Chance and Coincidence

We were boondocking at the south end of Joshua Tree, just off Highway 10 on BLM land wondering where to head next, when we received a text.

"Hey, Jim here. Where are you? Want to hook up? We're in Death Valley." 

"Yes!!!"

Messages flew back and forth and before we knew it Jim and Connie were boondocking with us.

                        

Then we moved into Joshua Tree to camp for two additional nights while growing a friendship...

Before Joshua Tree we had had only had a brief encounter the previous year at Deadhorse Ranch State Park, near Sedona. Our Sprinter vans and bicycles brought us together. Social media kept us in touch.

This year, after Joshua Tree, it was time to go our separate ways again. Jim and Connie to a bike rally in Sedona, Arizona and then on to Texas, us for New Mexico. One of our stops on the way to New Mexico was Roosevelt Lake in Arizona where we camped for a night.

The next morning we headed out, stopping to visit Tonto National Monument first.

Headed down the road from Tonto, the phone rang.

"Hello."
"Hi, this is Jim. Where are you?"
"Just leaving Tonto National Monument, where are you?"
"Roosevelt Lake, having lunch at the Visitor Center."
"What? We're just up the road. We'll be right there."

And we meet again. Jim had seen the photos of Roosevelt Lake I'd posted on Facebook and although the posting was four hours earlier, he said, "what the heck," and called. And there you have it...an unexpected happening.

We caravanned through Salt River Canyon...stunning. And then on our first night we boondocked near Show Low, Arizona. Camp ground after camp ground was closed for the winter, but finally, with diligent searching by Connie on her I-phone, we found a great boondocking camp.

City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico was our next camp site. This park features dramatic rocks popping up out of seemingly nowhere. But their formation was produced by a volcanic eruption 34.9 million years ago. The eruption is estimated to have been 1000 times greater than the 1980 Mt. Saint Helens eruption.

The visitor center was an architectural delight.

White Sands National Monument, NM was our next stop where we explored the monument, and visited yet another architecturally beautiful visitor's center built by the WPA in the 30's. The buildings, designed in Pueblo Revival style, are designated a national historic district.

At White Sands, for thousands of years in shallow lakes the wind and sun have separated the water from the gypsum forming crystals. Blowing wind breaks down the crystals to smaller and smaller pieces, until they become beautiful white gypsum sand.

White Sands Missile Range surrounds the monument. When there is missile testing on the range, the monument is closed.

To the south of the monument is Holloman Air Force Base our boondocking site for the night.

                          

     

The next morning we parted company again...good friends and committed to meeting up again. Connie and Jim headed off to Texas. Ed and I north, richer for our new-found friends! And, I can't believe I'm saying this with my love-hate relationship with Facebook, but thank you Facebook for facilitating this friendship.

Bye Jim and Connie until we meet again.

~~~

The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we're not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.

-- Paul Auster

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Revolution of Change

Full disclosure~

This is a rant!

Our world is complex in almost every way. It demands our attention and thoughtful analysis. I suspect, like us, each of you can see problems in both our nation's and world's systems. Just last evening we had a small experience at a National Forest campground that was disturbing. We love our National Forests and their campgrounds are our favorites, until they are privatized. Then costs go up, service goes down and maintenance is neglected. We find this trend of privatizing our public lands and public facilities disturbing.

Some of the system problems, like privatizing our public lands, are mostly just annoying --- at least in their early stages, but as they become more entrenched they contribute, piece by piece, to bigger systemic problems. If we desire to be good citizens, challenging these small changes, and other more looming changes, becomes important. Much of our Thistle driving time, as you can well imagine, is digging into one topic after another similar to this one. And then deciding what to do about it...

Last year we were stunned at the number of snowbirds in the Yuma vicinity as we traveled the southerly route from California to Arizona. We'd heard stories about snowbird migration but the sheer numbers amazed us. There are thousands and thousands of large fancy rigs parked side-by-side under palm trees, along golf courses, and around tennis courts and swimming pools. These migrating RVers head south for the winter and back north for the summer.

Our culture provides a ready made model for living our lives --- school, work, religion, marriage, children, home ownership, retirement. Questioning the cultural prescription for any of these takes time and thought. Stepping away from the norm is difficult and can be risky. Family and friends might shun us. For retired folks questioning takes no less effort. Our culture tells us seniors to be good consumers, but otherwise to sit down and stay out from under foot.

This year, as we pulled into Parker, Arizona, along the Colorado River, the same winter migration we'd observed in Yuma was evident here as well. From Parker to Lake Havasu there was one RV park after another lining the Colorado River.

We camped at Buckhorn State Park, designed for huge rigs needing full hookups. Here is our tiny Thistle, not needing hookups at all, next to a RV bus and their tow car.

The pleasures of the snowbird population seem to hang on cultural expectations. The toys of the snowbirds are on full display. As well as the huge rigs they drive, large barbecues, boats, ATV's and outdoor furnishings are all dislayed in abundance. RV windows have a constant TV blue glow. Obesity is endemic.

We look around in horror. The cultural model of spend more, have more, live bigger, eat more is having serious consequences on our earth and our earth's people. We search for answers. A friend building homeless shelters and yet another designing small sustainable homes help us see housing solutions. A neighbor giving up her automobile for health, her own and the earth's, showed us the need to rethink transportation. Simple things like walking more, recycling, eating less, solar power, buying local, using less water, or driving an energy efficient automobile encourage us. Small efforts that make huge differences...

"Take money out of politics" is the standard refrain these days. We hear over and over in political discussions, "Corporate money has corrupted our politicians, our system." We huff and puff around with our outrage. We know the villian. It's big money. It's corporate power. It's them....

The political system has been bought off, yes, but so have each of us. We have bought into lifestyles that are not sustainable. Each of us has the power to change this at a very personal level. If our politicians are corrupted by the corporations so are we. With garages stuffed and bodies bursting, none of us can plead innocent to corruption by corporate offerings.

Below is how our towns look, from one end of the country to another, sometimes with mountains, or trees or oceans, but no matter where, this look couldn't be uglier or less sustainable. We can thank corporate America for ruining our towns but we bought in, just like our politicians. There's enough guilt to go around...

We could, each of us, one-by-one, begin a revolution of change. Not a revolution of guns and tanks but a revolution of simplification and local shopping. By so doing we could take power back from the big guys who own us, and who own our politicians. If we do not buy-in it's over...

~~~

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible;

and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

~ Francis of Assisi

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Sadness and Shame

The poverty in America makes me want to weep with sadness and shame. The imposed austerity in this wealthy nation is inexcusable, if not criminal. The despair of our people is palpable.

We see homeless people everywhere we travel...blue tarp shelters along freeways, tents under overpasses, people sleeping on park benches or curled up on sidewalks. The downtrodden pushing loaded grocery carts or broken down bicycles along the roadways. We've seen dilapidated residences, boarded up businesses and abandoned farms. Buskers and beggars, poverty ragged and dirty, line our city streets. People---men, women and children, young and old, blind, leg less, hurting...everywhere. But in New Mexico it is deeper still. And, it is entrenched.

The homes we've driven by just this past day, both occupied and abandoned...

Most of the small towns are quickly becoming ghost towns...

And the water is scarce...

The Rio Grande, once a sprawling, overflowing river of abundance is now reduced to puddles in southern New Mexico. Irrigation canals pull off water all along the way. Drought, little snow in the mountains, and an increasing demand for water are making the situation more severe. I suspect dried up wells account for many of the abandoned homes and farms, perhaps even towns, we've observed.

I feel sadness and shame, as well as very rich and very grateful.

~~~

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Sir Benton Cowboy

As we approach Thistle we hear a rumbling noise. It's a throaty, growling, roaring type of sound emerging from within as we slide the door open. Wiggles, twists, rubs and a mouth full of toy greet us. The tail wags violently throwing the entirety of pup Benton into twisting circular merry-go-round cute. We laugh. "We're home!" we say laughingly. Benton circles each of us with his enthusiastic I-though-I'd-never-see-you-again greeting.

Travelling in Thistle has led to a special kind of communication. Often it's an unspoken kind of language. When one of us changes location, we all adjust. Benton jumps into action first as he scrambles for cover, especially when Mr. Ed is on the move. His eyes look slightly frantic, his ears back and down, as he tries to avoid being stepped on. There is no safe haven and his unease is palpable. Finally he settles again on the bench seat next to me, curling into the smallest ball he can turn himself into. Feet and nose tucked in tightly, out of danger.

On other occasions he turns into a gleeful helper, like the morning dressing-of-Fran. This help, played out in the tiny 3x3 galley, has become a morning ritual of dog and woman giggling, clothes flying. "Oops" throws Benton into mad crazy action as he grabs my socks from the floor handing them to me with gleeful wiggles. Nothing on the floor is safe. Benton hands me anything he can find -- Mr. Ed's shoes, the dish towel, his leash.

The highlight of a traveling dog's day is escaping the vehicle. Sniffing. Running. Swimming. Chasing. Peeing. Ears back, happy grin, tail-spinning pleasure. Fun begins with the leash and then gets much better with no leash.

                                    

~~~

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."

~ Will Rogers

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Horse Crazy

Ojai, California was my early childhood home. Visiting all these years later is a nostalgic going-back-in-time experience. The artists and philosophers and free-spirited folk of Ojai played a huge role in my development as a young child. Long before the western world discovered eastern religions, this town was deeply involved. And food! Steak and potatoes were the American rule, even in California, but this community stepped out in front. Vegetarian, Indian, Mexican and Chinese cuisine were readily available. My school, San Antonio, didn't have school buses but we had a hitching post. Recess was for feeding and watering the kids' beasts of transportation.

In looking back it is interesting to realize the breadth of my kid territory. At five I had a couple-mile radius that I roamed pretty much without supervision. My mom would say, "where're you going?" I would reply, "out to play." She'd say, "be home in three hours." And that was that. If I got into trouble, or was late, I was seriously in trouble, but otherwise, I explored freely

My child-wander-freedom, unheard of today, was vast and wonderful. Sometimes my explorations had consequences because despite the freedom my mother gave me, she also expected good behavior and when it wasn't forthcoming, she came down hard, or at least my little kid mind thought it was hard.

At 6 I was horse crazy. Happiness was spelled H O R S E. Lucky for me Ojai was a horse-loving place. Bridle trails ran parallel to many of the roads and riders were frequently seen trotting past, especially the boys from Thatcher School because our home wasn't far from their trail to downtown. Thatcher was an all boy's boarding school where every boy had a horse. It was my riding Shangra La. All I needed to do was appear, follow a boy and his horse with my "envy eyes" and soon I'd be riding.

One day I arrived to an empty paddock. Boys and horses were out on a weekend riding adventure. I stumbled around for a while, forlorn, when suddenly I spotted a horse left behind. Not to let adversity interfere with my expectations I set out to saddle and bridle this wild creature. I had just accomplished the task when my mother appeared on the scene. I clearly had missed a deadline.

Grim faced and boiling angry, she scolded me and accused me of being a horse thief. On top of that she was hysterically certain the horse of my choosing was wild and would kill me. I was restricted from ever again going to Thatcher School. My horse days were over. I was heart broken but learned my lesson. Never again did I "borrow" (my word) or "steal" (my mom's word) anything. Shoplifting in high school never entered my mind. I'd been punished as a thief at a young age and it wasn't fun. Thievery was behind me and sadly so were my riding days.

Despite my early life of crime, I love Ojai to this day with it's artistic charm deeply engrained in me. It is now wealthy and swishy, but still has a pleasing ambiance. The orange orchards with their rustic-tumble-down-rock walls, Spanish architecture and narrow country roads remind me still of my happy wandering childhood.

Skip and Sheila from Langley, our gracious hosts, were fabulous. We biked and hiked and ate and visited and had a splendid time. We will return...

~~~

"In my opinion, a horse is the animal to have. Eleven-hundred pounds of raw muscle, power, grace, and sweat between your legs - it's something you just can't get from a pet hamster."

~Author Unknown

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