The Creek is running high and wide!

Current news: written Saturday night

If Saturday wasn't the day of the heaviest rains since we arrived, it will certainly win the red ribbon. It will be interesting to see what the rain gauge declares tomorrow. Neither of us cares to risk falling on our faces in the mud tonight. Inches of rain received or not received is a mainstay of conversation out here so you better know what fell on you recently. We began this rain log back in July when the rainy season, called 'the monsoons', started. When I think of monsoons, I think of natives ducking for shelter in swaying thatch-roofed huts. Wrong image, at least for the last decade from what we've been told. But this year has been different and in just four months we have logged in more rainfall than is usually expected for the entire year.

I prefer the light, gentle rains which slowly soak into the ground. That's not it today, kitty. Dumping, splatting rains combined with a little hail and plenty of lightning and thunder. When these real bad boys hit, the dry ground shuns the water and it rolls downwards to join the other spurned waters. They bring sand, pebbles, pinecones and the odd cow pie along for a hairy ride down the mesa steps until they cascade in the color of chocolate milk into the canyons below. In our case, they sweep past our encampment at the mesa foot, either digging away at anything standing in the way or piling fresh debris around it. I don't doubt that our shovel-wide diversion ditch behind the trailer was overwhelmed tonight and that the morning will bring retrenching and numerous repairs. When you have a trailer sitting up on little more than cement blocks, you really don't want Mother Nature washing them away like shoreline flotsam.

We can hear the normally dry creek roaring now in rapids and ripping away tall banks as it heads to the main canyon. The roads had barely healed themselves of mud sloughs from last weekend's lighter rains and we may regret that we had cancelled our last two weekly supply runs. This latest offering may have us sequestered for another two weeks. The good news is that Mark built a small mouse-proof walk-in pantry very early on in the game and it is reasonably well stocked with edibles. But one item allowed to dwindle to nothing was toilet paper. Paper towels are also getting scarce and newspaper is NO substitute, just trust me on that one. Aside from a few dripping windows however, we are warm and dry compared to the hunters who are encamped in the neighboring areas. They began arriving on Friday and one truck dusted by barely before dusk with two adults and several young children aboard. They had no trailer in tow or camper so I imagine that this has been a glum dad and lad tenting experience for them. Hopefully they took Friday night's rains as a warning and left today. If not, they will encounter deeply muddy roads, which are partially washed out, and likely a few impassable washes. Reporting in to work on Monday morning may not be an option for them. This is a hostile and brutal land if you are caught unprepared by the unexpected. Yep, you know that there plenty of those stories coming up in the weeks ahead.

First week - Real Heat! (sort of)

Retrospect
November 17th, 2005

No trip to town necessary for another week now. We had made it home with the supplies the day before but in a way which could become a tauntingly repetitive theme for every trip to come thereafter - we didn't beat the setting sun. Luckily, the pitch black didn't fall on us until we were closer to the more recognizable last 10 miles. We now also remembered that the sun took any hint of comfortable heat with it and we unpacked the truck with record efficiency. The first objective was to unpack the small propane blast furnace which we found at the big box DIY store. It cautionned "Not for residential use" but we were desperate. We had a choice of freezing to death or breathing a bit of CO. We chose the latter since living in the rat trailer was roughly equivalent to standing in a wind tunnel. The air exchange rate must have been impressive. We would not leave it on during the night but use it to pump up the temperature just before bedtime and just have to hope that the heat would keep us above freezing level until morning. Maybe not ideal but a great improvement over the night before.

We had dragged home three of their 10 pound tanks to fuel it, too - the small barbeque kind that they lock up in cages outside the store. The unit fired up and radiated a joyous heat. I slumped down into a hard chair and gazed into the center of the heater housing, beyond the roaring flame, to the other side. The embossed warning there sent the comforting dyslectic message "!toH" Yes! toH, toH, toH and those Hot waves were beginning to reach my shivering torso. The cats were soon rolling around and grinning like laughing Buddhas. This might have been their first real indulgent pleasure since we curtailed their old roaming 'at large' habits over a month ago. They had become grim and joyless in the interim. We had been amply warned that coyotes would snatch up an errant cat in short order so we were now constantly guarding the door lest they slip out. I knew that I could not handle another loss of a beloved pet friend during this trying adaptation period. As much as the loss of a small friend, it was dealing with Mark's quiet but grinding, sigh-filled suffering and knowing that I could do nothing to ease his sorrow.

The reverie in this new heat was interrupted abruptly. I noticed Mark making my same bunny nose twitches just as I said "Gee, do you smell something? Kinda like a burning smell or something?" I forget which one of us was first to dive towards the heater's off switch but I remember shoving the heater back with my foot. Beneath the heater lay a still sizzling patch of kitchen floor tile that used to imitate marble. Nowhere in the instructions did we notice a warning that this unit would sear the snot out of anything less stalwart than the deck of the Queen Mary. Oh joy. After a few moments of brain storming, we dragged in 4 solid core concrete blocks and stacked them pedestal style over the newly brindled faux marble. This quick fix would see us through the winter without further melt downs. The incident also molded our direction in terms of how to eventually update the rat trailer flooring in practical and much safer ways. More on that to follow as the rat rehab begins.

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.

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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!!"

The end of that first, long cold night

After supper and reflections, we realized that the cold had been doggedly prying its way into the trailer with leg ups from the wind. There would be no relief from the dropping temperatures except for a huddle in bed, a bed which didn't exist yet. We fumbled through the mound of retailer bags and found the new blow-up mattress and linens. The mattress pump had a charge and an inflated form soon emerged which would lightly separate us from the uninsulated floor. The linens seemed inadequate so the old arctic sleeping bags were added to the growing heap. Every 'man' and cat to himself now. Our bodies were the only heat source in bed for the first shuddering ten minutes but sleep would graciously end the torment for both of us in time.

Funny thing about those cats; they never were very social at bedtime ... until that night. Within an hour, they became purring, tunneling, heat-sinking long lost best friends. Don't let anyone ever tell you that two cats make up for a two dog night but we still appreciated the extra heat contributions. All four of us ended up with noses barely peeking out of the covers, all emitting steady plumes of condensate into the frigid night air.

No window shades came with the rat trailer so the cats were up as usual at the very first dull stripes of light to climb up over the mesas. As cats do, they were then compelled to awake us, their miserable palace eunuchs. Only half-awake, I tried to drag each of them back under the covers but they bested me. Mark, as always, was the first to concede to their demands and performed a frenetic gig as he slipped back into his icy clothes. The cats glared accusingly back and forth between him and their water dish which was now frozen solidly right to the bottom. Determined soul that he is, he set up the new camping stove on the scaggy kitchen counter and touched off the butane. He had to have coffee this morning, period - some rituals must not be neglected for any reason. The side benefit would be real liquid water for the cats. I remained in bed, awake but not willing to come out until my breath ceased to form clouds. Eventually the solar gain through the windows and the pathetic heat coming off the camp stove made that wish almost reality and I joined the trio.

Pen and pad were found to inventory the list of needed items which the night had explained to us in very clear terms. It was obvious that a long run into town was necessary before we dealt with one more night. While the high desert will usually offer above freezing temps during the day, it will bring well below freezing temps at night in the winter.

Items scrawled down: a better heat source, small propane tanks to supply it, panel nails and caulking to nail down the wind-friendly paneling, my favorite mylar bubble sheeting to cover the single glazed windows and blank off the unused parts of the rat trailer. Check if the new composting toilet and propane refrigerator had arrived at the shipping terminal. Hardy foods that may not object to light freezing every night, forget the greens for now. Water, yes, water would be nice to have on hand, too.

A new and dependable water source was certainly a priority. The natural spring which we had hoped would sustain us proved to be a floating mausoleum of long dead critters now. We would have to find another more sanitary permanent source of water. That new-fangled cell phone did not have a signal this far out but, once in town, Mark placed a call to the well-driller who had repaired our grazing well up on top of the mesa the Fall before. He would be out at week's end with the rig. Awesome luck, an immediate touch of civilized dignity so soon!

Or so we thought.

Next likely post: 2 or 3 days from now

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Humor of the day (courtesy of 'the tomato man') :

During these serious times, people of all faiths should remember these four religious truths:

1. Muslims do not recognize Jews as God's chosen people.

2. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

3. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian world.

4. Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters.

La Raison D'être

So exactly why did we choose to relocate to a shelterless patch of belligerent land in a rough clime so unlike that which we had ever known?

Unfortunately, the answer might not be primo neurotic fodder for tabloids. Sorry to disappoint if you were waiting for any real knock down and drag 'em out juicy stuff. But it does involve an addiction so read on.

When Mark and I got together years ago, we each continued on in our usual ways but now in a coincidental lock step. We worked incessantly during daylight hours with few diversions. But we enjoyed it. Then came the oft-repeated invitation from our old Albuquerque friends and, for some reason still unfathomable to us, it just hit at the right time. It seemed almost surreal to find ourselves hopping off a plane into a rental car and heading out to explore the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado over the following two weeks. A genuine vacation ... us? What about the projects left on the back burner, the pets, the lawn ... oh, how ... how totally irresponsible!

But these brilliant new surroundings soon blew off that residual haze of guilt and we consumed the southwest with an outrageous and uncharacteristic gluttony. We could now feel the real Old West originally brought to us by the era of black and white TV with the test pattern graced by that beautiful Indian chief. Forget the pot metal cap guns with embossed plastic holsters, the turkey feathers in cardboard headbands ... this was the real thing! As the miles and ever changing terrain passed by, I glanced out the window and could nearly see the Indians of a few hundred years ago as they came and went in everyday life - nothing particularly exciting, just a simpler life without the excessive constraints of modern society and government.

When we arrived home, our abandoned world had not collapsed fully in our absence. What a stunning revelation! But we carried home a viral-natured creature which would not go away. We would later rehash the impact of the adventure and come to the conclusion that we both most appreciated the times when we were completely alone with the land, its resident animals, plants and ever vocal winds. Departing left a haunting void and longing within both of us. There was a strong stoic beauty within the region and its tenacious inhabitants that could not be shaken by either of us. We needed to return.

It would be a very trying experience over the next couple of years to find that home where our hearts now belonged. Our first inclination was to find a place within a short distance of our old friends, for obvious reasons. After several failed attempts to buy property in an appealing funky artist community nearby, we started to look farther afield. We would spend almost three years trying to find a place in which the deal was not plagued by unusual circumstance. That interval was not without extreme angst and utter discouragement either. There was a point when we became so discouraged that we stopped looking altogether lest the blood pressure spikes and screeching frustration resurface. As my nephew said "If it is not meant to be, it will not happen. If it is meant to be, it will happen flawlessly."

One day, after an undetermined span of painful withdrawal, I had a sudden and insistent inspiration to go look at sites with available properties once more. One stood out with invisible asterisks and we found ourselves southwest bound again. The young and endearing agent showed us several properties that day but this one remained the forerunner in our intuition. We were driven to take the leap without pause. It still took a year or more to wrap up our many commitments to that previous life but the brief encounter with this remote setting had left its searing brand on our every breath thereafter. We were simply meant to be here, even if only for a time line whose length has yet to be revealed.

Next likely post - in a couple of days (and as always, if the creek don't rise)

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Link of the day:

Next time you find yourself in an American Graffiti kind of mood, click on this link. This man has gathered together some great hits from 1956 to 1960. Just click on the jukebox titles and get ready to rock. This great 'heads up' courtesy of the KatLady.

http://www.bobforrest.com/JukeBox.htm

That first long, cold night continues

Current news update:
Home from the trip to the big city

As usual, our venture out of the canyon was too short to complete the errand list. No alternative energy store visits and the big Bobcat dealer was closed on Saturdays! But it was great to see our old friends again and be filled with their great comfort foods (read as serious 'fart food' however) and catch up on nearly a year's worth of news. Stalwart souls that they are, they readily threw open the doors to our short notice arrival despite the same day news that their septic system had literally gone to crap and that septic system contractors had threatened to cut down more of the trees that had survived last year's conifer devastation. We took the vehicle update tour, the grounds update tour and related some of our homestead tales to date. I managed to hit one resale shop and experience that now rare treasure find rush before we had to load up the 500 gallon water tank which they had donated to the cause before heading home.

Also as usual, we missed our departure envelope to be able to drive all the way back home in daylight. In fact, the sun set just as we entered the tricky dirt roads. The rains had left them about as smooth as railroad tracks. Mark drove and I leaned well forward (like that would really help), peering out the window and giving warnings when I saw really deep water-cut cross ruts and other hazards. The few hazards that I missed sent us and everything else in the truck leaping upward and slamming back down. After a few of those surprise whoopty-kitties, we noticed that the huge tank was now a loose cannon and threatening the new truck's paint job. After a session of grunting and tugging at the loose tie-down straps, we were able to resume the drive. A deer caused a sharp inhalation moment as it dashed out in front of us. Three of its companions hung close to the road, contemplating the same tactic. Even at these crawling speeds, the miles went by mercifully fast and we stopped by the kindly neighbors to relieve them of the puppy. Relieve is probably the most accurate word to use, too. Apparently this furry dynamo spent the greater part of the first day barking at anything unfamiliar - which was EVERYTHING - and running incessant circles around the house. He shimmied and piddled gratefully when he realized that we hadn't abandoned him and we all stuffed back into the cab to make the last leg of the homebound trip. The big wash and the creek bed were firm and not too deeply rutted and the rat trailer came into view before long. The cats had obviously enjoyed the puppy-free vacation and we were very content to finally return to our quiet valley below the star-heavy skies. The photo above shows a small sampling of the views we encountered on the way home.

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Retrospect
November 15^th, 2005

That first long, cold night - part 3

With the function of ‘dining’ taken care of, we now considered what to do for the remainder of what was obviously going to be the longest evening of the year for us. Barely one month prior, we would have been finishing up a very full and pleasant meal and conversation. Then Mark would retire to his library to read. It was a real library, the sort with wall-encompassing oak bookcases, an oak roll-top desk, burgundy leather wing chairs, heavy drapes festooned around a massive bay window, sedate and restful teal walls and an oak floor. It expressed a scholarly and dignified domain which many lawyers try to capture in their office suites – and usually fail. Peripherally, I could now see Mark rifling through his attaché for something - anything - to read and I could feel his mounting sense of sanctuary loss. I emitted a quiet chuckle as I recalled the reaction of a U.K. cousin when we announced our relocation plans. He, too, had spent many enjoyable hours with us in that library. After a pause, he replied “Well, I hope this doesn’t sound too indelicate but …are you absolutely out of your bloody minds?!!”

With at least eight more hours before the return of natural light and the vague promise of a little solar heat, this was as good a time to reflect on his observation as any. There are many people who live for an occasional retreat into the wilderness. Most are satisfied with the break but appreciate a return to civilized conveniences. Some will retain a longing for that solitude and daydream of making it permanent. Few, however, will actually make it happen. What was it that made us take that perilous path less traveled? Those who cared for us certainly wanted to know. Perhaps there were silent questions like “Was there some way in which we failed you?”

To be continued in a day or two (if the creek don't rise).

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Quote of the day:

Jay Leno: There've been huge protests in the Muslim world over anti-Muslim comments made by Pope Benedict. Today the pope apologized, saying he never should have gone drinking with Mel Gibson.

The big outing!

Present time:

A sudden plan developed to head to Albuquerque tomorrow. The nice thing about being quasi-retired now is that overnighters don't have to be planned weeks in advance. This will be the first time that we have ventured that far from the ranch since arriving here and we are looking forward to this big outing. With the roads in their current condition, it will probably take 3 to 4 hours to arrive at our first stop on the long errand list. Items already secured thanks to our friend there and simply waiting to be picked up are a few more solar panels and a very large water storage tank. He has also lined up our itinerary to visit some alternative energy shops that he is familiar with. The neighbor has kindly agreed to take care of the young Aussie Shepherd pup and we just have to hope that the cats won't get rowdy and seek revenge for our overnight absence. Maybe they will see the benefit of unusual amounts of food available and having the bed all to themselves for a change.

I only wish that we had a few more days in the city. One thing I really miss is being close enough to do regular yard sale and junk shop runs. It's surprising how much money you can save by finding useful, practical items at second hand prices. The full retail cost to date of replacing the rather mundane items that we had to leave behind has been unsettling. Anything from good quality Tupperware to yard tools - it will add up quickly. Don't ever find yourself in the position we did; leave plenty of time to determine what comes with and what goes and don't get distracted with unexpected projects if you can help it.

Lin

Next likely post: Sunday night - if the creek don't rise.

That first long, cold night

Retrospect

November 15^th, 2005 - Part 2

We opened the doors of the cat carriers and each cat took its first curiosity-filled steps out into our new abode, heads cautiously bobbing up and down as they vacuumed in the sights and smells of this new environ. Taking their cue, the litter box was one of the first of our set-up tasks. That sanctuary, once established, soothed them enough to settle in. If only we could have adapted that quickly.

The creeping cold reminded us that priorities had to be addressed. Our friend in Albuquerque had lent us a benign kerosene heater which once heated his motorcycle restoration shop. We dragged the unit in from the truck and set it centrally in the fairly open kitchen and living room space, filled it with fresh fuel and lit it up. We exchanged troubled glances briefly as the expected brilliant flame did not materialize but formed a thin and quivering pencil-lead sized glow in blue around the wick. We frantically set to manipulating every conceivable knob and adjustment to be found but no improvement ensued. We assembled the new camping chairs and circled them closer to the burner like threatened prairie schooners with expectation of relief ... none came. We eventually unpacked the new Target comforter meant for the bed and drew it around our shoulders and eventually our heads like a sloppy teepee. Still no comforting heat. My toes began to complain in aching, burning ways and the cats had crept in beneath the camp chairs and curled their extremities inwards like sage Mandarins hiding their upper limbs within great sheltering sleeves. We were all in this together, freezing our collective assets off. It is times like this when the march of seconds and minutes seem to cease at a molecular level, when the slow march towards another rising of the warming sun seems eternal or maybe even impossible. We struggled to make amusing conversation through chattering teeth. It echoed mockingly off barren walls and the cats remained stoic and unmoved by our efforts.

When huddled in such abject misery, normal, simple and practical thoughts can become utterly painful and dreaded contemplations. Eating. Pragmatism announced that it had likely been 12 hours since our last meal. We at least had the foresight to realize that dainty foods would not survive and we dug around in the also new Coleman cooler to make unadorned, undressed sandwiches from the hard salami which bobbed around in the ice water and the bread which sat on the grimy inherited cabinets. I found myself momentarily thinking back to the warm, clean and ample kitchen which I had left behind and had to mentally smack myself viciously to abandon those thoughts lest utter despair seize upon my resolve. The specter of that comfortable life left behind would become a daily goblin to wrestle with as the months advanced. Ahead, there would be many times when that goblin would nearly win the best two out of three falls, disqualified from the match only by the intervention of pure fate.

Next likely post: tomorrow or the day after (if the creek don't rise)

We really made it!

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Retrospect

November 15^th, 2005 - Part 1

A lot happened in that one day. We were to meet a new neighbor who had arranged for finding, brokering and eventually receiving our 45' semi-trailer which now housed nearly all of our possessions. Without them, this move would have been nearly impossible. While we were met with a depressing string of "pooh-poohs" from our seemingly knowledgeable Midwestern neighbors when we first expressed our idea of buying a trailer outright and having it hauled to the Southwest, this couple came to the rescue with the most impressive "can do" attitude that I have encountered in years.

Moving was still an utter panic thanks to several factors which may be addressed later and we had to go buy a new 16’ trailer just to salvage a sparse few thousand dollars worth of belongings which the 45' trailer did not accommodate in those harried last days. It was a logistics nightmare which had the local medical resources threatening to confine me in a cardiac ward for several days of observation. If I can spare you such miseries by sharing those hard-earned insights, I certainly will do so gladly.

The trip down was a trial in itself. Our old friends from Albuquerque ran ahead of us in the Mercedes SL which they had just inherited from us. Without their no-nonsense moving help and experience gained from years of military moving and their distance from the emotional involvement that we were caught up in, we would have been utterly lost and unable to meet the departure deadline. The Dodge Dakota, even with the optional larger engine upgrade, did not pull the heavy trailer well through the steep Arkansas hills which we ran up and down on the way West. The ever-patient cats endured the trip much better than any of us. Still, it was enjoyable to be sharing an on-the-road adventure once again with old friends.

After using their Albuquerque home as a base for a month, we hoped that we were finally ready to head out into the boonies for good. We had found a '70s vintage mobile home (hereafter referred to as "the rat trailer") in a hurried pinch and arranged to have it hauled out to our new and barren homestead. This was a foray into a previously unknown segment of reality for us. Apparently the motto "In God we trust, all others pay cash" is the norm for this particular stock and trade. The hauler called in transit to inform us that the previous owners had not taken down the nailed-on porch roof as promised and that there would be an additional $200 charge. Assuming that they had professionally surveyed the scope of work prior to showing up, Mark protested the unexpected charge and the hauler's reply was "Fine, I can pull over right now and drop this thing by the side of the road." This was an ominous intro to this hope-filled new land and adventure.

After that resignation settled in, we headed into the wilderness ourselves from the north. We met the neighbor in charge of our semi-trailer and all headed out to the ranch; she and I up in the cab of the semi and their Roger the Lodger riding along with Mark in my truck. It was a lurching, giggy clutch kind of ride over the dirt roads with steep pitches into and out of the dry washes but (unbeknownst to us) the road conditions would be as good then as we might ever see again. Through the generosity of the head field honcho for one of the many gas well companies out here, the road had been freshly graded that same day in preparation for our arrival. We're not talking about a 1/4-mile long rough driveway either but a stretch of 5 miles with no other residences on it. That event marked one of the first of many kindnesses from the industry that would make our attempt to tame this long stubborn patch of no man's land even remotely possible.

The grader operator even cleared the sage and weed brush off a patch of land near the lonely barn for the semi trailer and rat trailer to find permanent footing upon. The neighbor ever so deftly jockeyed the big trailer backwards into position and then departed gracefully without great expectation or fanfare. This would be our first gentle prod to a renewed faith in the goodness still possible in mankind. There would be some rare but grave exceptions to follow but this would be the vanguard to discovering a region where so many people still held honorable and altruistic tendencies.

Meanwhile, the rat trailer was making its way ever closer from the south and we drove back out to rendezvous with them, just in time to find their entourage stopped and several of the helpers crudely stuffing the water heater back into its niche and nailing a wayward chunk of 2x4 over the door to secure it. About the time that we noticed a long trail of rusty water and eventual puddle which looked suspiciously like the rat trailer had just relieved itself, the rig driver, without intro, informed us that our plumbing and gas piping had torn off and was now inside the trailer ... no apologies, consolation or credit offered. There was, by now, a psychological numbness setting in that dictated, "Just get this done, we're homeless and the shadows are getting long and cold." I hung out the truck window to see around our burdensome 16' trailer to make sure that we didn't get too far in front of the procession and shuddered when the body of the rat trailer had to hug the solid mesa wall lest the rig venture too close to the ragged edge of the road overlooking the precipices. The driver later concurred that we should never attempt to bring anything so much as a foot wider down those roads.

The crew certainly knew their business well and the rat trailer effortlessly joined the semi-trailer on the newly cleared spot which we would be calling home from that moment forward. Even the hardened rat trailer hauler (who initially reminded me of "Skipper" from Gilligan's Island with a bad case of PMS) turned out to not be such a bad soul after all and at least offered the parting comment: "You seem like real decent folks and I really do wish you the best of luck out here." He already had our money and nothing to lose so I don't think his comment was anything but genuinely and kindly intended.

By the time the last sounds of their vehicles had stopped rebounding off the many canyon walls, the bitter cold swept in wolfishly at the heels of the retreating sun which dragged its orange companion sky down with it. The sudden omnipotent silence and cold brought home the reality that we were completely on our own now in this new and desolate expanse. The chill bit deeply into our hands as we unloaded a few makeshift, last minute supplies from the truck and, of course, the beloved boys - the two cats who had endured the last month and many miles in an ever patient and quiet manner. The quickly fading light made the tasks that much more painful and urgent.

We threw open the keyless door to the rat trailer. It was just as daunting as I had remembered it last - thirty years of minimal care, spottily, roughly veneered over about two decades ago and then largely ignored again. The shag rug, reminiscent of dead German Shepherd hide, grasped at the new fragments of the torn-off piping. Threatening soft spots beneath the carpet tried to suck our feet down into whatever lay below. Complete darkness descended just as we found the butane Coleman hastily secured from Target's camping department the night before. It shed a struggling light on the reality which was rapidly setting in. Were we absolutely out of our minds? It was now too cold to even consider such thoughts further, too much remained to be done before settling in for that long, cold first night's sleep.

Next likely post: tomorrow or the day after (if the creek don't rise) ... you wouldn't believe the things which have happened in the last two weeks.
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