountain of youth, then it would have to be exercise. It improves muscle tone, strength, flexibility, bone density, reaction time, clear thinking, and susceptibility to depression. Exercise improves the quality of your life. But how many older people do you see out there in the mornings exercising?

The sedentary life style of older people develops sedentary bodies that are ripe for degenerative diseases. The bottom line, reflected in dozens of studies, is that people who exercise, on average, live longer than those who don’t, with a reduced chance of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, type 2 diabetes, colon and breast cancers, depression, falls and even mental decline. Exercise seems to be one of the key factors that distinguish people who have a healthy old age from those who don’t. Being sedentary is a known risk factor for just about every poor health outcome. But, it just does not sink in. One just needs to get past being lazy and unmotivated.

One key aspect of exercise is the benefits of cardiovascular (aerobic) exercise. It goes beyond improving heart health. Regular cardio exercise may help fight many of the above problems and it boosts your energy and can help you sleep better. Most of the physiological systems in your body are favorably affected by cardiovascular exercise. If you are sedentary, just going for a daily walk will greatly improve your general health as well as your physical fitness. Work up to walking a mile in less than 20 minutes and then shoot for two miles. This is not merely a stroll—it is a brisk pace. Strolls don’t cut it.

Move it or lose it—flexibility is the key to vitality. How flexible are you? Can you look over your shoulder when backing up a car? Is it easy to get down on the floor to play with a child or pet? If you drop something on the floor, can you comfortably pick it up? From standing, roll down, letting your neck release so you head droops completely—can you touch your toes?
Though some tightening is inevitable over the years, there is a reliable way to keep the spring in your step—cultivate suppleness. It’s not just the capacity to touch your toes; it’s muscular freedom, the ability to flex and extend—something we would love to have as we get older. Most choose not to work at it, however. Those are the ones whining about how stiff they are. Well, duh! What it comes down to is—flexibility is the ability to move.

Stretching has one immediate result—as any cat knows, a slow stretch releases tension. When done properly, stretching helps reduce pain and stiffness and maintains flexibility as muscles and tendons tighten with disuse (some call it ‘aging’). It loosens the muscles and allows you a fuller range of motion.
Regular stretching that is treated as its own workout (not just at the end of exercise) also helps maintain or return flexibility that has declined with inactivity. The age-related stiffening (also called ‘disuse’) makes everything from standing up straight to getting out of bed harder. Stretching is the way to do something about it. Lost flexibility is a particular problem for older people, because inflexibility is linked to poor balance and an increased risk of dangerous falls.
Stretch just to the point of tension, then pausing for 30 seconds eases the tightening. Over time this lengthening and loosening increases the range of motion, the distance muscles and tendons can extend without injury or pain.

Of the three cornerstones of fitness—cardiovascular health, muscle strength, and flexibility—stretching earns the simplicity title hands down, and it gets the blue ribbon as the one activity most likely to prevent injury and extend a person’s active life. A good stretch can be had almost anywhere, anytime, with no special equipment or clothing. Could there be a simpler workout? BUT if your experience is like mine—the first month is going to be extremely humbling.

Improving your fitness habits is absolutely the key to independence and having some control of your life as you get up there in years. The recurring, science-proven theme in extending your life span and staying healthy is maintaining a regular exercise routine. NOT magic pills or potions or costly body-cleansing rituals. These last few options are quite popular however, probably due to the fact that they don’t take any effort. Hey, just continue to be delusional and pop another pill.

The kind of activities that lead to health grow from understanding and appreciation rather than from a grim sense of duty. It should not be sheer willpower and obligation that gets you out the door in the morning to exercise. Benefits to the body and spirit would be somewhat restricted. You would also be missing the point of a healthy lifestyle.

There’s a term, ‘self-efficacy’. That might be what aging is all about. It means maintaining competency, mastery, autonomy, independence. If, as we grow older, we give in to the opposite—dependency, incompetency and failure—we diminish the quality of our lives. Our aging is in our own hands. It is no one else’s responsibility. If we depend on our doctors, our families, our government or our companies to ensure its adequacy, we must accept whatever future they guide us to, and we risk compromising the quality of our lives. On the other hand, if we take charge of our lives, we can ensure that our future years are independent and active. We can actually LIVE our whole lives. Healthful living demands healthful life styles.

Remember—the ball is in your court. Pick it up.

I couldn’t decide which way to close. So…

It's never too late, in fiction or in life, to revise.andIf you do not change direction, you may end up where you are headed.

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

the new turning radius, M&M out of the cage,cookes peak and rattles

2011-04-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

I’m missing the Cherokee’s turning radius. At times, I go into another never-ending, ground-eating, horrendous U-turn with the Dodge and wonder if I will come out of the turn in the same county. If I start into a U-turn in the afternoon, sometimes I speed up a bit so the turn is completed before dark. I also glance at the fuel gauge before going into a U-turn to be sure I will have enough gas to get me through the turn. I look into the driver’s mirror from time-to-time and see the back of the pickup tracking slowly behind, ‘bout a quarter mile back. I swear I could pull a U-turn with the Cherokee pulling the casita in the distance I could spit. Sure do miss the old turning radius. Already got into some trouble out in the sticks. Oh well.

I was standing there one day looking at this behemoth next to the casita and went to get a tape measure. It seems I live in a box—my HOUSE—that measures less than 14 feet long. I tow it with a vehicle that is—20 feet long. Is there something wrong here? Maybe it is time to move up to a 19 foot Airstream Bambi.

I got a late start out of Bisbee and when we got to the place I wanted to camp, it was dark so I didn’t let M&M out. They must have really been wondering what was goin’ on—‘Three weeks being kept inside, except for the window cage and now we get out to the desert—and we get carried from the pickup back into the casita?!’ After I let them out the next morning, I rarely saw them for the entire day.

Took my mountain bike into the Gila Hike and Bike in Silver City, where I purchased it, for its annual tune-up. I can never seem to tune it as well during the year. Oh well. It came out of the shop SO clean that I almost didn’t want to take it out on the dirt trails. Saw a REALLY NICE Trek in the shop for only $700. I’d really like one with 29” wheels, though, but they go for twice that. Sure wish I needed a new bike.
It was the week before the annual Tour of the Gila’s and they had some impressive road racing bicycles in the shop. Those bikes only weigh 15 pounds. Many of the pro racing bikes go for $15,000 and some go for over $30,000. That’s when it is nice to have a sponsor.
There was a type of bike in the shop that I hadn’t seen before. The tires were the size of motorcycle tires. I asked about it and the bike was designed for the Iditabike Race up in Alaska. The owner of this bike got it for riding the sand down in Baja. It’s an eye-catcher.

Lost the weight I put on with all the eating out and wine while in Bisbee. Also took a good look at some of my staples and cut two high-fat ones out of my diet. Definitely will take some getting use to not having them around to eat but it’s not like I need extra fat in my diet. Health or comfort—not much of a choice once I stopped to think, especially as I get older.

I accidentally shorted out part of the 12V system in the casita so I took it into Lowry RV Sales and Service in Silver City. They also cleaned up the propane igniter assembly for the fridge. They quickly had the work done and it only cost $45. Jimmy’s RV Service down in Deming is well known for doing good work but he was backed up nearly a month.

Went hiking up Cookes Peak one day with Tim. If you are in the area, it’s worth doing. Take rt26 to just past mm 14 (heading east). Turn left onto Cookes Canyon Rd (there’s a huge water tank there on the south side of 26). You’ll eventually see an abandoned town or ranch. There is a stone column and a pull-out on the right. Park there (32˚ 31.494’ 107˚ 40.401’). Continue to walk up the road 200 yards and hike up the road on the left towards the town. At the tailings, hike cross-country to the notch in the mountains on the other side of the hills. It might be best to hike over the hills on the right side. Once in the notch, you’ll see a windmill. The singletrack starts just past it on the right. This guy with the rattles was waiting for us up the trail a bit. That's the trail just to the left of him. He did NOT want to move and it was in a place where we could not just make a loop around him. I wanted to get a closer shot but as I was moving in, I thought that getting closer to a coiled pissed-off rattler while looking through a viewfinder was maybe not too smart.

I stopped about 20 minutes short of the peak. I can’t trust my balance so there was no way I wanted to climb up the rock face, let alone climb down it. I sat down under a tree and read a paperback until Tim climbed back down. Tim’s dog, Abby, took a snooze. Plan 6 or 7 hours for the hike.

I was REALLY chomping at the bits for some isolated camping. Managed to get some in towards the end of the month. The second photo reminds me of one posted during last summer’s house-sitting stint. The felines travel well but being the first time in a while on rough roads seemed to have Meadow a bit upset. We were really bouncing around for a couple miles on an unimproved road when Meadow got up and jumped into the litter box and upchucked a couple times. Luckily we only had another half mile to go before I could let her out while I set up camp. First time that happened. No problem on the way out.
I know the exposure is WAY poor but that’s M&M checkin’ out the free range cows one morning. Nice spot. Plenty of rough roads for mountain bikin’.

April humor—Christian or thief
The light turned yellow and the driver slowed down and stopped rather than try to beat the light.
The tailgating woman behind him was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup.
As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window. A police officer ordered her to get out of the car and put her hands up. He took her to the station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.
After a coupe of hours, a policeman came by, opened the door, and took her back to the booking desk where her personal effects were returned to her.
“Sorry for the mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the “What Would Jesus Do?” bumper sticker, the “Choose Life” license plate holder, the “Follow Me to Sunday School” bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, so naturally—I assumed you had stolen the car.”

I found this listed with jokes but it kinda rings true. Some of the most unChrist-like and intolerant people I have come across in my adult life have professed to be religious. Then again, there are others who actually practice what they preach.

May the waters from the snowy mountains bring
health and peace to all people.
May the spring waters bring calm to you…
and may the rains be a source of tranquility to all.
Atharva Veda, circa 200 BCE

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

back to bisbee IIImucho eating, stuffed and stoned,independent ladies, honk and holler, andno F150

2011-03-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

Made my annual pilgrimage back to Bisbee. Stayed three weeks at my friend Lynn’s place. Went out for more meals than I will for the rest of the year. We hit our favorites: Café Roka, Screaming Banshee, Bisbee Breakfast Club, and the Turquoise Valley café down in Naco. A new restaurant, Poco, opened up in Peddler’s Alley. We went there twice. Good food and some nice wines.

I asked Lynn if I could take a bath, ‘I haven’t had one for a year.’ She said, ’You probably need one.’ Sounds kind of strange but I just don’t get opportunities to take baths with this lifestyle and I sure miss them. I’ll be back to the Sun Shower bag by the end of next month.

Got back to taking Lynn’s dog, Chica, on morning walks over in Old Bisbee and the Mules. We either walk up 1,200 stairs or so and go down a few hundred more or do a few hundred stairs and then go off on the trails in the Mule Mtns. above town. One morning Tim Davis (a volunteer I met last year at C of R) met us with his dog Abby. That excursion took us 3 hours. The dogs sure had a good time! Tim and his wife are volunteering at the Gray Hawk Nature Center along the San Pedro River this winter.

I pulled my silverwork out of the two stores that were carrying my work and placed it in Jewelry Designs by Owen (http://www.jewelrydesignsbyowen.com). Best jewelry shop in Bisbee and David has his bench set up in the back. They already sold one of my pieces!

I was in town for the second Saturday in March so Lynn and I went on the gallery walk. Some nice stuff out there. First time I saw examples of high dynamic range photography. I know, I know, I’m way out of touch. It’s an eye catcher. Sort of a cross between a painting and a photo. I like it. I even liked a few of the photo surrealism pieces. I filled out raffle tickets at two of the galleries and guess who won? THAT was a pleasant surprise.

Jon Wick used to have a jewelry store in Bisbee and did some stellar work. Now he is making custom knives. I stopped at his shop and checked out the steel he was forging for Damascus blades. I knew it was time intensive but I had no true idea of just how much work it takes to make up the blanks. Then you still have to cross cut the bars and forge the blade. Jon also puts a lot of thought into the tang and handle designs. Each knife is a functional work of art. http://www.jpwickbladeworks.com

Lynn made me get a carbon monoxide alarm. I had been procrastinating for a few years. Could be a lifesaver. She also had some pet resistant screening left over so I had the screen door on the casita replaced with it. Onyx sure had trashed the old screening.
I finally got a chance to watch Avatar on DVD. What a stellar movie. THOUROUGHLY enjoyed it. Have to get a copy at some point.

I recently read ‘The Honk and Holler Opening Soon’ by Billie Letts. Letts is a masterful storyteller and I thoroughly enjoyed the storyline, setting, and characters. Definitely a memorable read.

Got in a couple hikes with David Owen—one up to China Peak in the Dragoons and the other up Miller Canyon in the Huachuca Mtns. Tim did the Miller Canyon one with us and he brought Abby since I had Chica along for that one. Definitely was ready for a beer after each of those hikes.

Meadow and Mesa had to stay in the casita for these three weeks. Mesa practically lived out in the window cage. When we get to New Mexico on the first, I’m sure I won’t see them for hours. I gave them catnip and some canned food every day. Stoned and stuffed seems to work.

Lynn took me to see two places that friends had built down along Border Road (the fence is pretty close). These are two pretty independent ladies. Cynthia used bricks for her buildings and Patty used straw bales. I was quite impressed with both places.

Check out this link that Barb and Jim sent me from Canada. It’s about frazil ice in Yosemite—pretty cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V9p4mFEYXc

Well, I didn’t end up with a ’04 Ford F150, short bed with a 5.4L engine. I ended up with a ’04 Dodge Ram with a long bed and a 5.7 Hemi engine, 4wheel drive (a MUST) and tow package. Quite a bit more truck than I wanted but it was $4500 under Kelly Blue Book ($11,700), came with a 30-day warranty and had been well maintained. I’ve been in places to camp up spur roads in national forests that in no way could I have gotten in there with this Dodge. So it is going to be somewhat restrictive to the places I’ll be able to access but maybe with the extra power I’ll be able to get to other places where I couldn’t have gotten into with the Jeep. We’ll see. Doesn’t really matter since this truck is what I have to work with. All those who stick to campgrounds and graded roads have it much easier. But they miss all that I experience with the way I do it.

On the way home from the dealer, I pulled out to pass a car just to see what kind of power the Dodge had. Thought there must be dilithium crystals under the hood and I was going into warp drive. QUITE a change from the Cherokee. Though I am pretty surprised at how much I feel the casita when towing. Didn’t really expect that.

I looked at my pocket day planner and got a chuckle. I had marked April 1 as the day to set my watch ahead. The day I drive out of Arizona.

March humor—mating and peanuts
Staring at an empty cage, a zoo visitor asks, "Where are all the monkeys?"
"It's mating season," the keeper replies. "They're inside."
"Do you think they'd come out for peanuts?"
"Would you?"

Here’s a classic—‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head
when all about you men are losing theirs
and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
but make allowances for their doubting, too.
If you can wait but not be tired of waiting,
or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise,
If you can dream but not make dreams your master,
if you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with triumph and disaster,
and treat those two imposters just the same,
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
and stoop and build them up with worn-out tools,
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
and lose and start again at your beginnings
and never breathe a word about your loss,
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
to serve your turn long after they are gone,
and to hold on when there is nothing in you
but the will that says to them "hold on,"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
or walk with kings nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
if all men count with you but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
with 60 seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
and which is more, you'll be a man, my son.

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

flats, shoot the pilot, cold spell,and a 20 year old Cherokee

2011-02-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

Only had 56 days with electric hookups this winter. I wouldn’t have minded a few more days during the cold spell earlier in the month though.

Had a really good ride one day on my Gary Fisher. Had so much energy I felt like finding a phone booth and making like the man. No phone booths though. So I continued on and eventually started to slow down as I got tired and finished up at a much more subdued ‘Clark Kent’ pace. Guano.

Another day I, once again, fell off my bike. I ended up on my back and rolled onto my butt. When I got back to camp and went to change clothes, I patted my back pockets to see if I had anything in them. Can you make a guess here? Yep, there were prickles on my butt pockets. These then transferred to my hands. I hate riding in the desert.
One day I rode a few miles on a double track where apparently all kinds of burrs had settled. When I got back to camp I brushed off all the spiky things I could find. Didn’t help. After a bit I looked at the bike and both tires were flat. Guano. Broke down and started buying Slime tubes for my bike. I was picking up thorns on almost every ride and was going through a lot of tubes. The new tubes seem to be helping but $8 a shot seems a bit much. I pull the thorns out after each ride and the tubes seem to seal up. We’ll see. I HATE riding in the desert.

I was doing my laundry up in Silver City one day and who walks in?—my friend James from Rodeo, who got me into RC electric sailplanes. My first inclination was to shoot him—but lately I’ve been working on restraint. I have not attempted to fly in months. Whenever I do—the inevitable crash costs me money. Looks like James will come up to City of Rocks for a few days to fly or I’ll stop in Rodeo on my way down to Bisbee in March. I’m thinkin’ of leaving the Radian in Bisbee for the year. I could use the saved ‘crash’ money for some bottles of wine.

The Cherokee turned 20 years old and I think he’s telling me that he’s had enough of towing a trailer. It quit on me two times within a month and had to be towed. One time, as luck would have it, there was no cell phone coverage in the area. Well, I just have to get to Bisbee in a couple of weeks. THREE times the Jeep had been up on a flatbed with the casita being towed and each time I forgot to get a photo. Sure hope I don’t get another opportunity.

A real cold spell came through southern NM while I was dry camping. Minus 6 one night and minus 1 the next; then it warmed up to the single digits. Two days it only got up into the teens and with the wind, the chill factor hovered just below zero. One day two windows in the casita retained interior ice throughout the whole day. Unfortunately, I was getting a cold just before the fronts hit—sore throat, congestion, runny nose, headaches, chills, fever, unable to get much sleep—a whole lot of fun in sub zero temps without an electric hookup. It’s probably been close to fifteen years since I’ve been sick. Luckily one day an RVer stopped by to see if I needed anything from town. Rick filled a propane tank for me and picked up some cold meds. A real life saver. Rick and Linda are from Massachusetts and they have 100 acres in Maine. They’re out on the road for 7 months. They’re out on the road for 7 months. Linda showed me a pine needle basket she made from Ponderosa needles. Pretty cool.
Actually kept the Wave 3000 on for two days and nights. NEVER did anything like that before. Went through a tank of propane in less than a week. NEVER went through a tank so quickly. I generally get two weeks out of a tank in winter and nearly a month in summer.
It gets better. One morning Paul and Rick, two of the rangers, stopped by and said the water system was down in the campground. So the next day I’m out there shampooing my hair with the sun shower bag. At least it had warmed up to near freezing. Sure lookin’ forward to summer.

February humor—another oldie and still one of my favorites. How to wash the cat.

Dear cat owner,

Thoroughly clean the toilet. Add the required amount of shampoo to the toilet water, and have both lids lifted. Obtain the cat and soothe him while you carry him towards the bathroom.

In one smooth movement, put the cat in the toilet and close both lids (you may need to stand on the lid so that the cat cannot escape).

CAUTION! Do not get any part of your body too close to the edge, as his paws will be reaching out for anything they can find.

Flush the toilet three or four times. This provides a "power wash and rinse" which I have found to be quite effective.

Have someone open the door to the outside and ensure that there are no people between the toilet and the outside door.

Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids. The now-clean cat will rocket out of the toilet, and run outside where he will dry himself.

Sincerely,
The DOG

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
Cicero

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
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tally, between the roads, radio classics,what to write, and the bricklayer

2011-01-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

I’ve been keeping my eyes open for ‘Pink’ ever since my friend Cathy brought me a bottle a year and a half ago up in Utah. It’s an Australian sparkling wine by Yellowglen. For the solstice, I was looking for a bottle of Bordeaux. Didn’t find one. BUT, there on the shelf was a bottle of Pink. The gods must be telling me I’ve mostly done good this past year. On my favorite day of the year, the Earth’s New Year (and summer is coming!), I come across my elusive wine. That night I bundled up, got a small fire going in my steel feed pan, read a good book by headlamp, and sipped two glasses of Pink. As I told students in my silversmith classes—SIG, Simple is Good.

Living expenses went over $10,000 again last year. Guano. Life’s getting expensive. By only a few hundred, though. Not too bad. If I nixed the money I put into electric sailplanes and cut out imported beer I could have been under $10,000. Fat chance—quality of life and all that. I did overspend on groceries, however. That is SUCH a waste (literally).
Next year I start collecting social security! That’s going to be a treat. At one point I wanted to find out exactly what it was costing to live a life out in Nature. I only go into a town one day a week at most and generally only once every two weeks and sometimes closer to three. It’s no big thing to take the receipts out of my pocket when I get back to camp and write down amounts in the columns of my road notebook—two or three minutes work. It’s not like it’s a chore. What’s important to me is that I don’t have a feeling of sacrifice or doing without. Probably because I have so many interests. And if any require equipment, I already have it. Well, except for replacement parts for my Radian that I am always crashing. Most of my interests revolve around something physical so there’s incentive to stay in reasonable shape so I can do them. So far, so good.

Only racked up 6,500 miles on the Cherokee but I wore out two pairs of running shoes and put a good deal of wear on my Keen hiking boots (FABULOUS brand). Only went through three tires on my mountain bike (wimp year). I have no interest in traveling the roads. Any butt-voyeur can do that. I want to travel between the roads. I want to see what’s over the hill, along the creek, up the canyon, along the ridge. Different mindset. That’s another reason why I don’t think or act like people my age. I’d start to look like them and not be able to do the type of traveling that I presently live for.

Sure has been warmer down here this winter than last. Only had five or six nights down in the teens while dry camping and none in the single digits (that’s a first). Generally it’s only down in the 20’s and 30’s. Makes it kinda easy. Don’t generally need a jacket if out hiking since it warms up so much. But it’s going to take two or three of these winters to make for last winter. Glad I’m not in other parts of the country.

I read ‘Accordion Crimes’ by Annie Proulx a while back. What a stellar writer! She won a Pulitzer Prize for her ‘Shipping News’.
Last month I came across a thrift store with 25 cent paperbacks. Picked up 4 dozen. Those will take me through next summer and I’ll be passing them onto others as I finish reading them. Books are made to move from person to person. I rarely come across these 25cent places so I scoff up quite a few books whenever I do. Most times these 25cent places have their books sitting there for months or years since the books have been pretty well picked through and all the good books are gone. I’ve lucked out with the last two places I’ve come across. They both had fabulous selections due to constant book donations.

Listening to old radio classics on Sirius especially while camping off the grid is SO cool: the Green Hornet, Sam Spade, Johnny Dollar, Nero Wolf, the Shadow, Hopalong Cassidy, Have Gun will Travel, Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, and quite a few more. I’m generally not able to listen during the summer since I always camp under trees. Almost makes me look forward to winter. Many of these radio stars lived into their 80’s and 90’s and some are still alive. I think that’s pretty cool.
For music I generally listen to ‘The Coffee House’—really nice selection of tunes. From time to time I switch to ‘Classic Vinyl’. Oh man—Emerson Lake & Palmer, the Allman Brothers, Traffic, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence, Cream, Jethro Tull, Joe Cocker, Fleetwood Mac—some good old sounds.

Even living the ‘simple life’ with so little, each year I give away some of what I have. It seems the less I have, the less I think I need or want. Not exactly how it generally works but at this point it sure feels natural to me. The less I have, the more enjoyment and chuckles I seem to get from simple, common everyday things and occurrences. Not bad.

Been having some great walks with Meadow and Mesa. One place we camped for a few days had two slot canyons where we meandered for close to an hour each day.

Like most months, I have no idea what I will write about next month. I can’t live much more simple than I do now. I shouldn’t have something to post each month. Am I just becoming more observant and thoughtful than when I was living a more ‘normal’ lifestyle—with the daily stimulus overload? I also take a friend’s idea to heart, ‘If one does not learn something new from time to time—you might as well be dead.’ (remember she is in her 80’s). Maybe I’ll just end up posting another ‘outwalkin’’ photo and the February humor piece.

January humor—I probably came across this piece 20 years ago and it’s still one of my favorites. As you can see there are two spaces after each period from back when it was first uploaded by someone using typewriter skills. OLD!

“Gentlemen:

I am writing in response to your request for additional information in block #3 of the accident reporting form. I put "poor planning" as the cause of my accident. You said in your letter that I should explain more fully and I trust that the following details will be sufficient.

I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I completed my work, I discovered that I had about 500 pounds of bricks left over. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel using a pulley, which was attached to the side of the building at the sixth floor.

Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out and loaded the bricks into it. Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow descent of the 500 pounds of bricks. You will note in block #11 of the reporting form that my weight is 155 pounds.

Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rather rapid rate up the side of the building.

In the vicinity of the third floor I met the barrel which was now proceeding in a downward direction at an equally impressive rate of speed. This explains the fractured skull, minor abrasions and the broken collarbone, as listed in section 111 of the accident reporting form.

Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley which I mentioned in paragraph #2 of this correspondence.

Fortunately, by this time, I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope, in spite of the excruciating pain I was now beginning to experience.

At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground- and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Now devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel now weighed approximately 50 pounds.

I again refer to my weight in block #11. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building.

In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, broken tooth, the severe lacerations of my legs and lower body.

Here my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell onto the pile of bricks and, fortunately, only three vertebrae were cracked.

I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the pile of bricks in pain, unable to move and watching the empty barrel six stories above me, I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the rope.

Sincerely,
Policy #XYZ 23456”

I know, I know, my sense of humor is questionable.

The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more,
but in developing the capacity to enjoy less. Socrates

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

campgrounds

2010-12-07T10:58:00.000-08:00

I had the misfortune of spending a few days in a campground this past summer. I wanted to stay in an area but it was all primarily private land. Guano. After a day I probably knew the names of all the dogs and children in the nearby sites with having met only a few. Unreal.

Since I enjoy isolated camping out on public land so much, it really seems strange to me that I don’t seem to mind campgrounds during the winter months—until this year. I’m having trouble adjusting to the confinement of a campground and the rules. I’ve been feeling boxed in and I have to be more concerned about M&M when we are around campers and RVers. Even my activities are limited. Might need to come up with something else for the winters. These transient communities aren’t really my thing. But then there’s the wimp factor—I appreciate having access to indoor hot showers in the winter (although they are not really all that hot). The sun-shower bag has been working fine for me eight months out of the year. But there have been a few times when I thought I might as well join a polar bear club. Took my last sun shower for the year on November 24.

I stay in the less popular state parks where there are fewer rigs than in the parks along interstates. Some of these parks are almost empty and all the ones I visit are rarely close to being full. Campers don’t tend to be out in the winter; there are a few but it’s generally all RVs. Even with a number of rigs in a park, it feels pretty empty since RVers tend to stay inside their rigs rather than be out hiking around exploring and with the colder temps and winds, people don’t tend to sit outside by a fire in the evening so at least it’s pretty quiet. I enjoy going for walks after dark but the exterior lights on the RVs kind of put a damper on experiencing the full enjoyment of the night sky. I’m already looking forward to getting back in the mountains. I go off for a week of dry camping out on public land once a month and this is somewhat helpful. Well—summer’s coming.

Once I start to head north until sometime in November—forget campgrounds. Granted there are a lot of nice campgrounds out there, particularly some of the primitive ones miles up forest roads. But in campgrounds there are campers—so wildlife will be scarce. There can also be dogs running loose, children and adults walking through your campsite, people calling out to their dogs and children, noise after quiet hours, loud music during the day (even when camping next to a bubbling creek!), generators, chain saws, trash, and I think I’ll just stop here. On the whole, many ‘campers’ do not seem to have a grasp of basic campground etiquette or any appreciation of being out in Nature. Granted, one is outdoors—but not what I consider being out in Nature. When I step outside in the mornings, I don’t want to see other rigs—I want to hear sounds of nature and see wildlife. I want to take in the local flora and splendid views. For me, these are the sights-to-see. I go the mountains to feel a contentment that only Nature can bestow. That’s why I live this lifestyle. One can’t get that in a campground.

December Night Sky—these stars mark the location of a special spiral object. It is so distant that we can’t see anything farther away. The light from it is over 2,200,000 years old. Guess? She is the daughter of a King and Queen who spin around the North Star. Guess? According to Greek myths, Andromeda, daughter of Queen Cassiopeia and King Cepheus, was a very good lookin’ princess and her mother bragged about this a lot. This angered the gods so Andromeda was chained to the rocks and left there for the monsters of the sea. Yep, along comes the hero, Perseus, son of Zeus. In the sky it seems as if Andromeda is being carried to safety by Pegasus.
The farthest point we can see with our own eyes is the Great Spiral Nebula, also know as M31. The beautiful star-island is a galaxy. Follow a line from Polaris through Schedar in Cassiopeia (the bottom star in the right side of the ‘W’). It point to the Great Spiral. It’s not too bright so wait for a dark night. It’s fuzzy not a pinpoint like a star.

To find harmony, one's life has to be in balance.
One needs balance so one can walk in beauty.
In the end, it is all up to me.
(forgot where I came across these lines)

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

tucked away in the mountainswith felines and birds

2010-11-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

Maybe it comes from living alone with two felines, but I often find myself verbalizing my thanks when I’m out hiking and come across a stellar scene, the song of a bird, a strong scent, or a stream where I can cool off. I’ll pass on relating the things I say but you might want to try it. It also brings me back to the present if I’m off daydreaming. Can’t quite bring myself to do it yet, if I’m hiking with a friend. A few think I’m strange enough as it is. But then stopping to think for a minute, a few of my friends are pretty strange and probably no doubt wonder why I’m not doing so.

The earth can seem fragile and I truly believe that we are trashing it with the all too prevalent screw-the-grandchildren mindset. We are here for such a short span of time and it absolutely rots how we are destroying it. We’ve done more damage in the last hundred years than in all previous years combined. Maybe one reason I like to get so far off the asphalt is that occasionally I get to feel otherwise. When hiking up in the mountains, the earth doesn’t seem weak. The land has strength, vitality, and resilience. The earth does not feel like it’s going to shatter. I know it is only an illusion but I really need to experience this from time to time. Different strokes, but I do feel a tug to the mountains (& desert), as they say, ‘a call to nature’. In the mountains one can get a sense of restfulness that only Nature can bestow. Mountains can give shelter and sustenance and beauty all at the same time. That’s awesome.
Being off the grid, out in Nature—it’s easier here where only the fundamentals count.

When I first set up an isolated camp spot in a new area, I feel somewhat out of place—I don’t quite fit in. After a few days this changes and I start to feel at home. Day hikes let me find out about outlying areas and evening walks with Meadow and Mesa have us exploring all around the immediate area. The local wildlife start to take us in stride. It does not take long to learn their habits and routines, occasionally even recognizing individuals. I also notice that a lot of animals seem to be curious about domestic cats and come in for a closer look. The animals don’t seem to feel anywhere near as uneasy around the felines as they would if there was a dog in camp. The days become more comfortable and I often find myself putting off the day that I had planned to roll out. Sure am enjoying this lifestyle.

Presently I seem to feel best when I can find a secluded camping spot near a trailhead. If it’s a trailhead to a network of trails, all the better. The more time I hike in the mountains, the more I seem to enjoy hiking in and of itself. I was never into hiking when I was primarily a trail runner. Now it’s something like, slow down and smell the roses. I like a good hike, though—4 to 6 hours with a 3,000’ to 4,000’ elevation gain feels pretty good. It seems strange, but being alone up in rough terrain eventually lends a feeling of security. Maybe that’s one reason I like felines—for their self-sufficient independence. Being out in Nature, making use of Her fitness program, watching the local animals, coming across water, traveling the varied terrain, just plain hours in the Outdoors using my legs to get around, being away from my camper—it cannot get much better. Rock and sky—pretty simple—but often that’s best.

There are some good primitive campgrounds in the national forests but I stick to tucked away camping spots off the spur roads and I generally manage to come across some really nice places. A couple times I’ve gone a week or more without seeing anyone from my camp. From time to time I come across other hikers on the trails and have enjoyable talks to take care of my social fix. Just about perfect.

I was standing outside one evening. It was getting dark but the sky was still somewhat light. There was a medium size bird out a ways, flying slowly about fifteen feet off the ground. For some reason the bird turned and flew towards me and I saw it was a small owl. She flew by real close and I did not even hear a whisper of sound. She circled around and came back a bit off to the side, flapping her wings and I still could not hear anything. Awesome. I’m really surprised and pleased with all the wildlife encounters I have with this lifestyle. Don’t know why the owl came over in the first place. Maybe she just never saw a two-legged creature releasing excess fluids from its body. (^_~)

Silent flight gives owls the ability to capture prey by stealth, and also allows the owl to use its hearing to locate potential prey. The most unique adaptation of owl feathers is the comb-like (fringe-like) leading edge of the primary wing feathers. With a normal bird in flight, air rushes over the surface of the wing, creating turbulence, which makes a gushing noise. With an owl's wing, the comb-like feather edge breaks down the turbulence into little groups, like micro-turbulences. This muffles the sound of the air rushing over the wing surface and allows the owl to fly silently. There is also an alternate theory that the leading feathers actually shift the sound energy created by the wing-beats to a higher frequency spectrum, where most creatures (including prey and humans) cannot hear. Either way, owls are truly awesome night hunters.

Another bird I really like is the raven. Ravens have a distinct sound to their wing beat and whenever I hear it, I look for the bird. Once I looked up and there were two ravens flying close to each other, maybe 4’, while they were diving, swooping, and climbing as they flew by and past as far as I could see. WAY cool. Imagine being able to do that with the one you love?

November Night Sky—part of this constellation makes a large square. It is a major reference point for navigators. Two of these stars are very close to the line that marks the starting point for telling time and for pinpointing locations in the sky and on the planet. Care to guess?
Pegasus is the Winged Horse. For navigators and skywatchers, the ‘Great Square of Pegasus’ is a key corner of the sky. The line from Algenib through Alpheratz is very close to the line that marks the beginning point for mapping the whole sky. This is the ‘0 hour angle’. It helps navigators find the direction and location of everything else in the sky and on earth. Alpheratz is the zenith star on midnight of the first day of fall (directly overhead).

Nature is man’s teacher. She unfolds her treasures to his search,
unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart;
and influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence.
Alfred Bilings Street, poet

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
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designs by owen

2010-11-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

Bisbee is a strange town to have a business. One needs to be on the first block of Main Street. If not, at least be on the next half block and, most definitely, on the north side of the street.
My friend David, moved his gallery to a stellar location. It’s hard for me to believe but I think the new shop looks even better than the last one. After living in Bisbee and going back each spring to visit, I’d say it is probably the best looking gallery in Bisbee with fabulous artwork. The lighting and overall setup shows real class. One will definitely feel that they just stepped up into another level of store when they enter Design by Owen. NICELY DONE, David!

Happiness is self-contentedness.
Aristotle

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
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chama to moab

2010-10-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

I sure was spoiled for most of the summer with more or less regular web access. Now it’s back to my normal lifestyle with access whenever I have to run into a town for supplies.

I looked into taking the following position outside of Sedona, AZ. I knew it would be hot there but when I looked up the monthly average highs for the year—I said forget it. Besides I took the A/C off the casita. The owners are a couple of stellar artists.

“WE ARE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO CARE FOR OUR PROPERTY.  OUR 2 TRUST WORTHY SAFE HORSES MAY OR MAY NOT BE  UNDER YOUR CARE TO FEED AND LOVE.  IN CASE YOU WOULD BRING YOUR OWN TRAILER TO LIVE IN  THEN THIS WOULD A PLUS.  WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE ABLE TO DO THE FOLLOWING:  upkeep on low maintenance holding with house and  outbuildings in exchange for living space.  watering of 4 fruit trees and  some outdoor plants that are left and right of the  house,  and what ever upkeep necessary relating to the  structures, all  new and in good condition.  This precious place is on the very end of a 7 miles rough  dirt road,  approximately thirty five minutes from town. The  surrounding  land is very beautiful  and very unpopulated, lots of wildlife. We are  basically surrounded by national forest  land. Hiking and riding trails abound, ruins  dating back 800 to 1000 years are everywhere  present...you need only discover  them. There are a zillion stars, much privacy and quietude.   There are no fast food chains down the block and  no pizza hut.  All Kinds of vegetation, variety depending on season  and every year a bit different.  You will have a nice view on the Kasner Mountain  and some idyllic shady spots.”

After spending some time with me, a new friend, out of the blue, guessed my sign. Caught me by surprise, so I looked up general traits for my sign on the web.

“Don't expect an Aquarian to follow the crowd. They are individuals who like to do their own thing and they enjoy being different. Aquarians relish in their unconventional ways. Their unusual thoughts lead them to think "outside of the box". They need to retire from the world at times and to become temporary loners.” Well, that kinda hits close.

I’m set with my social-fix for quite a while now. Thought I might OD on all the new people I was meeting in Chama. I thoroughly enjoyed it but it also sure felt good to get back off the grid to more natural living. It might be the old ‘looking to nature for nurture’. It does not take long before I feel released and restored in these secluded spots and it’s as reliable as the gods who provide it. Kind of strange, but truly appreciated.

It took 9 days to travel the 215 miles from Chama, NM to the Hatch Point area south of Moab. I’m sure one friend could have gotten there faster pulling a Shelter Cart (sheltercart.com). One day I drove only a mile farther down a dirt road. Another day, two miles. My kind of driving days.
I came across a couple of isolated spots that felt really good so I stayed a while. Both of them were at the end of double tracks—one in the mountains and one out in the desert.

It’s been a hoot shooting my longbow lately. I picked up some judo points and replaced some target tips. Now instead of standing there shooting at a target butt, I’m walking along shooting at pine cones, tufts of grass, clumps of leaves, dirt clods, and whatnot. I’m sure it’s possible to loose an arrow with a judo point but it would be pretty difficult. Might even trash my target now that I have an alternative and it definitely takes up a lot of room. Sure do like instinctive shooting without a sight or using point-of-aim. Constantly varying the distance to targets is a challenge that I’m thoroughly enjoying. It’s like going out every day and shooting a field archery course.

On a run one morning, I came up on two pronghorn. Really surprised me that I got within a hundred yards of one as it stood there watching me approach. Then they took off but not bounding like deer. They just had a walking stride. Not all that fast but they sure covered ground. Wish I could run as fast as they can walk.
As a side note, one occasionally hears pronghorn referred to as ‘pronghorn antelope’. They are not antelope. Probably the same people who call American bison, ‘buffalo’.

This is what these two have been doing after our daily walks, lying down—couple of wimps. Notice how muddy the Cherokee and Casita are? It’s been raining and I went through some puddles on these dirt roads. Three of them were pretty long and deep so I picked up speed to get some momentum and hit the water. What a rush. Muddy water everywhere and the Jeep and Casita both fishtailing as we sailed through. We made it through each one but twice only just barely. I love this life. Traction sure would not have gotten us through. We would have bogged. All the tread on the LT tires (and the trailer’s) were caked with mud and looked like slicks. I looked at the built up mud on the casita when I was making camp and it was one inch thick (with pebbles). Figured I would have to wait until it dried up so I could get back out. It rained the next two days. When I rolled out a little over a week later, water was still in the low spots and the mud was even deeper since the soil was totally saturated. Had to edge around them so two Jeep tires stayed on dry ground for traction. Couldn’t do this lifestyle without 4-wheel drive.

Here’s an old Cherokee story called ‘Two Wolves’.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.
"One is Evil - It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
"The other is Good - It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

October Night Sky—check out Comet Hartley 2. It makes its closest approach to Earth this month. At the beginning of the month, you’ll need binoculars to see it as it moves through Cassiopeia and into Perseus. By the 18th look for it east of Capella in Auriga. Look for a long tail pointing southwest.
Something else to check out in October is Uranus. It is usually difficult to pick out from the background stars but this month it moves across the sky with Jupiter, both in Aquarius. Uranus shines with a blue-green light. Using binoculars it can be seen above and to the left, within 2 degrees, of Jupiter.
Hold your hand at arm’s length. A finger’s width is approximately 4 degrees.

Clay is molded to make a vessel,
but the utility of the vessel lies in the space where there is nothing.
Thus, taking advantage of what is, we recognize the utility of what is not.
from Tao Te Ching by Lao Tze

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
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learning to fly—part twostarting to get past the crashing

2010-09-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

Since the lost plane fiasco, I downloaded a number of articles on learning to fly electric RC planes as well as J. Carpenter’s eBook ‘Beginner’s Guide to flying RC airplanes’. $250 late but hey… I get to chapter 13 (!) titled, ‘Crashing’ and it starts off, ‘Crashing is all part of the hobby of radio control flying…’. I seem to recall James also alluding to this. Not exactly the best incentive to get one into the hobby.

James stopped by for a couple days on his way back to Rodeo. The first shot is him bringing my Radian in for a landing. Like I stated in the last flying entry, he’s an ace. But—he has not had a good summer. I didn’t see the Multiplex Easy Glider Pro he was flying when I first met him. I asked him about it—it got destroyed. I asked him about his Radian—he’s waiting for parts. The wings loosen up over time and he had masking tape wrapped around to ends to snug up the fit. Apparently not enough. On one flight—the wings fell off. He said it was pretty cool how they fluttered down. I then asked about his Multiplex Easy Star. On one flight he noticed smoke. Not good. The ESC (electronic speed control) caught fire. He was able to salvage some parts from the crash, however. He was presently flying a Dynaflite ‘Bird of Time’ with a 108” wingspan. It looked awesome up in the air since it was so big. You’re probably know what’s going to happen. Yep, it crashed. The battery died and all control to the plane was lost.
I’m beginning to see why this hobby is not all that popular.

A couple people from further up the valley found my first plane while they were out walking their dog. The sailplane was twice as far away as I had thought. It was nowhere near the grids I was working. The pieces were scattered probably 40’. This is what they looked like all gathered together. Only one wing was salvageable. I had put in a total of 5 hours looking for that sucker. At least I got in three Wait, Wait podcasts and one podcast of From the Top while searching so the time was pleasant. If the Radian didn’t look so cool as it is flying, I really would bag this costly endeavor.

My second Radian was getting trashed from all the crashes. The fuselage was repaired so often that I was no longer able to keep the nose straight. With the propellers pointing a bit to the left only made it all the more difficult to fly the plane. I ordered a new fuselage and transferred the parts. That was an experience.

The more I learn about RC planes on the web, the more daunting the task seems. Since crashing occurs EVERY time I attempt to fly, that’s what I have been researching (I won’t tell you what my running buddy said about that). A prime explanation for a crash is ‘flying beyond one’s current capabilities’. Since I do not have any capabilities when it comes to flying—this might explain it. Another cause might be ‘structural failure of a flying surface’. Nope, everything gets glued back together after each crash. Some really cool things I’m looking forward to are: ‘Radio failure’, ‘a servo linkage breaking’, ‘less than adequate battery levels’, ‘a stall too close to the ground’, and more ‘disorientation’. Disorientation happens when your plane gets too far away from you to see clearly, which direction it's pointing and exactly what it's doing. Yep, been there, done that, have the wreckage photo to prove it. Disorientation also happens if you fly directly over your head and behind you. As you look up and turn, your eye to brain communications can become momentarily ‘distracted’ as you lose all visual reference to everything. You suddenly lose track of what your plane is doing. This is all getting to sound like a joke.

It’s been my experience that the wrong input from me on the toggles at the wrong moment usually means one thing—The Walk of Shame—and upon reaching the impact zone—start the ceremonial and embarrassing collection of wreckage that was, only a few seconds earlier, my RC sailplane. I really need to get past this Crash-and-Burn stage.

At one point I finally realized, that realistically, I cannot possibly be crashing as often as I do. So I came to the only plausible conclusion— someone is camping off in the trees and shooting down my plane.

Well the good news is that I’m still only on my second Radian—haven’t lost or totally destroyed it yet. Can actually keep it in the air for a few minutes. But jeez is there a lot to learn.

Heading over to southern Utah for a few weeks. Back to sparse internet access.

September Night Sky—this constellation fits right inside the Milky Way. This is also the home of the ‘Dumbbell Nebula’. Some think it’s a cross. Others believe it’s a bird. Want to guess the constellation?
Cygnus, the Swan, is also known as the Northern Cross. Albireo is at the Swan’s head as it flies south. Albireo is not very bright, but it is a beautiful two-color double star. Easy to see with binoculars since it’s in the Milky Way. Clusters, clouds, and variable stars fill the field. Cygnus is also the location of another candidate for a black hole, Cygnus X-1.

Buy lemonade from any kid who is selling.
Give money to all street musicians.
Robert Fulghum

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
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this and that—and cherishing each day

2010-09-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

Some locals took me to the Little Beaver Pow-wow over in Dulce. Oh man, VERY impressive. The Grand Entrance when all the dancers came into the arena was absolutely fabulous. The mother/daughter competition was great. The styles varied quite a bit and I had no idea what the criteria was for each round of elimination. Thoroughly enjoyed everything I saw that evening.

When in my 5th wheel, I had a number of vintage travel trailer prints by Paige Bridges. She does absolutely stellar work. When I scaled down to my casita I had to acquire all new prints since the ones I had were too large. I have emailed Paige a few times over the years and she’s a wonderful person.
Check out this youtube clip about her:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oA3OgwdOTs — Texas Country Reporter_Vintage RV Art

Also check out her site: http://vintagetraveltrailerart.com/
Keep her boxes of Christmas cards in mind as the season approaches.

I took this shot out the back window one morning. With this lifestyle, one should look out the windows each morning before making any noise or turning on lights. Sometimes wildlife is pretty close.

I recently reread ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ by Spencer Johnson. What a fabulous little book about changes in one’s life. Move with the cheese. Lent it to Siscily and she really enjoyed it. She is getting married next week and retiring from the NM park service in a few weeks. At this time, I don’t think it is possible for her to get the huge, bright smile off her face.

I emailed Lynn down in Bisbee about a new sticker I put on the casita—
‘Adventure before Dementia’.
She wrote back, ‘Well... some people might think YOUR form of adventure... wandering off on uncharted paths and living off the grid... IS a sign of dementia.”
I love having friends with a sense of humor.

On the way back from an errand trip to Pagosa Springs one day, I drove the Cherokee down some forest roads along rt84 looking for perspective places for some secluded camping with the casita. Found some places that would work for me. Passed some ‘campers’ sitting around with bug zapper rackets and a couple six-packs. Ya think I might be a bit too far off the grid? (^_~) Down the last forest road, I came across a Casita. Michael lives in Tucson and he was out and about for a few weeks with Toby. I’ll probably meet up with him for a day when I get down to Bisbee in March. He has a 2010 model. Sure is a lot shinier than my 2001.

I was weeding through some folders on my MacBook and came across this piece by Ann Wells, ‘A Story to Live By’—an old newspaper essay about loss and cherishing each day. The original title was, ‘What Special Someday Are We Saving For?’.

“My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister's bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package.
"This," he said, "is not a slip. This is lingerie."
He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was exquisite: silk, handmade and trimmed with a cobweb of lace. The price tag with an astronomical figure on it was still attached.
"Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least eight or nine years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion."
He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment. Then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me.
"Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're alive is a special occasion."
I remembered those words through the funeral and the days that followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad chores that follow an unexpected death. I thought about them on the plane returning to California from the Midwestern town where my sister's family lives. I thought about all the things that she hadn't seen or heard or done. I thought about the things that she had done without realizing that they were special.
I'm still thinking about his words, and they've changed my life. I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting on the deck and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time in committee meetings.
Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experiences to savor, not endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them.
I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event--such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, the first camellia blossom.
I wear my good blazer to the market if I feel like it. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for a small bag of groceries without wincing.
I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties; clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks have noses that function as well as my party-going friends.
"Someday" and "one of these days" are fighting a losing battle to stay in my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now.
I'm not sure what my sister would have done had she known that she wouldn't be here for the tomorrow we all take for granted. I think she would have called family members and a few close friends. She might have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think she would have gone out for a Chinese dinner, her favorite food. I'm guessing--I'll never know.
It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew that my hours were limited. Angry because I put off seeing good friends whom I was going to get in touch with--someday. Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to write--one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my husband and daughter often enough how much I truly love them.
I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives.
And every morning when I open my eyes I tell myself that this is a special occasion.“

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
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don't sit on your ticket

2010-08-09T17:27:00.000-07:00

Most mornings as it is getting light I hear the elk calling as they work their way out of the woods into the meadows. After it is light I go out and generally see something like this. Way cool.

Robert Fulghum tells this story of an airport encounter. ‘Out of one person’s moment of comic despair has come perspective for all’. He presents it as a letter.

“Dear Fellow Pilgrim,

"There you were, Hong Kong airport, end of the summer of 1984, tensely occupying a chair next to mine. Everything about you said ‘Young American Traveler Going Home.’ You had by then exchanged jeans and T-shirt for sarong and sandals. Sensible short hair had given way to hair long and loose. The backpack beside you bore the scars and dirt of some hard traveling, and it bulged with mysterious souvenirs of seeing the world. Lucky kid, I thought.

“When the tears began to drip from your chin, I imagined some lost love or the sorrow of giving up adventure for college classes. But when you began to sob, you drew me into your sadness. Guess you had been very alone and very brave for some time. A good cry was in order. And weep you did. All over me. A monsoon of grievous angst. My handkerchief and your handkerchief and most of a box of tissues and both your sleeves were needed to dry up the flood before you finally got it out.

“Indeed, you were not quite ready to go home; you wanted to go further on. But you had run out of money and your friends had run out of money, and so here you were having spent two days waiting in the airport standby with little to eat and too much pride to beg. And your plane was about to go. And you had lost your ticket. You cried all over me again. You had been sitting in this one spot for three hours, sinking into the cold sea of despair like some torpedoed freighter. At moments you thought you would sit there until you died.

“After we dried you off, I and a nice older couple from Chicago who were also swept away in the tide of your tears, offered to take you to lunch and to talk to the powers that be at the airlines about some remedy. You stood up to go with us, turned around to pick up your belongings. And SCREAMED. I thought you had been shot. But no…it was your ticket. You found your ticket. You had been sitting on it. For three hours.

“Like a sinner saved from the very jaws of hell, you laughed and cried and hugged us all and were suddenly gone. Off to catch a plane for home and what next. Leaving most of the passenger lounge deliriously limp from being part of your drama.”

That’s quite a story. The lady was sitting on her own ticket. I’ve sure sat on my ‘ticket’ all too often in this life. Sitting on whatever it was that kept me from getting up and on to what comes next. Not so much any more, though.

August Night Sky—The annual Perseid meteor shower occurs this month just after New Moon, so this will be a relatively favorable year to view these meteors, with only a small crescent Moon confined to the evening sky. These meteors are tiny particles from the comet P/109 Swift-Tuttle, "burning up" as they hit our upper atmosphere at a speed of 40 miles per second. The bad news is that the peak of the shower occurs in the evening for us, so the best time for viewing these meteors is in the hour before morning twilight begins on the mornings of August 12 and 13. The best way to view them is to sit in a folding lounge chair facing northeast.

May you live every day of your life.
Jonathan Swift

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house sitting in cañones valley

2010-07-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

House sitting here is excellent. The first shot is looking west towards the house and greenhouse and then a shot past the greenhouse facing east. Not bad. The third photo is past where I’ve got the casita set up. Early each morning I go into the house and feed the dogs. Every other morning, after yerba mate, I mountain bike up the dirt road two miles, stash the bike in the brush and go off on a run up the mountain for a couple hours. Heaven must be like this. If I don’t come across any elk, at least I see plenty of deer. After breakfast I go out to the greenhouse to water the plants, weed and check out what I will have for lunch. Pat brews beer so there are a slew of hop plants to water once a week. Ate all the rhubarb but it was at the end of the growing cycle. Guano. Wish I knew how to bake a pie. Sometimes in the morning but at least every evening, I take the dogs for a walk. Other chores are mowing and trimming the grass and watering the indoor and patio plants, watering and turning the compost. Not bad. Really lucked out with this gig and lucked out with the owners of the property. Nice people.

I was thinking about trying house sitting and caretaking after I met Debbie the other summer up in Utah. She and her husband have been doing it for 20 years. Now that I have an idea of what it entails, I’m thinking of joining one of the organizations that post positions on the web and see what comes of it.

There are numerous small ponds like this all through the valley. It really is a choice location. I was out with the dogs one evening and saw an elk that could not have been more than 2 days old. It was SO cute but they seem SO vulnerable when that young.

I was out mountain biking one morning while I was still over at Siscily’s place and came across these black bear tracks. I think this might be the first time I’ve come across bear tracks. I asked around and there’s a good deal of sightings in the area. Wish I could run faster.

As always, play is important to me. With this field so handy, I’m starting to get the hang of throwing a boomerang. Nowhere near consistent, but after watching some youtube videos and experimenting with the variables, it’s starting to make sense. Something else I tried was making a bola. I drilled through 3 golf balls and attached them with 2’ lengths of 1/8” line. Even throwing something as simple as this is taking a while to get the knack of. I also set up a target and am back to shooting my longbow. Life is good. Well, except for my time with my new electric sailplane but I’ll save that for its own entry.

Have also been meeting some really nice people. Had breakfast down the road with some new friends on the 4th of July. We made omelets in bags. I’ve read about it but haven’t seen it done. Way cool. RJ had a table set up outside with bowls of various items to put in an omelet and a pitcher of whipped eggs. We each took a ziplock freezer bag, put our name on it, poured in a ladle of eggs, different items from the bowls, pressed the air out of the bag and dropped it in a big pot of boiling water. Served on paper plates with plastic forks sure made short work of cleanup for 8 people. Definitely will be trying this on my own.
Went to the fireworks in Chama with another group of new friends. Sure am getting my social fix. Two of these people were also into running ultras. THAT was a pleasant surprise. Have gone on some runs with one of them and boy, does she make me feel like a wuss. I’ve said for the last couple years that I would like to get strong enough to run another ultra, probably only a 50K, but the way my running has been progressing (or not), realistically, there was no way I’d be that strong again—but then I arrived here. I can’t believe how much I’ve progressed in just one month. Between the mountain trails and being pushed by my new running buddy, I’m beginning to feel that it is possible. Not bad for a transplant survivor. But this lady has been through way more than me and she’s out there pushing even harder so it’s not like I can just continue to wimp out here. We’ll see.

Went on a 12 mile trail run from Heron Lake SP down to El Vado SP and back on the Rio Chama Trail with Robin and her sister. VERY nice time.

The Dutchman was passing through the area and staying down at Heron Lake. Ed’s been full-timing in a casita longer than I have. I stopped down and had a good visit. He assembled his Klepper folding kayak and has been putting time in out on the lake. I might see him in southern New Mexico this winter since he has been wintering down there also.

July Night Sky—Comets are pristine remnants from the formation of the solar system that are comprised of minerals, rock and mostly ice, much like a dirty snowball. They travel around the sun in elliptical orbits and can be inclined to the plane of the solar system at any angle. Comets can sprout tails extending many tens of millions of miles, during their closest approach to the sun. Short period comets are thought to come from the Kuiper Belt on the outskirts of Neptune’s orbit and further, and longer period comets are thought to come from the Oort cloud, a vast spherical shell that surrounds the solar system at a huge distance. Recent spacecraft encounters with comets seem to raise more questions then they answer and some finds are quite unexpected. NASA targets some of these bodies with spacecraft loaded with instrumentation that help tease out the secrets lurking in these icy bodies.

Do something you WANT to
not something on your SHOULD DO list.

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learning to fly

2010-06-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

Initially I was climbing up to the barn roof and jumping off. It wasn’t working. I had no problem with take off and flying to a lower elevation. Gaining altitude, sustained flight, and landing, however, were somewhat problematic. So I started to learn to fly a Radian electric sailplane. That also did not work well.

These first two shots are of a friend flying his Radian. Never a problem.

The third shot is of my sailplane just prior to the first flight. The fourth photo was taken a minute later. I gathered the scattered pieces so they all fit in the shot. The next day after using Gorilla glue to fix the fuselage, I crashed again in even less time, again breaking the fuselage in two. I was having SO much fun. This time I put the fuselage together with 5-minute epoxy even though the Gorilla glue worked fine. Remember James, from Rodeo, who got me interested in electric sailplanes while down in the Gila Mtns? Well, he was going to be passing through Chama on his way to Colorado so I decided to not fly until he got here (and anyway, I had to wait for a replacement battery). This was smart decision. One thing he told me was that the trim settings on my transmitter were way off, hence the sailplane’s urge to turn left and dive. I was also told to turn off the motor whenever the plane was low and headed towards the ground but my mind kind of freezes prior to crashes. I flew his Radian a few times and did a couple of landings. Whenever I got in trouble with the controls, I passed the transmitter to James and he got the plane straightened out. I lost track of how many times I passed the transmitter. I was given a slew of tips that should prove helpful in this endeavor. There is way more to flying an electric sailplane than I had thought and this pleases me no end. In addition to learning to fly it, I have to learn how to search for updrafts and thermals. Should be interesting hunting for something that I can’t see.

A couple days after James left, I received the replacement battery, installed it and went out to fly. My first two flights again lasted less than a minute each but at least I remembered to turn off the motor as the sailplane headed towards the ground and the landings were soft. The third flight was one I REALLY could have done without. I managed to keep the plane up but couldn’t set the trim properly. I couldn’t get it to straighten out; it just kept going into turns. With all my focus on trying to control the plane, I forgot to turn the motor off once it got up a couple hundred feet. BIG MISTAKE. By the time I realized the motor was still on, the plane was over the pine forest beyond the meadow (those trees in the first photo); I could barely see it; and I still could not control its flight. I turned the motor off; the plane soon started down behind the trees and I lost it. I spent an hour looking for it and another hour and a half the next day with not luck. Are the gods telling me something here? Anyone need a transmitter and battery charger?

James mentioned the servos that control the elevator and rudder can die in flight and you lose control of the plane through no fault of your own. He’s climbed trees to retrieve planes even though he is an excellent pilot.

I can’t believe I lost a plane. If I lose another one, I’m gonna to bag it.

I’m a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
from the sci-fi movie Serenity

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camping spots heading north, breakdown,and seeing the house

2010-06-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

Didn’t like working my way up through central NM much. Luckily rt1 parallels I-25 so I didn’t have to do the interstate. Turned off rt1 onto FR 225 into the San Mateo Mountains for a couple days. Six slow miles of washboard to a decent camping spot if one likes open areas. This time of year it was too hot and too windy to roll out the awning. One day we went for a walk down in a wash.

Then I moved on to a night at Valley of Fires. I had heard good things about it and had been driving for 100 miles so was ready to stop for the day. Really don’t like these asphalt miles. I know, I know, I actually paid for a camping spot ($12) in warm weather. Hopefully it won’t happen again until November. The gods made sure I didn’t overly enjoy it. Took a site down a cul-de-sac so I could let M/O out. There was no one around anyway, the RVs were all at the electric sites. There was only a mile of trails but they have an informative nature walk, paved for wheelchairs, that’s definitely worth checking out. The host gave me a suggestion for free BLM camping with access to a lot of trails, not all that far away. I’ll definitely check that out if I come back through this way since I won’t be staying here again. Made a note about the BLM spot in my road notebook so I won’t forget. Sure do find keeping that notebook helpful.

Headed north out of Carrizo on rt54 and turned west on FR 161 into another section of the Cibolo national forest, just before Gallinas. Found a nice spot to camp about 7 miles up off a spur road and spent a few days there.

One day when we went for a walk, Onyx got spooked. We were walking along this cow path and came up on some cows. One was lying down near the path and when we got close, she stood up. Meadow and I just kept on walking but Onyx turned around and hightailed it back the way we came. It has happened before and Onyx was always back at camp by the time Meadow and I looped around and got back there. This time he wasn’t in camp. After an hour he still was not back so Meadow and I started out on the path again. I called his name from time to time and he came out of the brush with his tail up in the air about 10 minutes up the trail. We all turned back to camp. He’s high maintenance.

The day we headed out from a spot a bit farther north was the pits. I made a stop in Las Vegas for supplies and some quick web access. Then I planned to head into a section of the Santa Fe Mountains south of Bernal for a couple days. That didn’t pan out so I headed over to Rowe and down rt34 looking for a camping spot. That also did not pan out. Then I tried up rt63 north of Pecos. Yep you guessed it—ditto. So I continued on to Santa Fe. They were just getting over a power outage and the traffic lights were still down. It took SO long to get through the intersections on St. Francis Drive. I could not understand why there were no enterprising individuals with coolers at each intersection, walking up and down between the lanes selling beer.
The highlight of the day was stopping at REI and finally getting a decent pair of hiking boots—my first (of many) pair of Keen’s. My friend, Janet from Salt Lake, had first told me about this brand. THANKS JANET. What a stellar shoe.
Heading out of Santa Fe on rt84, I noticed I was getting awful gas mileage. As I turned onto rt115 towards Canjilon for a few days camping in the Carson national forest, the Jeep bogged but kept going. A couple miles up the road it died. I pulled over and looked under the hood because that’s the thing to do. Didn’t have a clue on what to look for. Looking underneath the Cherokee, I didn’t see anything leaking. I went to start it up, it started, looked under the hood and didn’t notice anything. Looked underneath—guano! Gas was pouring out of a line. No cell coverage so no calling my roadside assistant plan. A number of people stopped to ask if I needed help. Yes, I needed a winning lottery number. I asked if there was a backyard mechanic close by. The gods felt they had messed with me enough for the day and provided one. Brian got me back on the road and only charged me $40. He said that the fix would probably hold but I should have a garage check it out. I thought it might not be smart to continue up rt115 and go off onto dirt roads so I continued onto Chama. I stayed on Siscily’s property until it was time to move over to Pat and Mary Ann’s. What a day—on the road from 8:30 to 7:30. Might as well get into RVing.

The next day I made an appointment to have the gas line looked at and stopped over at Mary Ann and Pat’s place. I had met Mary Ann a couple years ago at Siscily’s but didn’t know Pat who I then met along with their dogs, Tera and Tico, and their cat, Griago. What a place they have! 17 acres, a stellar view and handy access to mountains. A place like this would bring an end to my lifestyle. Sure am going to enjoy spending a month watching the place for them. Pat took me mountain biking one day to show me numerous places to ride, run, and hike while I’m here. I almost feel like the desert in a cloudburst. I can die the day they get back and life will have been good.

While staying at Siscily’s, I biked on some of the dirt roads Pat had pointed out. One day I was going along on a double track and 2 elk ran across in front of me, not all that close but—BIG animals. I had a flash of that song, ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer’.

June Night Sky—Checkout this site for info on the space station and space shuttle:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html

My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions
but in the fewness of my wants.
J. Botherton

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

change of plans, creek coffee and wine,codgerspace, and sirius

2010-05-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I don’t stop and think. I eventually realized that I could not take the route I had planned north this spring, at least the first 150 miles of it. I was planning to take 5 or 6 weeks to hike the area and the route didn’t take me near any decent grocery stores. For one thing, I would need a cooler to supplement my fridge. I don’t presently have the room for one. There would have also been the additional bulk and pounds of dry supplies. And then there’s water. A week’s supply weighs 112 lbs (2gal/day at 8lbs/gal – water’s a pound a pint). My rig is already overloaded. The Cherokee already gets into the edge of the red zone on mountain grades—not a good thing. Weekly water runs with the Jeep wouldn’t have been a problem and I can get a month out of two 5 gal propane tanks so I wouldn’t be looking for propane. Looks like I might break down next winter and look for used 8 cylinder for more power and a design with more carrying capacity so I can stay off the grid for longer periods. I don’t want to be restricted again next year.

Came back down to Silver City for supplies after a couple weeks and took another route out of town. Rt152 was pretty twisty with many posted 10 and 15 mph curves. The canyon becomes very narrow and there are no forest roads suitable for disperse camping. The 4 campgrounds up there are close to the road. I stopped at the third one just past mile marker 27 at an elevation of 7100’. At least Railroad cg is behind a large hill that cuts off road noise. Early one morning I ran up the road to check out Iron Creek campground. Not any better but a lot of Ponderosa pines (yellow pine). Not campgrounds one would want to spend time at unless you were going to hike the trails in the spring or fall. Railroad cg has a trailhead to Gallinas Canyon #129 (pictured), Railroad Canyon #128, Holden Prong Saddle, East Railroad Canyon, Hillsboro Peak, and Black Range Crest. A NICE week’s worth of hiking. A lot of water though. Just from the trailhead to the Gallinas Canyon trail junction at 1½ miles, you’ll cross the creek 22 times. A lot of stone stepping and log walking this time of year. Quite a few pools to sit down in and soak, sure wish it was warm enough for it. Iron Creek cg also has a trailhead. The 4 campgrounds are free. You have to bring your drinking water with you (the Gila forest service office in Silver City has a spigot just to the right of the front door). There are posted quiet hours in the campgrounds but no campground hosts to enforce them. Wouldn’t want to stop here in the summer or on weekends.

It’s not often that we camp by a creek so it can be a treat. I placed my fire pan, chair, and stool down by the creek. Stellar spot for morning coffee and evening wine. This lifestyle is SO tough. Watched a hummingbird hover over the creek drinking water one day. Way cool.

Whenever Meadow and Onyx went out, they crossed the creek and explored the hillside. M/O both frequently hung out on the rocks in the creek. Sure hope Onyx does not pick up giardia again. Guess I’ll have to start watching his poop. That’s always fun. What better incentive could one possibly have for bounding out of bed in the morning and spreading one’s arms wide to the world and give thanks for the pure joy of it all!?

Two campers pulled in the day before I headed out. Gael and Cherie were in a popup camper. Gael lives in NM and Cherie was out on a visit from PA. I enjoyed talking with them, good people. They were spending a week camping and hiking in the Gila’s.
I’ve heard of long commutes to work but driving to Texas and flying to SE Arizona is a bit much. At least working 3 days and having 4 off each week is good. This lady must definitely be good at what she does.

I finally got around to hooking up a Sirius radio in the casita. Only took me 4 months, I kept procrastinating about getting an antenna for my CD/radio unit (never used the radio). I purchased a Starmate 5 back in January. It was the only model that offered the basic $7/month plan. Figured I should start out with this since I had no idea if I was going to like it. It sure is nice to listen to at times. Every once in a while I catch an episode of The Shadow on the Classic Radio Shows channel. For a good deal of the year I don’t have much in the way of radio reception and if there is any, it’s country western or Spanish. Satellite is good.

Ever read any books by Daniel Pinkwater when you were a young teen? He’s very strange. I recently read ‘Codgerspace⁏ by the New York Times Bestselling author Alan Dean Foster. Set WAY in the future, these five retired people stumble into an alien spaceship that had been buried for a million years under the area next to their retirement community. It’s a big ship—200 kilometers (yes, kilometers) long. It caused quite a stir when it broke out of the ground, lifted off and hovered in the area. The authorities soon learned that it was crewed by a handful of old people who had recently been playing checkers and gardening. The book’s a hoot and all along I’m thinkin’ Daniel Pinkwater must have written this.

‘When everyone turns right, sometimes it’s good to turn left.
Then one has the road all to themselves and the view is better...
and one gets to make their own decisions.
Like life, every road trip is an adventure;
one never knows what the day (or next turn) will bring.’
Linus Mundy

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

trippin’ and fallin’, solitude, sacaton, sailplane,and expenses

2010-05-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

The first trailhead I camped near was off rt180 on FR196. Had to camp nearly a mile and a half away, however. Really did not need all that warm-up and cool-down hiking between the camping spot and trailhead. It didn’t get any better. I lost track of how many times the trail crossed the stream. Nowhere could I just jump across it since the water was high from the runoff. I had to step from rock to rock and managed to slip only once, thanks to my trusty PVC staff. Years ago, they used to mine up this canyon so whenever I saw an old mine up in the rocks, I climbed up to take a look. Even being careful while off the trail, I fell three times. I used to be able to feel myself falling and make an effort to catch myself. That seems to be a thing of the past. Two of these falls had me down on the ground before I realized I tripped. Not good—ended up with free-flowing leg and thumb cuts. I swear I’m going to die on a hike. Maybe I should start sticking just to the trails. All-in-all a nice hike, though—guess my standards are changing. This trail followed the creek for much of it and was cool and shaded but I was pretty maxed by the time I got back to camp the first time—lunch and a nap.

One day I had to wash my hair and the weather was overcast with intermittent rain and occasional flurries. I REALLY did not want to out and use the sun shower bag. The water was so cold my head actually hurt. Had to stop once and give myself a break. Then in Outside magazine, I read about Lynne Cox and how she swam for 20 minutes in the waters off Antarctica, covering 1.2 miles. And yes, I maybe, might have, possibly felt, for a few very short seconds, somewhat like a wuss. Sure felt good when it was all over though.

Most mornings I heard a wild turkey not all that far away. Two turkey hunters came by one day and asked if I had seen or heard any birds. Nope. Just what I want, people shooting shotguns near my camp and felines.

I’ve a feeling we’re not in the desert anymore, Todo.

Meadow and Onyx relaxing.

One of our camping spots. Not great but a good base for exploring the area with my mountain bike. Some nights were down in the 30’s and it actually felt good.

I need my social fixes and I really enjoy spending time with my friends but I also need solitude. It’s not only being out by myself but also the fullness of realizing that no one knows where I am. It’s an awesome feeling, like a deep meditation where you don’t really want to come back up. It’s SO recharging. I’m sure it contributes a good deal to why I appreciate simple things. And it’s not like I make being out of touch an issue, it’s just how it is being off the grid with no cell phone coverage. I frequently don’t even know myself what dirt road I’ll be off on at the end of a day moving to a new camping area. Or which spur I’ll be down. And if there are no hiking trails, I don’t know where I’ll end up when I go off on a cross-country trek. It’s true solitude. Even if my life changes in the next couple years, I’ll still need to go off and do this from time to time.

Went mountain biking one day over to Sacaton mesa. There’s a whole network of dirt roads up there on the flats. I can see myself spending 3 or 4 weeks there next spring. Not looking forward to pulling the casita up there, though. I’m sure the Cherokee will be over heating. It’s a 500’ elevation gain in a mile. No problem with an 8 but with a 6 pulling all the stuff of a vagabond, it will be tough. Been there, done that, know it for sure. Once I get up there, it looks like I might be able to cut over to the Dry Creek Trail for hiking if I go back in far enough and there’s a lot of ground for mountain biking and running.
When I was up there, I saw a white remote control plane flying around but I didn’t hear any sound. I got off my bike and watched for a while, saw the pilot and occasionally heard an electric motor start up on the plane but most of the time it was quiet—something like watching a hawk playing in the wind. I rode over and met James from Rodeo, NM. He was flying an electric sailplane. I have seen gas powered remote control planes in the past but they make a lot of noise and they didn’t do anything for me. I was not the least bit interested in trying it. BUT this sailplane was way cool. An electric motor is used for launch and climbing. Then you turn the motor off and fly the plane, searching for a thermal or updraft. One can turn the motor back on at any time with the remote to get the plane higher or to try out another spot. The signal goes out a mile but at that distance you can’t really see the plane so you can lose it. You can send signals but you can’t see how the plane is responding. You might have the plane flying away from you. An alternative is to have a buddy following the flight with binoculars. But then, if he lost sight of the plane you would have to shoot him. One can also get the sailplane in a good thermal and it would keep rising until it was out of sight. You have to constantly keep track of it and turn out of the thermal before you lose it. James has a number of sailplanes back in Rodeo with one having a 12’ wingspan. He suggested I look into the Radian RTF sailplane (ready to fly). The whole package, plane and remote is only $250 and has a 4’ wingspan. The wings come off for transport. Definitely will be checking this out on the web. Don’t know how I will learn how to fly it if I get one though. It’s easy to launch. You throw it with one hand while holding the remote in the other. But for a few short seconds I can see this becoming very intense. James also mentioned that replacement parts are cheap. This is good.
As you know, I generally always have a camera in my pocket. But this was all so unexpected and interesting that I never thought of the camera. James was having a buddy come up in a couple days who happened to have a Radian so I made plans to bike over to check it out and take notes on flying a sailplane with every intention of taking some photos. Yep, forgot to take out the camera. Guano. Anyway, I think I leaned enough to try it on my own. We’ll see.

You know how you might be taking a break and checking out the view after hiking up to a ridge, you’re sitting down, relaxing, and you catch sight of a hawk soaring the ridge updraft or rising in a thermal? If you are feeling pretty mellow as you watch the bird soar, you can kind of feel an exhilarating sense of freedom. Once I even felt a rush and lightness, like in an elevator, as a hawk dropped and swooped into a turn. An absolutely stellar experience.
I wonder what kind of experience it is for those who go up in sailplanes. They only have the sound of the wind up there. Don’t know if I would feel comfortable up a couple thousand feet in a plane without an engine though. Don’t even like going up on a 6’ ladder.

There were two steep sections of forest roads in the first few weeks of my meander north this year that had me urging the Cherokee along—steep, loose, and curvy with drop-offs. There was no way I was going to stop on the steep parts to take a photo. I don’t know, maybe a large class A rig, interstates, and starting on the sights-to-see is the way to go—do the old butt-voyeur thing. Nowadays I don’t really want much in the way of thrills and risk, but to have absolutely none would seem kind of lifeless.

Tallied my expenses from the first of the year and my spending has averaged $665 a month for the first 4 months. Should be less for the next few months since I’ll generally be farther out but, then again, I have some things I want to order while I’m up in Chama.

I read my April copy of National Geographic—their special issue on Water-Our Thirsty World. Jeez, sure glad I’m not going to be around in a hundred years.

Two things to learn from dogs:
Run, romp, and play daily.
Delight in the simple joys of a long walk.

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

5 felines, snow, banshee, desperation, and feet

2010-05-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

I worked with Donna in Kanab three summers ago. She stopped at C of R on her way back to St. David, AZ from a line-dance jamboree in Artesia, NM. Donna and her 3 felines have been full-timing for a number of years. Her rig is a bit bigger than mine, I don’t know, maybe a 19 or 20 footer. At the site, we had 5 felines cruising around. Way cool. The site was off in the back with no one else around so the little ones didn’t cause any problem and they all were caught up and brought in each night.

I went back to Bisbee for a week towards the end of April. Hit some restaurants and most mornings climbed my 1200 stairs. Took Lynn’s dog, Chica (pit bull/boxer mix), with me 2 mornings. That was a treat.
When I lived in Bisbee and had friends visit, I provided them with clear blue skies and warm, sunny weather. One morning towards the end of the week, I took these shots to document the weather Lynn was providing for me. Ya think maybe, she was like telling me to leave town?

If you are in the area and like good pizza, check out a new restaurant and bar, the ‘Screaming Banshee’ (I call it ‘Redundency’). It is near the Iron Man up Tombstone Canyon. REAL good with fabulous seating out back and stellar bathrooms.

My feet were having some problems if I was out hiking for more than a few hours, especially my toes. I know feet swell as we pound them so I went online and looked into measuring foot size. Our feet also get longer and wider as we get older. I used the method described on this site:
http://shoes.about.com/od/fitcomfort/ss/measurefeet.htm
I found out I needed to go up another half size (already had gone up a half size) and go to EE wide. In my 20s I was a size 10 D and now I’m an 11 EE with a half size larger for my hiking boots and running shoes. Good stuff to know if you do hours of walking or hiking.

I finally got to see a DVD of Stephen King’s ‘Desperation’. It was filmed in Bisbee when I was living here and a number of the locals were in the old mine footage. Most of the town footage was filmed on Erie St. in the Lowell section of Bisbee. Erie St. is only one block long but they made the street seem quite a bit longer. I thought that was pretty cool the way they managed that. They also used the buildings on the old Phelps Dodge mine property only a quarter mile away for some scenes and some filming was done down at the bottom of Lavender pit, maybe a half mile farther. Now I have some insight to how low budget films are made. Not bad.

They were holding the 32nd run of the La Vuelta De Bisbee Bicycle Stage Race (http://www.lvdb.info/) on the weekend I was in town. On the day of the first time trials, Lynn and I happened to be having dinner at the Roka Café and sitting at the window table. A rider came flying by every 30 seconds. WAY COOL. Jeez were they fast. Makes me want to sell my bike.

Back in NM. Spent a couple days in the Burro Mtns and got in a run on the Continental Divide trail one morning and a good hike on another. Stopped here in the Silver City library for web access. Will take a couple weeks camping/hiking off rt180 and rt12 then maybe angle over towards Taos. Going to be in Chama by the middle of June for a month of house sitting. With daily web access!!!!!!!!

Now if Lynn had brought THIS weather to Bisbee, that REALLY would be making a statement.

May Night Sky—Check out this site for a daily astronomy photo:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod

Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more,
whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more,
hate less, love more,
and all good things will be yours.
Swedish Proverb

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

jacks peak, caches, salida, grapes,wanderlust, and retirement

2010-04-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

Surely Onyx is not going after the duck.

Spent another week over in the Burro Mountains. I was able to hike up to Jacks Peak a few times. The sand had mostly dissipated at the top so I could see where the trail went. Nice easy hike with only a 1600’ elevation gain in 4 miles. Took me about an hour and a half to hike up. There are radio towers up there and old foundations.

Most of our dusk walks are meanders where there are no trails. We came across this gravesite off in the brush. There was a plastic box, about the size of a small shoebox, buried under these rocks. Maybe someone buried a small pet out here.

Onyx is like an early warning system. If he hears or sees someone coming near our camping spot, he’ll start to growl, even if they are over 100 yards away. It gives me a good heads-up whether we are inside or out. It’s pretty cool. Then, however, he runs and hides and leaves me to fend for myself.

Well, geocaching.com wouldn’t post my cache since I do not live in the area and would not be able to maintain it. Oh well. Have trouble believing some of the caches I’ve found are being maintained. Anyway, I’m leaving it here. If you are into geocaching and are in the area, try to find it. I call it Ranch View. The cache jar has a bag of cable ties, 2 waterproof match containers, and 3 carabiners so bring something equivalent to exchange. The coordinates are: N 32° 36.357 W 107° 57.360
When you date and sign the notebook, please write something about the find, where you are from or headed, or whatever. When I find a cache with a friend, she starts looking through the items and I go for the notebook and see what people have written. Some entries are pretty interesting.
Plan on it taking 2-3 hours for the out and back hike with about 40’ of climbing down the rocks to get to the cache. Be sure to wear hiking boots and consider taking a hiking staff. The ground is rough. What’s generally referred to as a ‘potato field’.

Sometimes when I hike up Table Mountain (why would someone name a mesa, Table Mountain?), I pack a thermos of yerba mate and a paperback. When I get up there, I sit someplace for an hour or so and relax enjoying the solitude. One day I glanced up from reading, studied some rocks in front of me, and noticed something in a space between two rocks. Yep, it was a geocache. The two posted caches up here are only accessible to those geocachers who have an upgraded membership so I cannot get the coordinates from the website. Well this time I pulled a ‘Lynn’. When I go after a cache with Lynn and we get close to the coordinates she just starts looking around for a likely hiding spot and generally nails it. One time she found a cache just by remembering the general area where it was hid in Bisbee. We didn’t even have a GPS with us. Unreal.

One afternoon I placed a bunch of grapes and some loose ones out on the table prior to washing them. As I was putting the bag back in the fridge, I heard a grape hit the floor. Didn’t I level the rig? As I was getting a bowl down from an overhead cabinet, I heard another grape hit the floor. I look over and there’s Onyx. Leaning over from on top of the pantry bin gently pushing the loose grapes off the table. HEY—you gonna pick those up?

I met a neat couple from Salida, CO. Jack and Linda are artists and musicians. ACTIVE people who do a lot of river running back home. Here they were biking the trails and even went out for a ride under the full moon. I have GOT to try that. Jack and Linda have a gallery up in Salida (chivvisandlovell.com) which I will definitely have to check out when I get up that way. Sure wish I came across more people like them in my life as a vagabond. Salida sounds like a stellar town with all the music, art, river, and mountains. And it’s an active town with many people using their bicycles instead of their cars to get around. There are two natural food stores and the Arkansas River is right there for all kinds of water sports. The valley is surrounded by BLM public lands. Definitely worth a look-see at some point for a couple weeks.
They have this ’54 ‘canned ham’ that they are restoring. It is way cool. They feel it was homemade possibly from a kit.

I come across full-timers who say they have the wanderlust and have to keep on the move. But when they get to somewhere new they don’t seem to do much, other than sit around all day, maybe drive around in the car, go shopping, and watch TV at night. It’s like they have not developed any interests, hobbies, sports, craft, art, music, whatever, in all their decades of existence. To me they sure don’t seem to have wanderlust—they seem to be bored, big time. I don’t know, maybe not having all that many years left has something to do with my striving to keep active. Maybe I just don’t need all that much to be entertained and I sure do get a lot of satisfaction from physical exercise and contact with the Outdoor.

‘In order to live free and happily,
you must sacrifice boredom.
It is not always an easy sacrifice.’
from ‘Illusions - The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah’
by Richard Back (author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull)

One would think that when people near retirement age, they would be pretty stoked about all the free time they will have to do what they want to do, when they want to do it. I have not met any but I’m sure there are a few who start on a program to slim down and tone up so they can be as active as they were years ago and thus get the most out of their last years. Definitely not the norm, however, never was, never will be. Seems such a waste. It’s like, as we get older, if something is hard, we don’t even try it. Neglecting the fact that it will get easier. I know for sure that life can improve as we move through our 50s and 60s. It took me quite a few years after my transplant to get back in some semblance of shape but life is SO much better than when I couldn’t even walk around the block. That was no type of life for me so I did all I could to help myself, just as thousands of others have done. For most though, they just continue on as is, huffing and puffing into their last years—and then that’s it—it’s all over—there ain’t no more—the fat lady has sung. Maybe that’s why I continue to work on my trail running. When I see the old guy in the black robe with that big hefty scythe comin’ my way—I’m gonna take off runnin’.

I checked the Word document on my MacBook that has all my blog text. It’s nearly 130 pages. That’s without the images. Unreal. Never thought this blog would get to be so long. Might as well start a book.

Most of us need variety and all of us need to keep growing.
Balance is finding the proper mix of activities that support our aliveness
and allows us to most joyfully accomplish our purpose.

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

cold weather dry-camping in small fiberglass trailers

2010-04-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

Forget it. Go get a used 22’ Airstream with decent insulation and double-pane windows, hook up to 120V every night, and run ceramic heaters.

I’m talkin’ cold here, not merely the 20’s and 30’s—but single digit and teen temps at night without electric hookups in small poorly insulated rigs. Most RVers just keep the furnace running and have a generator supplement one’s solar panels but the noise would drive me up the wall. It’s not why I go off to the Outdoors. First off, small fiberglass trailers are not designed for these temps. Maybe the Oliver with its double shell construction and double pane windows would be okay. I don’t know anyone who dry-camps at these temps in one for extended periods. My casita is an absolutely stellar camper for three seasons. A part of each winter off the grid can be a tad nippy. This winter, since I left Moab in October, I had 72 days with 120V. 22 of them while at Lynn’s in Bisbee but that was mostly for my MacBook. The other winter days I was either dry camping or secluded camping off the grid. Last winter I had 89 electric hookup days with 15 of them in Bisbee. Really don’t need more than 60 days and might not even have that many next winter. Heading as far south as I do, I’ve found that I only really need electric hookups for November and December. Once the winter solstice passes, it generally doesn’t drop lower than the 20’s at night. Creampuff temps. And if for some reason I did not have access to 120V, with what I’ve learned the past few winters, I could get by but I’m not into roughing it at this point in my life. I sure get spoiled for two months with one of those little ceramic heaters.

Condensation rather than cold is what bothers me at these temps with no electric heat. I can deal with the cold. The range vent and a window by my bed stays open a bit for ventilation all the time to help get the moisture out but it is nowhere near enough. If it feels like it will get down into the teens or lower at night, I’ll put pre-cut panels of Reflectix insulation over the windows. Really don’t know how much this helps. In the morning the inside of the windows will be covered in ice, not merely condensation, but ice.

With all the moisture dripping out of the bottom of the window frames, you’ll get some nice little ice stalagmites forming on the belly band. Really could do without these.
If you get 3 or 4 days of overcast skies and it’s too cold to have the door and some windows open for a while during the day, the rig is going to start smelling and feel damp—not a healthy situation. Luckily this has only happened to me 2 or 3 times in 4 winters. The windows just stay wet all day and night and water droplets form on the acorn pop-rivet caps along the ceiling. Whenever there is an opportunity, open the door and windows to exchange all the moisture ridden air. At least try opening the windows on the leeward side for a bit if possible. Then bundle up and go off hiking for a few hours to clear out your lungs.
Each day as it’s getting dark, adjust the window openings to how you want them during the night because they will freeze in place and you will not be able to close or open them until the rig heats up in the morning.
Be sure to not hang wet items in the rig to add to the moisture problem. If you must, put them in the bathroom and close the door. They won’t dry but at least they won’t be in a pile where mold will start to grow.
Fit insulating foam in the roof vents and if your window frames are smooth, tape plastic film to the inside of some windows.
Wedge a clothespin in the range vent so it always stays open.

Try to spend winters in the southwest, at lower latitudes, and get down to 1,000’ elevation or lower. You’re shootin’ for dryness and sunshine. Angle the rig so the sun starts to shine in your largest windows as soon as it clears the horizon. Park out in the open so sun hits the rig all day. You will be getting some fierce winds down in the open desert but remember, the sun is your friend.

Keep the overhead and lower locker doors cracked open for circulation or the moisture will rust any metal items stored there. Place cups of dehumidifying crystals in cabinets and closets to help alleviate moisture or else you WILL get mold forming in there. Wipe up the moisture from under the sofa cushions each morning. This is all SO much fun.

I don’t use the water system. My fresh water tank is empty and the lines are blown out. I just use a 2-gal Reliance jug placed on the burner cover. If you use the tank and water pump, you need to get warm air down to all the lines so they don’t freeze. Remember you can always just run the furnace and generator all the time and not have any problems. Jeez Louise.

You will need quite a bit more than 6,000 BTU of catalytic heat for these temps. I use a 3,000 BTU Wave (the 6,000 would not fit in the trailer) and a 3,000 BTU Coleman catalytic heater. When it’s in the teens and windy, they are definitely not enough. I’ll turn on the furnace from time to time to get more heat in the rig. At these temps, I’ll generally be wearing a thin fleece jacket, scarf, and knit hat indoors. No big thing since the alternative is to leave the Outdoors and go to a campground with hookups. Drink plenty of hot fluids, even just water, and fill up on hot cereals and soups. Wearing socks to bed helps a whole lot if temps are in the teens. Do some squats to get the blood flowing first thing in the morning. Luckily there are very few nights of these temps this far south. I don’t know, I more or less take the cold in stride since I’ve done so much camping. Those with the RV mindset would have no part of this. And if you will only be doing it for a weekend or a few days, no problem, it’s like camping. There are ways to deal with the cold. It’s the condensation that’s my concern because of the health issue.

Wintering in a small rig with access to 120V is no problem, something like living in a tiny studio apartment. If I were going to primarily stay in state parks and campgrounds, I’d get a 22’ Airstream. Why have a tiny 16’ or 17’ trailer if I wasn’t going to be pulling it down narrow forest and BLM ungraded roads? Kind of defeats the purpose of having such a rig. It’s also no real problem without 120V if temps will only be down in the 20’s and 30’s. Downright toasty.

April Night Sky—The three stars in Orion’s belt always seemed to catch my eye whenever I went outside this past winter, more so than in past years. Don’t know why. Granted, it is pretty bright and distinct. Orion refers to a hunter in Greek mythology.
Orion looks very much like a person. First, you should spot Orion's Belt, which is made of three bright stars in a straight line. One of Orion's legs is represented by the bright star, Rigel, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. His two shoulders are made of the stars Bellatrix and Betelgeuse. You can see Betelgeuse's reddish color without a telescope. Other bright stars make up the two arms, one which holds a shield (sometimes depicted as a skin or lion’s head), and another that carries a club.
Many different civilizations saw this constellation in the sky. The most famous stories come from Greek and Roman myths. Orion was a famed hunter, and in one story boasted that no creature could kill him. Hera then sent a scorpion to sting the hunter. Orion smashed the animal with his club, but not before he was poisoned. Both are now on opposite sides of the sky. They cannot be seen at the same time.
A different story tells of the love between Orion and the goddess, Artemis. One day, Orion was swimming out in the sea. Apollo, who very much disliked the man, bet his sister that she couldn't hit the object in the sea with her bow. Artemis didn't realize it was her lover, and shot Orion with an arrow. When she later found out what she had done, she honored the hunter by putting him in the sky.
The Orion Nebula (M42) is located in Orion's sword, which hangs from the belt. This is a vertical line of what appears to the naked eye as three stars, but in fact when viewed with a pair of binoculars or a telescope you will see that they are all double. This area is one of the most visited by amateur astronomers. It’s an emission nebula where new stars are born. It can be seen with the naked eye under a dark sky, and it can be seen well with binoculars, and details from within it can be seen at low powers with a telescope.

To be in step with the majority
might not be the best way to go.
The majority may itself
be out of step with something higher.

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
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easy to be active at city of rocks

2010-03-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

The first time back to Silver City in January, I went to my favorite place to eat, Vicki’s Eatery, and they had closed. Guano. I tried another place on Bullard next to the food coop and left half my lunch on the plate (and no, I did not upchuck it). Later I noticed in an issue of Desert Exposure that Vicki’s moved to the corner of Texas and Market. It was snowing the day I first went to their new spot and I was pretty wet having walked over from the library. The waitress recommended some hot cider and it really hit the spot. As I was waiting for it I took out a bandana and dried off my hair. Got a few looks with that move. Sat at the table in front of the electric fireplace and was in heaven as I ate lunch.

I really thought I was making progress with my mountain bike riding. A while back I went for a ride with Tim, one of the hosts at City of Rocks. An EXTREMELY humbling experience. And he’s my age! Maybe I will get one of those 2-cycle Spooky Tooth bicycles the next time I am in Bisbee. Tim gave me a number of tips, however, and occasionally I was close enough so I could observe how he was taking the turns and powering through some of the short sections. I practiced the next day and the following day went out to ride 2 laps going up and down the overlook switchbacks each lap and took 14 minutes off my best time. I was stoked. A couple days later I did 3 laps always with the switchbacks and was 17 minutes faster than my best 3-lap time. Not bad—for me.
Now I’m practicing locking the rear wheel and sliding the back end around the downhill switchbacks. I have to go into the turn faster than I’m comfortable with but it sure is fun though, when I can manage one. It’s going to take a while if at all, however. I’m pretty much a chicken-sh*t when it comes to speed on the downhills.

So far, over the last three winters Tim has added 3 additional loops to the park’s hiking/biking trail. These are great for hiking, running, and mountain biking. They are narrower and rougher than the main trail, true single tracks, so they are good sections for a bit of a challenge. He’s also working on another loop on the other side of the fence to the west of Table Mountain along the cow paths. The trails are the reason I love spending a few weeks here in late winter to get in better shape. Not all that many visitors use the trails and if they do, they stick to the one main trail and only do one lap. Doing the loops both clockwise and counter-clockwise on a bike offer totally different terrain—it’s way cool. One can also bike through the rocks in the middle of the park for some trial-type riding. Doing three laps with the switchbacks and the tangent loops and maybe a run out to the cow pond will give you 20 miles. Sure wish my runs were back up to that distance. Almost hard to believe how slow my running progress has been.

Tim is really into mountain biking. Whenever they are going to move their motorhome to a new spot, he accesses singletracks.com beforehand and makes note of all the trails in the area. So he’s good to go as soon as he arrives.
He likes to go fast. One time he went off a trail and ended up in a stand of cactus—at speed. Ouch! He took out his Leatherman tool with the needlenose pliers and started pulling out the thorns. They were really embedded deep. Another biker came by and asked if he needed help and Tim had him pull out some thorns he couldn’t reach. After he left another rider came by, asked what happened, and watched Tim continue to pull out thorns. The second rider said he had to leave because he was starting to get sick. When Tim got back he went out to get stuff to clean the wounds but all those barbs were still in there. Ah, the joys of mountain biking in the desert.
Tim and his wife bagged the traditional working lifestyle in their late 50’s and have been spending summers up in South Dakota and winters down here. He said he never wanted to work until he was 65—too many start to have medical problems just as they have all this time to play. Smart man.

For a hike at City of Rocks, there’s Table Mountain. It only takes 30 minutes to get up to the point overlooking the park from my site so it’s not much of a hike but hiking all around the top adds another hour. It’s less than a 500’ elevation gain to the top. It is a nice change of pace so I do it once a week whenever I’m here. Be sure to wear hiking boots and take a hiking staff because it sure is rocky. There’s a notch through the lower rim of rocks on the west side that you can see from Pegasus. One can also take the cow path from the gate or corner post behind the shelter, follow it back to the watering hole, and then take the cow path up the hill (marked with cairns). There are also notches on the south side of the hill that you can hike up through. No big thing as long as you have ankle support.

Met Marvin and Mary from Michigan. They have a ’78 (?) Trillium. Marvin did a stellar job bringing the gelcoat back and then he rewired the rig. Nice people. They used to do a lot of bicycle touring, now they are going at it this way and sure seem to be enjoying it.

A Casita camped here a couple days. Mick and Carol live in Silver City and have a 16’ which they bought new in ‘97. Active people who were frequently out walking their dogs on the trails. Might meet them for lunch sometime when I’m in Silver City.

Sure has been a long winter down here. We were getting January weather into March. Not at all like the last two winters. Oh well. I remember posting back in August wondering what type of winter we would have this year since the hummingbirds headed south a couple weeks earlier that usual from South Willow Canyon. Like they had a heads-up and wanted out of there.

Ticks are back out. Guano.

Engaging in things that you feel excited about keeps life interesting.

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
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big burro mountains

2010-03-08T10:53:00.000-08:00

I camped near the trailhead to Jacks and Burro Peaks. Four miles to the peaks, nice and easy, and not all that much elevation gain. Open range so I was coming across some cows from time to time. When I got near the top, there was this white stuff. Since I head down to southern New Mexico to keep away from snow, it must be some type of sand.

In this photo we are just about a half hour from our camping spot on our dusk walk along the Continental Divide trail. Those are my bike tracks from earlier in the day. The ride was pretty good. I rode on a section of the CD trail east of the section I did with Tim. Fell twice and had a bit of a problem at two stream crossings. Got down the inclines to the streams and crossed them fine but couldn’t get up the steep sandy banks on the other side. I don’t know, I have such fun biking 15 miles or so at City of Rocks most days on the different loops and switchbacks and feel I’m making progress then I go out on single tracks like I use to ride and I ride like a wuss. I REALLY need to get stronger. At least this section of trail is rated “moderate to difficult” rather than “for beginners”. That would have had me running over the bike with the Jeep.
I came across some cows on the trail and they just kept running along in front of me instead of taking off into the brush. When we got to a gated fence, they just moved along it a bit and gathered there. I went through the gate and took this shot. It’s like they knew I couldn’t pose a problem from the other side of the wire. You can see the CD single track in the foreground.

I scraped off the “handcrafted silverwork & lessons” lettering from the side of the casita. I spend a lot of time camping off forest roads where there is no one around and am off for hours most days hiking or biking. I figured maybe it is not wise to let those who might come along that there are plenty of tools, silver, and jewelry sitting inside.

A camper from Washington was set up not too far up the road from me. Carlos is close to 70 and is a musician. He was out there sitting by his campfire playing a fiddle the first time I walked by to talk with him. An ’89 Toyota minivan with the two back seats pulled out is used as his camper. He’s been cruising around down here for most of the winter. Carlos recently made two didgeridoo and is working on the circular breathing.

Yep, back on open range. Yippie-I-O-Ki-Yay

This camping spot was okay for a week at this time of year but definitely not the kind of place I prefer. One day after a hike I got in the Cherokee and spent 2 hours driving along forest roads looking for other places to camp. Came across only one slightly better spot and possibly some other forest roads to explore after the snow melts. Don’t think the Big Burro Mountains are going to do it for me.

March Night Sky—In the Navajo myths of creation, First Woman, First Man, and Coyote the trickster had many trials and tribulations in the four lower worlds, so they moved on to the fifth world. All three of them were very dissatisfied with the night sky in the fifth world. In fact the sky was very boring all day and all night. The sky had only the sun and moon. No stars. No planets. Nothing else. First Woman, First Man, and Coyote decided to change it. Coyote scattered bright mica dust around the heavens, and the stars were born. Then he grouped the stars into constellations, so people could make pictures in the sky and give the stars names. First Woman helped Coyote give the moon many faces, so it could change expressions all during the month. Then at the pole position in the heavens, First Man placed The Star That Does Not Move. First Man knew that if people started with this star, they could know the whole night sky. To help everyone find this special star, First Man placed the seven stars of the Little Bear around it. The Star That Does Not Move was at the tail of the Little Bear.

As we get on in years, why have a life that is generally predictable?

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
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out and about south of silver city

2010-02-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

Back to a spot we like. There’s plenty for me to do here and Meadow and Onyx seem to enjoy the rocks and long grass—and probably the kangaroo rats. The jackrabbits we come across on our dusk walks kind of always startle these two fierce hunters, though.

I met a guy in his 70’s who had his RV in the park for a few days. John was out walking the trails with a CANE! I was impressed. He was walking about two miles a day, not on the road, but on the trails. Way to go.

This is the third scratching post I had to make for these two since we moved into the casita. Couple of little shredders. Three 100’ spools of rope!

Came back to the camper after a ride one day and found a note on my door. Dennis (remember the ‘LET’ERRUST’ entry from last winter?) came into the park, was walking around, and saw my rig. He left the bus up in Oregon and turned his Chevy van into a camper and is cruising around down here for the winter before heading back up to Bend. Biked over to his site and spent the afternoon talking about what we’ve been doing over the months. Good time. Visited a few more times and he lent me a few of DVDs. Movies are always a treat for me. He sure did a nice job painting the inside of the van. I showed him how to use a sling and gave him one of mine to mess with. One has to keep coming up with new things to do with this lifestyle. Those who sit around and veg don’t seem to last at it, or at least, don’t seem to overly enjoy it.
Dennis had never tried geocaching so I printed out some local caches and took him out to look for them. After a review of degrees and minutes of latitude and longitude, Dennis took care of the GPS and by the time we found the second cache, he had it nailed. Wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up with a GPS.

I hike up Table Mountain and loop the top about once a week just for a change. These are two shots of a fire-pit on the top of a boulder. There’s kind of an unnatural deep hole in the top. I wonder if it was ever used for a signal fire.

I’ll be placing a geocache in the area after I get back. It will be called‘Ranch View’. I wonder who will get ‘first find’? It will be a bit of a challenge (not one of your drive-by-and-snag ones, Lynn). Three of the caches here are easy family-oriented ones and three take a bit of effort. I like effort. You can probably guess mine will not be down on the flats.

One day I went over to the Big Burro mountains with Tim, a host here, and we rode along the Continental Divide Trail for a few miles. Nice trail. We got on the trail where it crosses Gold Gulch Rd off rt90. Tim can ride circles around me but I did okay for the first half of the ride—then I ran out of juice, big time. First off, I should have been eating along the way. I not only get real tired but also downright testy when my blood sugar gets low. When I crashed in a stretch of snow on the way back and was getting up, I had a strong urge to pick up the bike and throw it down the hill. That kind of tuned me into realizing I needed some food. An apple helped. After the ride we took the pickup on some other roads to look for places to dry camp.
Had the bike tuned up at Gila Hike and Bike where I got it last year. Great shop with good, helpful people. The bike sure shifts and brakes WAY better than I could get it. It’s almost like a new bike.

I know, probably too many cat pictures for some of you. Oh well. From time to time I might possibly spend too much time just watching these two while they are out and about. Pretty enjoyable.
We’ve been having some cold, rainy days and there’s no way that Meadow and Onyx will go out for a dusk walk. As sure as the starship Enterprise is powered by dilithium crystals, those evenings will not be very relaxing. At some point, Onyx will get the look—eyes open wide, ears up, body tense—then he goes into hyper-drive—running over the tables, cushions, counters, and knocking over things. At some point he’ll pounce on Meadow and then they both are going at it, chasing each other, wrestling, tumbling off the seat cushions and dropping onto the floor. I just pick my feet up and tuck into a corner. You can probably imagine what it’s like if I had been sitting at the bench working with silver. I’ve learned to quickly throw a small fleece blanket over all the tools and materials. Occasionally I’ll use a laser pointer to tire them out or a rag on the end of a cord (basic survival tools for living in a small space with two felines). It’s a given that Onyx will go into hyper-drive again, a couple hours later just after I get into the sleeping bag. That really pisses off Meadow since at that point, she is sleeping. Then, with all the hissing, it’s more like a fight. It’s all SO predictable.

One of the best ways to make yourself happy
is to make other people happy. Gretchen Rubin

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
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granite gap

2010-02-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

I turned off rt80 onto a sand road in the Peloncillo Mtns. for some disperse camping. There were some spectacular granite and limestone formations. Found a nice spot up against some rocks and stayed for a few days. Saw a couple filling the back of their pickup with sticks one day, another day a couple just cruised through, and a couple javelina shooters came in later for awhile. Other than that, no one. On one of our dusk walks, I came across a couple of blankets and a day pack. The thing I do not enjoy about disperse camping down here is how often I come across sign of UDAs. It’s not an area where I sit around a fire at night and relax. I’ve never had a run-in with any but it’s hard for me to feel safe.
Meadow and Onyx loved being allowed back outside. I don’t let them out when in Bisbee.
The photos are of the road going in, some clouds on a morning run, the UDA rock, a working windmill with pump that I came across while out mountain biking, and my camping spot. There is not much in the way of trees in the desert for Meadow so she has to make do.

I also went back and shortened ‘the lifestyle’ entry to actually focus just on the lifestyle itself and added the ‘odds and ends—useful items to have along for full-timing in a small trailer’ to cover that part of the lifestyle.

I will be spending the last two weeks of February in City of Rocks, then over to the Big Burro Mountains for a week, and back to City of Rocks for three last weeks. By then enough snow should be gone from the lower trails north of Silver City. I want to explore them during April and May if I can find enough places to disperse camp. Then maybe up to the mountains north of Taos for a month or so to exploring those trails.
Have another entry to post the end of next week.

Ah—a life with little clutter, plenty of time, and pleasant settings.

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back to bisbee II

2010-02-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

I REALLY did not want to drive the interstate from Deming to Lordsburg so after pulling out of City of Rocks, I headed north on rt180, turned west onto Airport Road, and took Whitewater Road over to rt90. There were some washboard sections initially that shook things up, but once past Whitewater, the road was pretty well graded. One photo is looking back towards City of Rocks and Table Mountain. The other is looking west towards the Big Burro Mtns. Once on rt90 and into the Big Burro Mtns., I made note of where the forest roads branched off since I’ll be back to camp in this area next month.

It sure felt good being back in Bisbee. I stayed at Lynn’s again and this time she even provided wi-fi access (we never could find out where it was coming from). I spent hours catching up on web work. What a treat. Lynn took this shot of the casita at dusk. And, of course, we hit some favorite restaurants—Roka Café, Bisbee Breakfast Club, and Turquoise Valley Golf Course Cafe. Life is tough.
I went in Lynn’s house one day while she was at work to take a shower. I stepped into the tub—and there was no button on the wall—just some knobs coming out of the tiles. What is this?! I messed around with them a bit, water came out, and I could actually adjust the temperature of the water! I’m used to stepping into a shower, pressing a button, and living with whatever temperature water comes out for 10 seconds. This adjusting-water-temperature thing is SO cool. It’s like from a Sci-fi novel. Don’t know if it is just a local thing or not but I can sure see it catching on. Maybe not in New Mexico state parks, however, but one never knows.

Another given when back in Bisbee was nailing some geocaches. We went after 3 just north of Tombstone. In the background of the first photo, you can see a border patrol checkpoint (it’s a different world down here). The second photo shows how the next cache was hidden. I missed it the first time even though I actually was holding the stick in my hand! Lynn sure got a laugh out of that one. The cachers had cut a stick in half, drilled 2 holes, and inserted a copper tube in one of the holes to hold it all together. Way cool. We then stopped at the Crystal Palace Saloon for a drink (only as historical research) and walked around Tombstone for a bit.

Bisbee is a great place for getting in shape. There are over 3,000 stairs in the historic district. Most mornings I drove over and walked up 1,200 of them. I generally started a little after 6:00 while it was still dark, very few people up and around, and way quiet. Absolutely beautiful.

A couple mornings I just did a few hundred stairs and climbed up B hill. You can see the bottom of the trail as it angles up under the B (the stairs are easier). The photos are of another typical Bisbee gate and retaining wall (more on the April 2009 posting), B hill, a close-up of the B, and a view looking down from the top of the B taken on a drizzly day that I just HAD to get out of the casita.

Hiked over to the Buddha shrine from the B one day to see how it was looking. When I first moved to Bisbee, a large, colorful ceramic Hotei (the laughing Buddha) was placed there. One November it disappeared. In the spring I went and purchased a Buddha statue and grouted it in place. The next winter it disappeared.

“Wow, nice Buddha. Where did you get it?”
“I ripped it off the shrine on the hill.”

Ever hear of Karma?!
I was glad to see a new statue had been put there and noticed they used epoxy to fasten it down. It sure seems that some people here are missing the point.

Well, I went mountain biking with David one day. Never have been so out of control on a ride. There is quite an extensive network of dirt roads off Gold Gulch Road, south of Warren (branches off S Arizona St. [Airport Road]). You can park on the south side of Vista Park and bike along a frontage road for most of the way south to Gold Gulch Road. The hills aren’t bad but they are covered with loose rocks. David bikes them all the time and has no problem with them. I, however, always seemed on the verge of crashing—hence the stairs. After riding with Tim and David, I’m thinking about getting a tricycle or a Spooky Tooth bicycle and sticking to paved bike paths.

David did a stellar job with his new gallery—good displays, lighting, and fabulous jewelry and other art. If in town, be sure to check out Jewelry Designs by Owen on Main St.—two blocks up on the left.

I saw this Carousel trailer parked up Tombstone Canyon Rd in Bisbee. It was made in Tacoma, WA but I could not find any info on the web about it. The maroon and while trailer was over in the Shady Dell vintage RV park (http://www.theshadydell.com). It reminds me of a horse trailer but I really like the lines. There was no tag riveted on the body so I have no idea what it is.

Had two days of feeling real strange—headaches, tired, waking up during the nights with either body sweats or shivering with cold. Lived on aspirin. Thought I was getting the flu but there was never any sinus or throat problem. Strange. On the third morning I went out and did some stairs, weaker and slower but not too bad. Maybe I was just pushing too hard with the mountain biking at City of Rocks and the Bisbee stairs. Sure glad it was not the flu. Turned 60 while here. Doesn’t mean I have to slow down, does it?

A friend I worked with in Kanab, UT 3 summers ago at a workamping job was wintering in St. David, just up the road. Donna came down to Bisbee for a day and we had a good visit. She had a hip replacement and has worked up to doing hours of line dancing each week! Now THAT’S impressive. She full times in a Class A motorhome with 3 felines.

Plan to stop for a couple days of disperse camping in the Peloncillo Mtns, a few miles north of Rodeo, NM before heading back to one of City of Rocks primitive sites.
Back to web access only once every week or two. Guano.

February Night Sky—The zodiac is a long, thin band of sky—a ring of special constellations. It stretches around in a full 360 degree circle, but is only about 17 degrees wide. Zodiac is an old Greek word meaning‘wheel of life’. Each of the 12 constellations covers 30 degrees of the full circle and has a sign in the zodiac. Around the middle of the zodiac runs a line called the ecliptic. It’s the path that the sun seems to take through the sky during the year. The ecliptic changes every day. It marks the seasons. It’s also the only place where eclipses happen—hence the name, the ecliptic. The zodiac is like a great clock in the sky. The sun always rises in one of the 12 zodiac constellations. So do the moon and the other planets. Throughout the history of many lands, the zodiac has been the main way that many folks tell time.

It’s almost as if—on a warm, sunny day
we carry the day in our spirit.

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seasonal friends, teardrop, winter solstice,christmas with the cows, and oliver lee hike

2010-01-15T09:14:00.000-08:00

I was setting up at Brantley Lake when I heard someone call my name. It was Jerry from Colorado, who I met last winter at City of Rocks who full-times in a 22’ Lazy Daze with two felines. He brought over another fulltimer, Gary, who travels in a Class C pulling a small pickup. We talked about our trips down and then I finished setting up. We visited more over the days.

A bicycle tourist was camping down in the primitive area. Charles biked down from Albuquerque and is on a 4-month road trip, going down into Texas and then over to southern Arizona before back to Albuquerque. Pretty good shape for being in his 60s. One day we biked over to the old dam. Coming back I remembered why I no longer have a road bike. I HATE headwinds.

Chris fabricated this teardrop trailer, his second one. He and his girlfriend are from Florida and are heading to Yosemite. No heater—ceramic or catalytic. I’d freeze.

I saw Charley’s van down in City of Rocks last winter but didn’t meet him. He has a lot in Minnesota where he spends the summer and heads to Arizona and New Mexico for winters. He’s been in this Ford Class B van for 4 years and had another one prior to this one.

A couple pulled in for one night with a 19’ Airstream Bambi. I would LOVE to have one of those. Maybe after I get my 8-cylinder. Don’t really need all that room but they sure have panache. A 17’ Oliver would be more practical for me but I would lose way too much on resale. I might look into installing double pane windows on the casita. With the wall being so thin, it might be a problem. I don’t like being restricted to primarily electric sites for two or three months each winter.
Noticed a casita here at Brantley one morning as I was returning from a run. It was gone by the time I cleaned up, ate, and had coffee. Oh well.

Another winter solstice, my favorite day of the year (though each year’s anniversary of my transplant runs a close second)—the earth’s new year and foretells the coming of summer. Went for a long hike and bought some amaretto and vodka for a godmother to celebrate.

Been running most mornings, biking to the old dam and down some dirt roads every other day or so, and going for walks with Meadow and Onyx each evening. Jeez, there is a lot of rainbow cactus in the area. Packed the bike into town a couple times to bicycle along the riverside path.

Went over towards the Guadalupe’s for a few days and camped out on BLM just east of the mountains. The rancher who leases the grazing rights, Jim, stopped by to check things out. We had a good talk. Spent Christmas surrounded by cows. A couple times one of them butted the spare tire. Maybe they thought the casita was a big, old, white cow. Onyx wouldn’t even watch them out the window. They were WAY too close and big for him. The morning I left the area, I stopped at Jim’s ranch and gave him a Peter Bowen book I was done with and a silver pendant for his wife. Nice people.

I expect M/O to jump up onto the table when they hear a can being opened. This is understandable; it’s generally cat food. However, they even want what’s in a can of soup when I open it. And it’s beefless and chickenless—just something like cream of mushroom. Unreal. And they always want some butter when I have it out for my pancakes. Hey—shouldn’t you two be out looking for mice!?

The library in Carlsbad is a good spot for wi-fi since they have tables and outlets. It was down twice while I was at Brantley, though. Luckily the Mail Service Center just a block to the west on Mermod offers free wi-fi. Didn’t check in at the coffee shop on Canyon that I used a couple years ago.
Had breakfast a couple times at the Blue House Café again. Nice atmosphere and delicious breakfast burritos.

Well, I tallied up my expenses for 2009 and they were more than $10,000. Guano. The Cherokee’s rebuilt transmission and replacing my mountain bike pushed me over. Had different columns in my notebook for groceries, gas, propane, wine and beer, annual fees, etc. Saw where I can cut back on some waste in 2010. Spent way more than I would have thought on groceries and that’s without any meat, fish, poultry, or junk food. Maybe this year I’ll eat less so I can cut back on the hiking. Maybe the sun will also begin to rise in the west.
Only racked up 5748 miles on the Cherokee for the year. Certainly do not do much of my ‘traveling’ sitting on my butt in the Jeep. Sure get a lot of flats riding my mountain bike down here in the desert. Going to look into Slime. Wore out a pair of hiking boots and well into a second plus 2 pairs of running shoes and well into a third this year. Not bad.

It had been snowing in the mountains to the west so I did not want to go up through Cloudcroft. I drove back north a bit where the mountains were lower. At Roswell (saw all kinds of alien craft flying about) I took rt70 west. Really enjoyed the drive, and yes, I also listened to another podcast of Wait, wait. Would love to have a cabin off 70 once it got up in the national forest.
Stopped at Oliver Lee state park. Not my kind of place. Too open, no shelters, and the sites are just pull-offs to the side of the road. Summer people must bring their own shade. Stellar hiking trail, though, with a 3,000’ elevation gain in 5 miles. One photo is looking down at the campground from the lower part of the trail—Where’s Waldo?—I mean, where’s my rig? Other shots are: a stream crossing; the remains of an old line shack at about the 3 mile mark; a place not too far past the shack that must look pretty cool during the monsoons; a shot looking down from roughly half way up; and the 4 mile marker. The trail is 5 miles to the top and another mile takes you out to a dirt road. I left the camper in the morning with the intention of only going for a half hour walk so I didn’t bring a pack. The trail was so nice that I just kept going. When I got to the 4-mile marker, I said that an 8 mile walk before breakfast was plenty. And I definitely was getting hungry. Besides, I had to drive to City of Rocks that day.

January Night Sky—On a clear night, ancient mariners easily found their latitude with the stars using old instruments such as, a cross-staff or a calabash. They just measured the altitude of the North Star. One can also use your hands. Extend your arm out straight towards Polaris—bend your wrist 90°—move your arm until Polaris is sitting on your index finger—do the same with your other hand and place it under your first hand and you now have eight fingers stacked up under the North Star. One finger equals 4° of latitude so four fingers is roughly 15°. Imagine two more hands under the first two and that will give you 30°.
This is also a stellar technique for judging how long it will take before the sun sets. I use it all the time. Hold your hands out the same way and see how many fingers stack between the bottom of the sun and the horizon. Each finger equals 15 minutes. So if you can fit 4 fingers under the sun, it will set in one hour. Way cool.

‘Much of the unhappiness in today's world comes from a neglect of the beauty of life
in favor of acquiring things and getting results quickly.’
yet another line I forgot where it’s from

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

santa rosa, oasis, bottomless, more déjà vu,and five great lessons

2009-12-19T09:09:00.000-08:00

Santa Rosa only had two other rigs here. Sites are close to the road but very little traffic in the winter. M/O out on one of our late afternoon walks. At some point on every walk, Meadow or Onyx will sit in ambush until the other one comes along, then pounce and roll around together. Sometimes if Onyx is crouched and waiting, Meadow will sprint past and they both go running up the trail with their tails straight up in the air. Meadow has no qualms about slamming into Onyx but she would just as soon not have the same happen to her. Very, very entertaining.

Had a few cold days with two single-digit nights. Meadow and Onyx bagged the walks. Had to stay an extra day because the roads were pretty icy and snow covered.

Meadow was watching something out the window one day. I looked out and saw this fox rooting around in the ground.

The morning I rolled out of Santa Rosa State Park, I stopped for breakfast at Joseph’s out on rt66. Had a tasty omelet and hit the road with, believe it or not, a TAILWIND. These seem to be few and far between for me. Always knew there were gods. Stayed at Oasis a couple days. Good loop for our walks and the water has been holding in the pond. Had a thin layer of ice on the water. Drove into Portales for web access and to pick up a few jars of the local peanut butter that Sunland makes from Valencia peanuts. Stayed an extra day because very heavy winds were forecasted (accurately). Coming out the next morning, I picked out eleven tumbleweeds wedges under the casita and Cherokee. Jeez, had it been blowin’.

I was listening to an 80’s show on the fm and the programmer was throwing out tidbits between the tunes. One was that an oft requested song at funerals is Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’. Now those are my kind of people—humor right to the end.

Got my favorite site at Bottomless. For us, the three best sites at Bottomless are out in the primitive area. This year there was not a single other camper in any of the primitive sites while we were here. Not bad. Only part way through winter and already I am having disperse-camping-site withdrawal, so this was good. Maybe I should look into becoming a monk.
There was a lidless trashcan not far from the camper and the first night there was some noise out there after dark. I shined a flashlight out the window and there was a large raccoon going through the trash. Not the least bit fazed that a light was shining on it. Like I did not have ENOUGH of raccoons up in South Willow Canyon this past summer!

I’ve been weeding through my MacBook lately and have been coming across stories that I’ve saved over the years. The following is one of them. I tried to find out on the web who wrote this one but it was always ‘Unknown Author’. Oldies but goodies.

‘FIVE GREAT LESSONS—The Important Things Life Teaches You...

Number One: The Most Important Question.
During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired, and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. "Absolutely," said the professor. "In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say 'hello.'" I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.

Number Two: Pickup in the Rain.
One night, at 11:30 PM, an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rainstorm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her— generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960s. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance, and put her into a taxicab. She seemed to be in a big hurry! She wrote down his address, thanked him, and drove away. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man's door. To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A special note was attached. It read: "Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain had drenched not only my clothes, but my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband's bedside just before he passed away. God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others. Sincerely, Mrs. Nat King Cole."

Number Three: Always Remember Those Who Serve.
In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10 year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" "Fifty cents," replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it. "How much is a dish of plain ice cream?" he inquired. Some people were now waiting for a table and the waitress was a bit impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she said brusquely. The little boy again counted the coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table, and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier, and departed. When the waitress came back, she began wiping down the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies—her tip.

Number Four: The Obstacle in Our Path.
In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the big stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many others never understand. Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one's condition.

Number Five: Giving Blood.
Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease, and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes, I'll do it if it will save Liz." As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away?" Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood. Attitude, after all, is everything.’

Now those—are sovereign.

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

navajo lake, heron,water heater flush, day-to-day variances,three ravens, onyx and the shower bag,coop, and villanueva

2009-12-10T12:28:00.000-08:00

I hate headwinds. Heading down rt191 towards Monticello with the pedal-to-the-metal, the ’91 Cherokee was only going 45 mph. Two more years and I’m getting an 8 cylinder. Driving over to Cortez and Durango was easier going. Didn’t stock up until Durango since I did not want to be dragging the weight from Cortez. There was an Albertsons, Wal-mart, and Home Depot in town.
Rt172 south was a nice, laidback drive until I hit New Mexico. The road then got rougher and was a steep 25-30 mph climb up the mountain, with no passing lanes. It took us quite a while to reach the top and luckily there was not any traffic. Sure looking forward to that 8.

Picked up another annual pass at Navajo Lake state park. It’s a decent campground but, as you know, campgrounds don’t generally work for Meadow and Onyx. The only campground that was open this time of year was Pine. Not many people here since they are mostly much farther south by this time. Damn do I plan well. I got a decent site for the little ones so they could go out but only because the three sites close to us were empty. Beautiful place if you have a boat. Only stayed here a few days because there were not any decent places to run or hike and only one walking loop for M/O. Don’t think I will be coming back here unless I find a solo canoe at some point. It sure is hard to find a used 12’ one. Caught up on various tasks. Picked up a 32 GB flash drive in Durango and have been backing up all the pictures and files I’ve been working on this year. My smaller flash drives were maxed. Working on converting my blog to html. Just for fun and to make sure I have not forgotten how to write the code and css.
I drained the water heater before I left South Willow. Finally remembered to take my flushing wand and flush out the accumulated sediment. Jeez, did a lot of crud come out. It’s been quite a while since I flushed out the heater. Sediment buildup in the bottom of the water heater tank is always a problem. When the heater is running, sediment collects on the anode rod (which is a real good thing [replace yours yet, Siscily?]). Sediment drops to the bottom of the heater and becomes crystallized so the tank should be flushed out whenever you check the anode for wear.

There are three more campgrounds up the road that were closed. These are just photos of a couple sites. Siscily told me last winter that I would probably like Sims campground best but it was closed. A ranger here said they might not open it next year since they might not have the personnel and money to run it. That’s too bad.

Went to open the door one morning at 5:00 to let Meadow and Onyx out—and the lock was frozen so the door would not open. Guano. It was not even that cold, just in the low twenties. I guess some rain from the day before got in the lock and froze. Every once in a while I get a chuckle out of how my day-to-day life compares to that of most others.

Just missed a week of single digit night temperatures at Heron Lake. They were still down in the teens while we were here, though. The first shot is of my site and the second is of the morning fog rising over the lake. It was good to see Siscily again. One night she came over for a game of Mexican Train. There was a bottle of merlot sitting on the table. There must have been a crack in the bottle. By the time we finished with the game, the wine was gone.

One morning Siscily met me at Three Ravens Coffee House in Tierra Amarilla. Fabulous shop. The photos only cover a tiny portion of the building. It had been boarded up for years. Paul Namkung has been restoring the old adobe building over the last ten years and has recently opened the coffee house. Absolutely stellar job with the restoration. The mud on the interior and exterior walls is the traditional mix of dirt, straw, sand, and water. It looks way cool. A small cup of the High Octane coffee had me buzzing for the rest of the morning. The hot portabella panini sandwich I had was delicious. Paul is a drum maker (www.worlddrums.org) and his woodshop is also in the building. Be sure to have him play a bit for you and, if you are interested, show you his shop. Definitely a MUST stop if you are in the area.
Siscily is a park ranger at Heron Lake and is taking a leave for the winter and pulling her Casita and packing her feline, Buddy, down to Texas and will be working at the Amistad National Recreation Area through the cold months. Stop and visit if you pass near there.
Showers at Heron were turned off for the season by the time I got there and with snow on the ground, the sun shower was not my first choice. Tierra Amarilla has a town pool where one can shower. I did fill up the sun shower one day to wash my hair. The Cherokee was parked in shade so I could not put the bag up on or hang it from the Jeep’s roof rack. So I laid it out on a bench. Any guesses on what happened? Remember I have two cats. Yep, Onyx checked out the bag, first with a paw, and then with a claw. I noticed something was wrong when I saw water running over the bench. Guano. I used a bicycle tube patch to fix the hole. How many lives is that now for Onyx? MUST be close to nine.
I use a Bic lighter to light the galley stove. I know the mornings when I will be layering on additional clothing before going out for a run. They are the mornings when I have to rub the lighter in my hands to warm up the fuel. Always get some of those mornings.

Stayed in Heron a couple days longer so I could have my mail forwarded. It’s been over a month so might as well see what’s there. I heard some geese flying over the other evening. Need to pick up the pace a bit. Stopped at Three Ravens as I headed out for another cup of High Octane for the road and chatted with Paul for a while. The building he has been restoring was built in 1885. When he opened, one of his neighbors was brought over by her grandson. She walked into the middle of the shop and slowly turned all around as she checked everything out. The lady then thanked Paul for the restoration. When she was a child, her mother used to bring her in when the building was a mercantile. There were some moist eyes at that point.

While passing through Santa Fe, I stopped at the LaMontanita Coop on W Alameda St, off Saint Francis, like last year. It’s only a couple blocks out of the way. Fabulous food and supplies.

The upper loop at Villanueva State Park was closed for repairs. Guano. For us, the best sites are up in the loop. No hookups but early morning sun, space, and M/O can roam without the danger of dogs because the RVers tend to stay down below at the hookup sites. So we had to take a site down along the Pecos. Luckily the park was pretty empty. Still, I only let M/O out for their 5:00 run in the mornings. Stayed a week. Longer than I had planned but it warmed up and there are plenty of places to hike. I also really enjoyed listening to KBAC, 98.1 Radio Free Santa Fe. A good mix of music.
The third photo is a shot of the upper loop from the trail on the other side of the Pecos.

I’m not into Thanksgiving Day. I go out and give thanks just about every morning. I also look at my birthday as my special day each year for being thankful for all that has occurred that year. A generic day in November doesn’t do anything for me. Be that as it may, a couple from Colorado came through for a couple days in their tent trailer. Eric, Monica, and Kiera along with Sammy and Zero (the dogs) invited me over for a Thanksgiving Day meal. Very nice. Good company and good food. I just passed on the turkey and stuffing. Eric is getting close to 25 years in the air force and does quite a bit of mountain biking. Eric and Monica took one of those supported mountain bike tours out of Moab down to the Kaibab Plateau in Arizona one summer so we talked about the Kaibab and biking for a while. What a bike Eric has! I had no idea such features come on bikes. Maybe if I win the lottery. Later, around the fire, we had a round-robin scary turkey story. It’s been years since I’ve done something like that.

One day I biked into Villanueva and came across a dirt road that climbed up out of town. Miles and miles of dirt roads up there. Very nice. I came across the grotto of Our Lady of Guadalupe and took the shot of looking down on the town.

Stopped on Las Vegas for a few hours to access the web at the library, do some laundry, and pick up some supplies. Passed on a couple state parks that I was not impressed with last year and drove down to Santa Rosa. Not one of my favorites but there’s a decent hiking loop and quiet roads for bicycling. I’m going to also pass Sumner Lake this year and only spend a couple days at Oasis to see what they did with the pond. Remember the entry from last February about all the water leaking out? Then probably a couple days at a non-hookup site in Bottomless in order to get in some rides on the mountain bike trail. I plan to spend two or three weeks at Brantley Lake and then check out Oliver Lee. I did not get a chance to camp at Oliver Lee last winter and a couple people said I might like it. I also want to check out some BLM land down in that area. Then on to my favorite state park for getting in some serious exercise—City of Rocks. If I’m going to do any mountain biking with David when I get to Bisbee, I am going to have to do a few laps out on the trail including the Overlook switchbacks every day I’m there. The primitive sites are generally nice and quiet out next to the rocks, away for the hookup sites. Remember I only do these parks in winter. There are 45 sites out there and I’ve managed to get one or the other of my two favorites, the three times I’ve camped there. These two sites are not any of the more popular ones, so that helps, and they work best for Meadow and Onyx. Then on to Lynn’s place in Bisbee for a while. One of the high points of my annual loop.

December – The Full Cold Moon; among some tribes, the Full Long Nights Moon. In this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and the nights are at their longest and darkest. Also sometimes called the “Moon before Yule”. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long and the Moon is above the horizon a long time. The midwinter full Moon takes a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite to the low Sun.

‘I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand,
as in what direction we are moving.
To reach the port, we must sail sometimes with the wind
and sometimes against it
but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.’ Oliver Wendell Holmes

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006

canyon rim area, bored?!, rockland,cowpie fires, and a new bed

2009-11-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

Well, a couple days turned into a couple weeks. I love this lifestyle—it’s so unpredictable.

I hear many fulltimers say stuff like if they go off and dry camp, they are ready to bag it after two or three days. They don’t have anything to do, miss other people (in only three days!), and they get bored. Unreal. These are the same people who state that their grandkids need to be constantly entertained. Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black? I don’t know if I could get enough of being out in the sticks for weeks at a time. I love steppin’ out the door in the morning in a place that demands to be noticed. I love it out here.
I drove about 30 miles south of Moab, turned off rt191, and headed west. After 8 or 10 miles I turned onto a dirt road heading north and came across the spot in the first photo to camp. I do like solitude. The next day I went out for a mountain bike ride and came across another place to camp so I moved the following morning after a nice run checking out land to the west. As luck would have it, while out running the next morning, yep, I found a camping spot I liked even better. When I got back to my camper, I had breakfast, made a fire in the feed pan, drank a mug of coffee and read a bit, gathered up Meadow and Onyx, packed up, and drove down this double track to the site on a rim. Marked down the GPS coordinates so I can find it again if I want. In cold weather, I like to position the casita with the large back window facing the rising sun so the rays help warm up the camper. Pack a compass if you are camping off the grid and thus have this option.

There were plenty of places to explore from the third site and it had warmed up so I decided to hang out for a bit. In a few days I made a run back to Moab for propane, wine, web access, a loaf of stone-baked Ecce Panis olive batard, and to get a map and fill up the Reliance water jugs at Gearheads. Shortly after leaving my site, I went the wrong way at a fork in the road. Since I was more or less going in the right direction, I kept going. After 22 miles, I finally got back to pavement. No big thing, it’s not like I’m on any schedule and I saw some neat stuff like this cave shack in 8 Mile Rock. If you ever find yourself on Looking Glass Road, just a bit south of rt46 (to La Sal), there is a strange community a few miles in from rt191. You’ll see a large rock jutting up from the flats and on the west side there are a number of caves. People have boarded up the openings, put in doors and windows, and made the caves into homes, some with two stories and extensions. While back in Moab, I asked someone about it and he heard it might be a polygamist community. In Utah!? Who would have thought? I need to email Glen to see what he knows about this place. Listened to a ‘Wait, wait’ podcast on the way back to camp. Sure do get some laughs out of that program.
I emailed Glen about what he knew about the rock and was not the least bit surprised that he knew all about it. They should have a local Moab game—Stump Glen. He wrote, “The rock you saw is called Rockland. It's where Bob Foster had his polygamist community. He died recently and I heard that things were in sort of disarray out there. Under that rock are thousands of feet of tunnels with rooms where people have food stored for when the "end" comes. He made his money by renting out the "rooms."
Note below, that a comment posted this link:
http://cbs5.com/national/polygamist.cave.homes.2.866760.html
THANKS dixonge!

Most days I hiked along the rim until I came to a drainage and scrambled down to the bottom. After exploring for a couple hours, I looked for another drainage where I could climb back up to the rim. Never had to repeat the same climb. Not bad. The first photo is looking back to where the casita is parked up on the rim. If I knew how to insert an arrow into the jpg, I could point to it. It’s sitting up there in the middle of the shot. Some places just had an easy climb back to the top like the second photo shows and the third one shows I’m almost back up to the top. One drainage in particular widened quite a bit towards the bottom with steep sidewalls, a number of small caves and overhangs, shade, and standing water. I start to think cougar. I climbed up to some of the pockets looking for sign of recent use. Possibly not too smart. I would really prefer to not have my throat ripped out. No fresh sign although I came across some old scat a bit farther down the drainage. I started sending out strong vibes that I truly like cats.

Other days I did some mountain biking or went out for a morning run. Spent time working on my MacBook, reading, tried my hand again at throwing a boomerang (wish it did not generally fly like a Frisbee), worked on some silver pieces, and this-and-that. I was definitely maxed by the time to turn in each night. There was two pair of ravens who came by from time to time riding the updrafts along the rim. Something I do not see ravens do all that often. Way cool. Got back to taking sun-showers. Not bad unless it is November and a breeze comes up. Meadow, Onyx, and I went for a walk at the end of each day, a couple times for nearly an hour. Sure is entertaining. There is flint EVERYWHERE. Should learn how to knap and hit the rendezvous circuit and set up a booth. We were here for the weeks around the full moon, which is always a treat while out dry camping off the grid. I noticed a sign stating no collecting of wood in this area. Wood, along with water, is something I won’t buy. So each day I snagged my black rubber bucket and went out in the sage collecting ‘firewood’. I did use a couple finger-size juniper sticks for some flames to get the cowpies burning well in the feed pan. Reminds me of burning cattails when I was a kid. I dumped the ashes into the bucket each morning and went off to bury them.

Have not seen another person or vehicle the whole time I have been out here. Sure did need this dose of solitude.

I had a cat bed in my fifth wheel but got rid of it when I moved into the casita. There is not a whole lot of space. I recently broke down and bought a small dog bed for Meadow and Onyx. A cat bed was way too small for the two of them. They sure have been enjoying it.

I wonder if I will get any strange looks or see people sniffing the air—the next time I go into a laundromat and take my clothes out of the bag—after two weeks of burning cow sh*t.

‘This is the beginning of a new day.
You have been given this day to use as you will.
You can waste it or use it for good.
What you do today is important because
you are exchanging a day of your life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever;
in its place is something that you have left behind…
let it be something good.’
forgot where I came across this

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’
FOR INDEX OF POSTINGS GO TO JULY 2006