First week - To Town and Back

Retrospect
November 16^th, 2005

There would be so many firsts in the coming months. This would be our first drive out of the canyon from our permanent home. That idea was almost impossible to absorb after all the trials of getting here. But here we were, finally, the morning bright and electric, the air clear and brisk as the truck scuffed along the gritty tan roads. "Wow! Look over here, look over there! I don't remember seeing that before now!." That comment would continue to emerge on every drive to follow and, according to our nearest neighbor, this is how it has been for her over the last 50 years - always seeing something new in the million year old faces of tall rock. The roads wound through the canyon bottoms, sometimes climbing up and tightly arching around the knees of the mesas to escape the normally dry riverbed's deep serpentine path. No idiot-friendly guard rails to obstruct the views below, no gaudy parade of warning signs to clutter the views of immensely raw beauty ahead.

Occasionally a sand-colored rising plume of dust miles away would herald the oncoming of a vehicle. They were almost always gas field trucks, some small, some huge. It didn't take long to notice a curious pattern; the closer to our place in the boonies, the more likely that the drivers would return a jovial wave but the closer to town, the more likely they were to stare intently ahead without acknowledgement. We haven't quite figured out an explanation for that. Perhaps heading deeper into the canyon fosters camaraderie, i.e. "If I break down out here in the middle of nowhere, maybe you will remember my friendly wave and stop to help."

After an hour of rumbling through the dust, we hit pavement and the town came into view shortly thereafter. We stopped in for breakfast at a non-chain diner on the outskirts. At that hour, a little past the breakfast rush, the diner was populated by a variety of ranchers, retired folks, the odd trucker and Navajos, usually with small round-faced children in tow. The pervasive aroma of coffee, clattering dishes and friendly chatter surrounded our booth with a comforting din as we dragged out the list of stops to be made. We would have to make the rounds as efficiently as possible lest we take the unfamiliar route back home in darkness. The other joy of stopping here was to use their real porcelain thrones. You just can't appreciate such things until you find yourself without and likely so for a long time to come. I will address that matter further down the line. If you plan on going boonie, you need to consider this seemingly minor detail very carefully.

There was mail waiting for us but nothing at the shipping terminal yet. The composting toilet didn't seem like a priority then but I was disappointed that the propane refrigerator was still out in transit somewhere. I would now have to drastically alter the grocery shopping list and stick to camp-out food for another week. I could probably tolerate the nasty kitchen as long as I had some sanitary place to store perishables. If not this week, this would become a reality next week. Or so I thought. You will see a lot of that last phrase in the coming months.

Next post? The rains have the creek threatening to rise again and disrupting the regular flow of life here so maybe give me an extra day or two, just in case. Then again, I might surprise you with something sooner. That's just the way life is out here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Humor of the day: (A little senior teasing from buddy John in AZ)

Maxine took her car to her mechanic. She told him "Every time I take any of my friends out in my car there is this terrible odor after a while. It never happens when I am on my own."

This intrigued the mechanic so he said, "OK, lets go for a spin and see what the problem is." Off they went. She drove down a one-way street in the wrong direction at 70 MPH, swerving, hitting the curb on both sides of the street, narrowly missed three people in pedestrian crossings, ran several red lights and just missed a policeman on traffic duty.

They returned to the shop and she said, "There ... there it is now, isn't that terrible? Can you smell it?"

"Are you kidding?!! Smell it? Lady, I'm sittin' in it!!"