CAUTION! The following letter contains some really stupid things performed by a professional goof-off on a closed course. DO NOT attempt these things at home. Parental guidance is suggested. Welcome back my friends to the letter that never ends; ladies and gentlemen, heeerrres Jimmy! Listen up and hear, you lousy jerks; the further ramblings of one Jim Kinerk.
After I returned from the family re-union in KC, there wasn't much time left for me in Lavina. I did meet a woman named Red Hawk. Phil Horton had met her and asked her to show up at Robert's annual show. That was where I met her. She had wonderful energy and on August 17 I spent the day with her and got to know her better. It turned out that she had met Terry and Glenna two years earlier at a Sundance(?) gathering in western Montana. She didn't know they lived in Lavina. She is a wise old soul; a powerful, knowing, gentle, sensitive and knowledgeable healer, among other things. Her energy is very clear and radiant. She was happy to get re-acquainted with Terry and Glenna.
Shortly after this I wrote my last Trip Letter. I also got to watch a lot of the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament while putting the finishing touches on the Letter. I like to play tennis but seldom find anyone else who plays but I still enjoy watching it.
On September first, Robert and I went to Billings to watch the Billings Mustangs minor league baseball team play. Boy! Did they ever look minor League! But their claim to fame is that George Brett played there briefly in 1971. Robert and I went under the stadium and saw a picture of a very young George Brett in a Billings Mustangs uniform. Tickets were cheap and people would bring all of their children to the games. It almost seemed like a giant family re-union as most of the people knew each other.
It was hot in Lavina in August. 5 of six days in early August were over 100 degrees. One unofficial reading on a bank sign read 111 degrees. It remained 10 to 15 degrees above normal all month with no rain. On September 6 the rains came. On September 5 it was 92. The next day it was 58 for the high. That was the end of summer. It is right what they say about Montana weather: wait five months and it will change.
Ginger made some dandelion wine and before I left, Kaye and I had some. It must have been 195 proof. Kaye couldn't drink it. I will drink most anything but even I couldn't get more than 1/2 ounce down. It tasted pretty good but was just too strong. Ginger was back in New York by this time but had left a bottle of the wine with Kaye. I never did know what happened to the rest of the bottle of wine.
On September 10 Robert and I cleaned up his two mile stretch of highway south of Lavina. This was the third time we had cleaned it so it wasn't too bad. We worked eight hours with time out for lunch. It was back to 82 degrees so it was a bit hot but we survived. Actually, the reason we picked that particular day was because the forecast was for high near 70. Go figure!
The next day Robert came to my trailer at 10:15 in the morning and said someone had bombed the World Trade Center. We watched the news coverage of it off and on the rest of the day. That evening I told Robert that the WTC disaster was the beginning of the end of civilization as we knew it. I felt that was the first battle in the War of Armageddon. By that evening my whole body was tense and sore and stiff. I haven't felt good since.
I have always been pretty lethargic in Lavina. But one of the things I do like about the town is the small town atmosphere. I enjoyed the sociability of knowing, at least casually, most of the people in town. I could walk across the street to the cafe for breakfast and get 2 eggs, hash browns, toast and coffee for $3.25. Often there was somebody in there whom I knew and we would sit there and chat. Though they were there for an early lunch I was there just before they stopped serving breakfast at 11:00. It was also nice being in one place for a while rather than having to move every two weeks, which is what happens when I camp on Public lands.
On September 15, Robert's birthday, we had our only barrel party of the year. Terry and Glenna, who live 20 miles north of Lavina on a dirt road, brought their barrel with them. Robert had stopped eating meat again so I made veggie shish-ka-bobs for him to roast over the fire. The rest of us had hot dogs and we all had marshmallows. Also attending were Rose and her brother and sister-in-law, Artie and Marilee, Jim Martins, Mike Beck, a well known Cowboy singer who lives in Lavina, and Red Hawk.
I really, really like barrel parties and was glad that we could have one before I left, which was two days later. And it was good to see many of my friends one last time, especially since I didn't think I would be coming back the following summer.
The next day my van's battery was dead. I got a jump start from Robert. Then I noticed that my overhead light was on. All of the doors were closed and the light was still on so I had to pull the fuse which also affected the radio. I figured that I would have to put the fuse back in to listen to the radio and take it out each night. Two days later I was thinking about the circuitry of the overhead light and it occurred to me that the headlight switch would turn it on. So I turned the switch and the light went off. I had not driven with the headlights on since June so would not have touched the switch since then. I must have left the doors unlocked one recent night and some neighborhood kid got into the van and turned on the light to see what was there. Either that or it was the bad aliens messing with me. You know how they are.
The day after the barrel party Robert and I were invited to the Browns' for dinner and birthday cake. So Robert got TWO birthdays parties. And I got to see some more friends before I left.
I left the next day for Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado. When I got there I found out they had closed the campground at which I always stayed while there. I was heartbroken as it was a lovely site on the banks of the Colorado River. There is a road 1 and 1/2 miles long across the Colorado River from the town along which I could camp. I had a favorite site not far from the river which gave me plenty of sun for my solar panels and space for my satellite to pick up the signals. The property was owned by the city. They closed it because someone had dumped their blackwater on the land and it cost too much to clean it up since it was so close to the river though they had to do so. I was disappointed but understood the problem.
I found another campsite close to the river two miles west of the town. It was cool and humid there. The humidity immediately condensed on the inside of my windows and I could not get rid of it. You may remember that I now had two satellite dishes, one for basic channels and one to receive the KC networks so I could watch the Chiefs. At this campsite I absolutely could not find the signal with the dish for the KC channels. I made several phone calls but got no help from any of them. So after three days I left.
I took a short cut to get to I-70. It was a 20 or so mile long well maintained dirt road that followed the Colorado River. It was a very pretty drive through the mountains. It was a sunny day. Sometimes the road was next to the river and other times it was 500 feet above it. Lots of ups and downs. Lots of yellowing aspens and green fir and pine trees made the drive a very pleasant one.
I was planning to camp at Rifle, Colorado for a week. When I got there I found out the National Forest was 25 miles away and the nearby BLM land was heavily trafficked by ATV's and 4 wheel drive pickups so would be neither quiet nor uninhabited. I have turned into a hermit and don't want anybody camped near me. I also have gotten a little crabby. Actually I've turned into a hermit crab. Transformation at last.
So it was on to my old campsite 22 miles east of Moab, Utah. I stopped in Grand Junction for gas as my second tank was on empty. I put 36 gallons of gas in my tanks (they hold 36) and filled up my propane tanks. The bill came to an even $80. I was somewhat shocked. The price of propane was pretty high. I gave them my wallet. They took what they needed and gave it back to me. Lightened, I got into my van and went on down the road.
I got to the same campsite I camped at the previous year on Onion Creek Road at 6:30 PM. It was hot. I stayed there two weeks and we had record setting temperatures in the mid 90's the entire time.
The next day I spent the entire day trying to find the signal for the KC networks without success. I made two 44 mile round trips to Moab to make phone calls to people who were supposed to give me answers. To make a long story short (and because you probably aren't interested in it anyway - it helps to know your audience), several days later I learned that DirecTV had activated a third satellite. I was locking onto it and getting a signal but not one which would give me the KC channels. I was then able to locate the correct satellite signal and get my Chiefs back.
For several months I had been noticing an occasional small puddle of water on my bathroom floor. I could not figure out where it was coming from. I could not relate its appearance to any event. I checked out the plumbing and one by one eliminated each possible source of the leak until there was only one left. One which I could not prove but it was the only possible source not already ruled out. So as Sherlock Holmes said, "That's it, baby!" The pipes to the bath tub faucet go under the bathroom sink, through a hollow wall, into the faucet. The water had to be leaking from the faucet into the hollow walls and a day or two later would soak through the wood onto the floor, I deduced. And, I am proud to say, when I replaced the faucet the leaks stopped and have not returned. I triumph once again!
Most of my time at this campsite was spent trying to stay cool by sitting in the shade reading, riding my motorcycle 20 miles to the nearby mountains where it was 10 to 12 degrees cooler, or hiking, sweating and drinking lots of water. It is a nice and pretty hike up Onion Creek Road. Though in the first three miles you have to cross the creek 11 times and this year is was a little wider than the previous year. The formations of the red rocks are very pretty so the hike is always worth it.
I asked at a New Age store in Moab if there was anything going on. They said there was an open-to-the-public healing group which met once a week. I went to the next one and met Jeff Johnston, whose group it was. There were a handful of people there and we sat around and talked about ourselves a little before Jeff did healing on each individual. Jeff did a healing on me, too, though I did not need one or ask for it. Since he was nice enough to have done that for me I asked if there was anything I could do for him. I had told everyone that I read Tarot cards so he asked for a reading. We set a time for 6 PM the following evening.
I barely made it on time the following evening. I did the reading for Jeff and then we talked for an hour and a half. He is in his early 30's. He works as a carpenter by day and a metaphysician by night. He does readings and healings and teaches classes. He has a website and gets enough business from it to make it worthwhile to keep it up (although I think it is currently inactive since when I look it up the screen is blank and my e-mails to him are returned. I did not get his mailing address.) All in all I really liked him and was looking forward to a continuing friendship.
Earlier that day I had hiked to the highway and up to a dirt road that lead to the Fisher Towers and the hiking trail which began there. It took an hour to get to the Towers by that route. I could see my campsite from there so I thought I would take a shortcut and walk across country to my trailer. Wrong! There were a series of washes, hills and ravines between where I was and where I needed to be. None of them went in the direction I needed to go so I had to traverse them all. I would walk a ridge until it ended and then I had to find a way down sometimes steep sides into a ravine below. When that ended I had to climb onto another ridge. All of this in loose, sandy soil which made the going very slow and difficult. Soon my thighs ached. Finally I made it. My shortcut took twice as long as the long way took. I still had to shower, shave and drive the 22 miles to Moab to meet Jeff at 6. That is why I barely made it on time. I need a sign to hang on my butt that says: Don't follow me. I'm lost.
A few days later I hiked the Fisher Towers trail. The trail was very rough and difficult. Early on I found myself crawling up a rough dirt hill on all fours. I crawled through a narrow hole, and walked along a foot wide ledge. I thought this was an awfully difficult trail not to have a warning on it. But it was a beautiful hike, nonetheless. The towers are red sandstone and some must go up 500 feet. The trail meanders around the bottom of the towers. It makes for some very awesome sights. On the way back I didn't encounter any dirt hills, narrow holes or foot wide ledges. Then I realized I had lost the trail shortly after the Trailhead and stumbled onto it about a mile down the trail. (Refer to prior paragraph.)
I left Moab on Monday, October 8, 2001. I awoke that morning and felt miserable. My body hurt and my mind was mud. I wasn't sure that I would be able to make the long drive to Show Low that day. I had five errands to do in Moab. They were just routine, like go to the post office and get a newspaper but I had a horrible time doing them. I figured out what was going on when I bought the paper and read the headline: U.S. bombs Taliban in Afghanistan. That action obviously dealt a severe blow to my Psyche.
It was a long drive to my campsite in Show Low. I camped 7 miles north of Show Low off a road called Lone Pine Dam Road. All of the signs have the first two words on top and the second two words on the bottom. To this day I have not figured out whether it means Lone-Pine-Dam Road; or Lone Pine, Dam Road. Nonetheless I found a nice place amongst the trees to park my trailer. It is mostly Juniper and Cedar trees and large volcanic rocks here. This was good for my solar panels and Satellite reception. The pine trees don't start until you actually get to Show Low, especially on the south and west sides where Ponderosa Pines reign supreme. Arizona has the largest remaining Ponderosa Pine forest in the country.
The campsite was across the street and 1/2 mile from a Refuse Transfer Station (another word for Dump). Which, I guess, explained all of the old couches, refrigerators, and tires which were scattered among the trees. However it wasn't too bad and it was a nice, quiet place to spend two weeks.
After a couple of days I connected with Shari. We did a lot of socializing; going out to lunch, going to see movies and watching rented movies. She also cooked dinner for me many times. She is a great cook. It always amazes me that food can taste that good. She likes to cook. Which is good because I like to eat.
There is a sign in Show Low's Country Kitchen Restaurant: If you are grouchy, irritable, or just plain mean, there will be a $10 charge to put up with you.
One day Shari took me to a new store, The Enchanted Forest. It had New Age books, gifts and stuff. Shari was starting to browse through everything for a second time and I was beginning to wonder if I would EVER get out of there, having taken everything in at a glance and knowing I wasn't going to buy anything there. Then Kathleen Adams showed up with Veta. Kathleen had left Show Low the year after her husband had died and had returned for a week's visit. Veta is her niece. The last time I saw Veta was a year or two earlier when Kathleen was with me. We were on our way to Ruth's Healing Spirit to listen to some Tibetan Buddhist monks chant. It was a potluck and Kathleen and I had stopped off at Basha's Grocery to pick up something from the Deli. Veta and her husband, Larry, were at the deli also. We told them about the monks. They ran home to find a baby sitter and then joined us at Ruth's.
I met Veta in 1996. She has the most beautiful eyes and the most loving, open energy. I usually get to see her about once a year. When Veta and Kathleen showed up at the Enchanted Forest, Veta invited Shari and me over for dinner the next week, which we enjoyed very much. Later I realized that Shari was browsing so intensely so Kathleen could find us. Because I saw Veta those last two times with Kathleen, I dubbed her the Synchronistic Master.
I finally caught up with Ed and Lisa. They had told me by phone that they had bought a new house. It was one and 1/2 miles down White Mountain Lake Road, just across highway 77 from where I was camped. On Saturday I went to help Ed move to his new house. He had four other friends who had said they would help, also, but none of the others showed up. I didn't mind. I very much enjoyed spending the day alone with Ed. We talked, laughed, packed and carried on and had a great time. At first, Ed seemed lost as to where to begin, so I grabbed a box and started throwing things into it and loading it on the trailer. By the third box Ed was with me there and took charge so there would be some order when they unpacked. We worked hard and had a good time. When I help people move I usually end up helping them by carrying something with me walking backwards. This is because I have eyes behind me. I have my head up my ass.
While Ed and I were unloading the trailer at his new house, I asked Ed to look into a box to see where it went and take it from me (so I could grab something else.) He said "spare bedroom" and turned around and walked away. I took the box in. When I saw him again I asked him if he were hard of hearing. He said no. So I said you must not take orders well. He looked puzzled for a moment and then must have replayed our conversation in his head and realized what had happened. He just grinned and shook his head.
Ed and Lisa had bought a nearly new home on ten acres of land. It was a 2,000 square foot home with a nice kitchen view of the mountains to the southeast. They had a large redwood deck built on the front of the house. As with my campsite, there were lots of Cedar and Juniper trees on their lot.
Ed had started a mobile auto and diesel repair business and planned to build an automotive repair garage near the road. His business was growing so rapidly by word of mouth that he decided he needed a building to maximize his time.
I decided I needed to buy a generator so I wouldn't have to worry about cloudy days. Phil had fixed the 500 watt generator I had bought the previous winter in Quartzsite, but the power died when a load was put on it. I gave it to Ed in case he wanted to fix it for himself. I checked out several generators and decided on a Coleman 1850. At $394 it was much bigger and cheaper than the more popular Honda 1000 at $700.
I bought it at Wal-Mart and brought it home. I read the instructions two times before I tried it out. It worked just fine except it produced no DC power. I called the Coleman Help Line and they told me to take it back and get another one. Of course I did not empty the gas out of it so had to drive back to my campsite, empty the gas, and go back to Wal-Mart. But the second one worked. Because of all of the problems I have had over the last ten years I decided to sue God. But then I realized that would be unfair because there are no lawyers in heaven.
I met a man named Bill Yeast. I asked him what he did. He said he always rises to the occasion.
I forgot to mention in my last Letter that when Robert's dog, Bear, bit him in the hand, Robert was nearly completely healed up within three days. But Bear died. Haha! Just kidding. Bear is fine. You will find out about Robert later, so stay tuned....
When I was camped at Moab and again on Lone Pine Dam Road I saw crows fly over my campsite and could hear the whoosh...whoosh...whoosh of their wings. It sounded so clear to me. Never before nor since have I heard their wings whooshing. And believe me, I have had lots of crows fly over me during the last thirteen years. There was something very special about hearing that sound. So intimate. Just me and the bird in a moment in which time stood still.
My train of thought got derailed and I haven't gotten it back on track yet.
When it rains on the ocean; like, what's the point?
After my allotted two weeks of camping on National Forest land I moved onto Ed and Lisa's land. They made me feel very welcome. The World Series had started by this time. I had seen several of the playoff games and was ready to watch Arizona beat the hated Yankees. Ed and Lisa Bucey are Arizona fans and I got to watch the games with them. That made it a lot more fun. Even 10 year old Haylee got into the rooting. It was almost heartbreaking when Arizona's ace reliever and closer, Kim, blew leads in games 5 and 6 which would have won the Series for the Diamondbacks. But the hometown team came through to win it in game seven causing lots of whooping, hollering and high fives in the Bucey household. Ed's brother, Bill, was staying with them during this time and was helping Ed with his business. He is also a Diamondbacks fan.
Halloween was spent watching the Series. There was a full moon that night - a Blue Moon. CNN Headline News said it was the first full moon on Halloween in 46 years. The light from the full moon helped me find my way back to my trailer from the Bucey's house after watching baseball. A bright, moonlit night is always nice when camping.My furnace wouldn't always ignite. I had had this problem for several years. Usually after I turned it on the third time it would ignite and warm me up in the morning. But when that didn't work I had taken to turning on the oven for an hour and going back to bed but not to sleep. Then I would get up and turn off the oven. On November 9, I couldn't get it to ignite. I turned on the oven and went back to bed but fell asleep for 90 minutes. When I awoke I got up and turned off the oven. When I tried to light the stove to heat water for tea, I couldn't get the matches to light. They would flicker alight and then die. I gave up and drank cold water. Later I realized that I had burned up too much oxygen in my trailer. It was a good thing I woke up when I did. I was very careful after that to have the oven on no more than 45 minutes once in the morning and again at night.
On November 11, I moved to Shari's. She was having her tonsils removed on the 13th and I told her I would stay with her until she was back on her feet again. I moved into her house and left the trailer parked in her driveway. Her friend Kelly, a very pretty 28 year old, came over that night. I had met Kelly a few weeks earlier. She is a sweetie. She and Shari are like mother/daughter and best friends. Kelly is an RN and works with Shari in Pediatrics at the Apache Reservation hospital.
Shari and I left for Flagstaff the next morning. The surgery would be done in a hospital there. We were going to stay at a cheap motel on the strip on old Highway 66. But Shari found head lice on her bed and refused to stay there. There were none on mine so I did. We found Shari another motel, a nicer one. At the first motel I took Shari's oxygen bottles out of her trunk and took them to her room. A man smoking a cigarette outside his room watched us do this. I was pleasantly surprised that he did not report us as possible terrorists as the oxygen bottles do look like bombs.
I stayed at Shari's for two weeks while she recuperated. She didn't need much from me. I ran a few errands for her. But mostly, I think, she just wanted someone around while she felt bad. She did have a lot of pain and difficulty swallowing. She did not take it out on me. But she and I are so close that when she feels bad I do too. I didn't feel her physical pain; I just knew she wasn't feeling good.
The night before Thanksgiving Shari said she didn't feel like cooking the next day. I had no problem with that. By this time she was able to eat but still with some pain. When I got up the next morning I found Shari in the kitchen cooking a large Thanksgiving meal. She apologized that there were only going to be eight courses for the two of us and only two pie choices. I did my best to eat a little of everything, but we could have feasted for a week on all of the food that was on the table. Shari likes to cook and she likes holidays so she didn't have it in her not to cook. But you never heard me complain! Kelly came by at 8:30 after she got off work to eat leftovers.
The next night Shari and Kelly had gone out to visit some friends. I was lying awake in bed at midnight when I heard a knock on my bedroom window. It was Kelly. They had locked themselves out of the house. It has been a long time since two attractive young ladies have come atapping at my bedroom window at midnight wanting in! (Actually never before or since. Usually it is a Law Enforcement Officer first thing in the morning.)
While all of this was going on, I had to buy 4 new tires for my trailer. Apparently when I bought the trailer they did not balance the tires so they wore out prematurely. I also had Ed work on my van and my motorcycle. This plus the generator meant that by the time I had left Show Low I had spent all of the money I had budgeted for myself through the following June. While in Flagstaff I had to sell more gold coins to finance my winter.
The weather stayed relatively warm for most of my stay in Show Low until the end, which was much appreciated by me. I had left my Satellites set up at Ed and Lisa's. On Sunday, November 25 I took my van out to their house and hooked my receiver and TV up to my cigarette lighter to watch the Chiefs' game. I am a fan.
The next day I left for Cottonwood, AZ. When I sent out my last Trip Letter I got an e-mail from an old friend in Sedona, Bob Yettner. When I first met him in 1994 he said he would be in Sedona only a few months while he healed from an accident and subsequent surgery. The only address I had for him was a PO Box. I had assumed he was long gone but kept sending the Trip Tale to him anyway. I e-mailed back and got a phone number. I had called him from Show Low and arranged to visit with him on my way to Bouse. They have outlawed all camping within a 15 or so mile radius of Sedona so I had to camp in the Prescott National Forest just outside of Cottonwood, which is 25 miles west of Sedona.
I had camped at this campsite before. At this one location I could pick up most of the Phoenix TV stations, including the one which broadcast the Phoenix Suns basketball games. It had turned very cold shortly before I left Show Low. It continued very cold, mostly in the 40's and 50's my 2 weeks here. Some rain and some sun. While in Cottonwood my furnace stopped working all together.
The last week or so in Show Low I developed a headache that wouldn't go away. My right knee which had been hurting me off and on for 8 months really hurt. That let me know that I had been in Show Low too long. Both disappeared after I had been in Cottonwood for four days.
It was very good to see Bob again and get re-acquainted. We got together several times and did a couple of hikes. He was doing quite well and I thoroughly enjoyed my visits with him. One afternoon we went to see Ray Rhanor, a mutual friend I hadn't seen in at least 4 or 5 years. We spent a pleasant afternoon getting caught up on stuff. Ray is one of the most psychic and knowledgeable people I have ever known.
It stayed cold and wet so I wasn't too sad to leave on December 8. Bob was trying to buy a house somewhere and I insisted he stay in touch so I wouldn't lose him. It was sunny and warmer when I arrived in Bouse, back at my usual campsite.
Old conspiracy theorists never die; they just disappear.
What are the last two words a rednecks says? Watch this.
When I am in an area for awhile I get my gas at several different locations. I like to fuel around a little.
A recent re-interpretation of the biblical phrase "turn the other cheek" has been found. Apparently you are supposed to show your aggriever your other cheeks; or give them the "moon."
The national past time in Phoenix is speeding.
Shortly after I arrived in Bouse I bought a new circuit board for my furnace. The old one was bad. It was so nice to be warm again. The furnace hadn't worked properly in several years, sometimes igniting and sometimes not. I couldn't run it at night because if it didn't ignite, the fan would run all night and run down my battery. So it was often 40 to 45 degrees in my trailer when I got up in the morning. It has worked perfectly since then. It is like a breath of warm air. Wait! It IS a breath of warm air!
It stayed colder than normal all winter until mid February when it suddenly turned hot. It was a sunnier than normal winter. Also when in Bouse I had to buy new batteries for my trailer as the old ones didn't seem to hold much of a charge anymore, even with all of that sunshine. That made a world of difference. I never did need the generator that winter.
Starting with my first stint of work in Lincoln in 1993, I developed what I came to call the Sunday Night Blues (SNB). Sunday nights I would begin to feel uneasy at about 7:30. Then my body would tense up and I would be overwhelmed with feelings of doom and gloom. I never could figure out why. Monday mornings were never as bad as Sunday evenings. It only happened on Sundays and occurred even when I spent the day at the office working. By the time I left in 1997 it would start at 3:30 PM. My whole body would ache and the most horrible feeling would overcome me. I was never able to do anything about it.
In the summer of 1994 while camping in Colorado, I noticed that once the sun went down I needed to be inside of my van (I hadn't bought the trailer yet.) I used to have lots of campfires but no more. Now George and I have one campfire each time he comes to visit.
Since then the situation has deteriorated until I get the SNB every night once the sun goes down. It is mild to non existent in the Summer and very fierce in the five winter months. Because of that I stayed on Mountain Daylight Time all winter long to give myself an extra hour of sunlight before the SNB hit each night. Although that backfired the several times I awoke at 3 AM and couldn't go back to sleep, as the sun didn't come up until around 9 AM. Strangely, if I could get to sleep for 2 or 3 hours the SNB were gone for the night. Not that the rest of the night was fun, but at least I didn't have that intense emotional and physical pain.
After my two weeks in Bouse I moved to Shea Road, 7 miles east of Parker, AZ. I didn't realize that I had parked in the middle of an ATV playground until the New Year's Eve weekend. But it was tolerable. I concentrated on my two main winter activities: hiking and sitting outside in the sun watching the mountains erode.
On December 30 I lost the signals from my KC satellite. To make a very long and frustrating story short, DirecTV started broadcasting locally only and since I was out of the area to which they broadcast the KC signals I couldn't get them. I had gone through a whole lot of trouble the previous summer to get those signals. If I had known I would lose them six months later, I wouldn't have bothered. I spent the better part of five days in early January talking to DirecTV trying to get the National Network feed to no avail. They kept telling me that I was getting the signals and I kept telling them that I wasn't. They would do something and tell me that is was fixed but when I got back to camp it wasn't. Finally I told them to cancel my Network subscription. No great loss since I wasn't receiving it anyway. But this way I wouldn't have to pay for something I wasn't receiving. I feel certain that I set new records for levels of frustration in dealing with a customer service department over the phone. What really makes it bad is that everytime you call you get a different representative and they cannot transfer you to the one to whom you spoke before so you start over each time.
Several years ago I told you that I had had to buy a new portable CD player each year for the first four years. The fourth player cost $250, so I had expectations that it would last. It broke the month after the warranty expired. It cost $70 to fix it and I did. I bought a cheap one on sale for $59 to use until the other one was repaired. I am still using the cheap one. The expensive one was repaired and is stored for backup. In February, 1998 I finally bought something that worked. That may be the only time in the last ten years.
On January 19, 2002 I was able to find an over the air TV station to watch New England beat Oakland on a very snowy day in Boston. That is as close as I want to get to the white stuff.
One day I was hiking and I noticed that my left elbow was cold. I looked and noticed that I had a hole in my sleeve. It was then that I realized that I was getting holier.
On January 25, I was sitting outside but unable to relax. I realized that I was very angry. I decided that I couldn't handle my own anger and everybody else's pain, too, so I would have to give up my anger. I spent the next 90 minutes walking a circle around my trailer. Three things had me upset: The Directv thing; an oil filter for my motorcycle that I had ordered over the phone three times for which they had billed me but I never got; the Post Office sends me back only the first page of my Trip Letters when they are unable to forward it (since I pay first class postage they are supposed to return the whole thing. To open it up and throw it away is actually a federal crime. I had asked the Postmaster in Show Low for help in this matter. I saw her three times and it was obvious that she was ignoring me.) All three things had come to a head that January. In that 90 minutes I released all anger about those situations. I decided it just didn't matter. What was, was. There wasn't anything I could do about it. I was tired of fighting. Just let it be. I was still alive, had food and no one was shooting at me, so things were looking good.
Usually, Jesus made dinner. Mary would buy one fish and one loaf of bread and ask Jesus to multiply them. One day Mary decided they were tired of the usual fare. She sent Jesus to the Fruit Market telling him to be fruitful and multiply.
Jesus invented the shower because every time he tried to take a bath he just laid on top of the water.
The reason Jesus was drunk all of the time was because every time he took a drink of water it turned into wine.
(If this were a muslim country and I had written that about Mohammed I would be killed. It IS great to live in America. To practice Patriotism, use your freedoms.)
At the Ocotillo Bar in Bouse, they had a sign which said: Your village called. They want their idiot back.
This last January I increased the number of pushups I did on a daily basis. I don't know if it increased my upper body strength much - which was the purpose - but I now feel more than ready to enter any building whose door says Push to Enter.
Dr. Kervorkian is in prison for assisted suicides. Do you suppose he handles executions for that prison?
Often during the winter I shoot baskets to vary my routine. I don't want to brag but I have a nine inch vertical leap. If you don't understand that, ask a guy.
They have invented a new Olympic event. It is called Hurling. You sit down and watch non-stop Olympics on TV and eat junk food until you hurl everything you ate for the last 24 hours.
There should be an Olympic event called Channel Surfing. You watch TV with a remote and whoever watches TV the longest without seeing a commercial wins.
A sign in the Early Bird Cafe in Parker, AZ says: Stop talking. I'm out of aspirin.
Every winter I lose all of my energy the first week in January. I have known of these winter depressions for over 25 years. At first I thought it was Seasonal Adjustment Disorder and did all of the recommended things for that without success. January, 2002 was by far the worst ever. It made me realize that I always go to zero energy minus 5% every January. When I recover I recover to 100% less 5%. That January I lost to zero minus 20% and I only regained to 80%. It was a very bad winter, especially on the inside. For the most part I'll leave it there.
In a prior Letter I mentioned an episode which happened in September, 1997. I went with Barb to Big-O Tires to have her tires rotated. We walked around the block while we waited. During that walk I became dizzy, nauseated and disoriented. This continued throughout the evening of dinner with friends. Several months later I realized that was the time two things happened. My dreams of total frustration and bad things happening began (virtually every dream I remember to this day remains with one or both of those two themes.) Secondly, I could no longer find any energy that felt like Jim Kinerk. I looked but couldn't feel myself anywhere. Since then I have not been able to center myself because I don't know where I am.
Over the ensuing years as I camped and hiked in the forest and the desert, the landscape started looking unreal to me. It felt no more real than if I were seeing it on television. Gradually more and more of my life began to feel that way; as if nothing were real. Finally, in January, 2002, I no longer felt real. I didn't feel like I was there; present in my life. It is hard to describe. I didn't feel like I was out of my body but rather that the last of my spirit had left and I was functioning only on the consciousness of my body, the memory of my cells and the habits of my body. It is harder to describe now, as I have gotten used to it and can't really remember what it felt like to feel real, present in the physical realm. It is not that I feel like I am out of my body but rather that my spirit has totally left me. I am in my body but my spirit is gone.
I continued to feel myself falling throughout January as my energy became lower and lower. I could barely drive to town for a paper. I had to reduce my hikes to one hour twice per week from 2 or more hours every other day. I no longer cared about my appearance. I showered and shaved every 3 to 4 days rather than every other day after my hikes. I often stumbled on my hikes and found myself constantly veering to the left. I couldn't walk a straight line. I didn't see how I could still be alive and wasn't sure that I was. In a word, things were bad and they stayed that way.
Surprisingly during this time, in my ongoing outline for my Trip Letter in the back of my journal from which I write these Letters, I have almost no notes except of jokes; no events, internal or external. Of course I don't know what any of this means. I just have the misfortune to have to live it.
Okay, enough serious shit for awhile, Jim, tell them some more jokes to keep them coming back for more. You can always slip in some more serious stuff later.
What goes round comes round. Too bad I'm square.
The good news is that I finally figured out women. The bad news is that it is too late. (The worse news is that the good news is a lie!)
My vegetarian friends say, "In Beano est veritas." If you don't understand this poor excuse for a pun, get a life and go ask a vegetarian. If you don't know any vegetarians, drop me a line and I'll put you in contact with one.
Do you know what a man says just before he says or does something really stupid? "I know women!"
When I wash clothes I sort them into two piles: colors and greys.
I like watching infomercials because there are no commercial breaks.
They have come out with a new mouthwash for dogs. It is called Tidybowl.
Some people call me a wanderer. Actually I am a wonderer as I am always wondering what the hell is going on!
Early in January while camped at my Earp, CA campsite, a BLM ranger came to visit me. I hate being hassled by these guys so I decided I would take the initiative. I bounced out of my trailer, introduced myself, told him I really liked the guy who came by last year and recited the rules and said I followed them to the letter. He was nice young man who liked his boss, who happened to be last year's ranger. We chatted for a few minutes and he never did talk to me about camping there because I took all of his steam away from him.
Four weeks later he came by again and of course I was there. I was flip flopping every two weeks between Bouse and Earp. He asked why I was still there. I said I wasn't. I was there again, having spent two weeks in Bouse. I explained to him that because he came every four weeks he would either see me every time or never. He smiled, understood, turned and left.
George came to visit me late on the 18th of February and stayed a week. Mostly we just hung out and hiked and talked. We did go to the Main Event in Quartzsite again this year. The Main Event is a huge flea market. George is a collector (no, not of fleas) and generally finds several of the things he collects there at good prices.George is a certified Hypnotherapist. Since I am a chronic insomniac I asked George to hypnotize me to sleep one night. He did. It took about 15 minutes but then I couldn't hear him any more because I was asleep. I went way down; past my old trance-work states. Unfortunately I awoke at 2:10 AM to escape a bad dream. I didn't get back to sleep until about 6 that morning. But it was quite an experience going through all of those levels with George.
While talking one day I said something (I can't remember what) that made George laugh. I mention this merely because in the 15 years I have known George he never once laughed at any of my jokes or anything that I said. Once before his lips twitched but that was the best I could ever do. But this time I caught him with his guard down. Trouble is I was so shocked that he laughed that I forgot what I said. I assume it was funny.
We did go to Algodones for medicine while he was there. George was going to bring back lots of medicines for some of his Dallas friends. He had too many. I thought the Border Guard would stop him so I took some of them over for him. There were two lines and we each took a different one. Well, the Border Guard let George through without the blink of an eye. Mine thought I was carrying way too many drugs and made me go talk to the customs official. He was young, tall, strong, wearing a badge and carrying a gun and liked his position. He hassled me for about 20 minutes on what each drug was for and why I needed so much of it. From my work in the Insurance Industry I know a lot about prescription drugs. I had my answers already prepared. I knew much more about these drugs than he did but I didn't want him to know that. I answered his questions as simply as possible.
I did not want to be searched because I was smuggling Valium in my pockets. In earlier years you could take Valium across the border but this year you couldn't for some reason. I stayed as calm and unchallenging as possible. Finally he let me go with a lot of cautions and admonitions. The irony of it was that George had twice the amount of medicines I had and I was just doing him a favor so what happened to me wouldn't happen to him!
That night I asked for my Protectors back as it was obvious that I was not up to the task. In July, 1996 I fired my Guides and dismissed my Protectors with appreciation. My Protectors let bad things happen to me but always not in the middle of nowhere which will be demonstrated if you keep still and read a few more pages.
While driving down the road one day, George told me about a church at which he had stopped on his way to Bouse. It had been built by the Spanish as a mission centuries ago. It was two stories high. They had to use a ladder to get to the second story. Recently an itinerant carpenter had come through and had built a stairway for free so they would no longer have to use the ladder. When George stopped by they were selling statues of saints as a fund raiser. They weren't doing well. George then told me that they would probably do better if they sold bobble-headed saint dolls.
The bad energy or whatever that hit me in January was still increasing while George was there. On the morning he left we each took our own vehicles into Parker for a good-by breakfast. On the drive in I started screaming. I could barely stop by the time I got to the restaurant. We ate, said goodby and I briefly stopped at Safeway. Then I started screaming again. I had to stop for water but no one was close by and I could keep it low enough that no one could hear. I was still screaming when I got back to camp. I sat in my van for 20 minutes screaming. I figured I had to find some way to stop so I opened the door and got out, still screaming. My legs wouldn't support me and I fell. So I laid there and screamed for another 15 minutes. Finally I got it under control but couldn't get my legs to work. I grabbed a hold of my open door and pulled myself up. I leaned on the van and walked around to the passenger door to get my bag of groceries. Then I stumbled to my trailer.
I still hurt like hell. I spent the next 4 1/2 hours lying on the top of my van listening to tapes of my oldies music as the sun crossed the southern sky toward the west. It was sunny and 75 that day. When it got chilly I went in. I have no idea what that was all about either.
The sun hit my face from a different direction than usual that afternoon and my face got sunburned in places it normally doesn't. When it peeled I lost a lot of face.
After George left, the temperature jumped into the upper 80's and stayed in the upper 80's to low 90's to 100 degrees until mid September. Usually I am cold at night in my trailer 8 to 9 months of the year, but not this year. This was the longest streak of heat I had experienced since I left KC in 1990.
On February 2, I noticed a number of cracks in my bathtub. I tried some stuff on my own to fix the cracks but they didn't work. After consultation with a couple of experts in Parker I bought what was to be the solution. Trouble was, it required the reading and following of instructions. And unless I already know how to do something, I can't understand the instructions much less follow them. But I knew that I was going to visit Bob Yettner in April so I bought the repair kit and would wait and ask him to fix it for me.
My refrigerator kept turning off. The last time this happened it was under warranty and they replaced the circuit board. It only happened every 2 or 3 days. It is very well insulated so I was in no real hurry to get it fixed. So I bought a circuit board and waited to show up at Bob's.
My 15 month old VCR broke. It cost $54 to fix it but only cost $80 new. I decided to get it fixed because the repairman said he knew what was wrong and I trusted him. Also I figured a repaired VCR would probably work longer than a new one. It still works.
I no longer have an Inner Spirit. It's gone. I now have an Outer Spirit (if that!)
On March 3, I met my older brother while he was in Phoenix on business. As usual I enjoyed it very much. We seem to talk much better outside of KC for some reason. The only reason I was able to meet him was because my mail was late. I called my parents on March 1 to see if they had sent me any mail as I hadn't received any for a while. (They had. I got it a couple of days later.) They told me Ed was coming to Phoenix. His note to me was in the delayed mail. I called Ed and left a voicemail that I would meet him at the usual place at the usual time. And things worked out.
On March 13, I awoke to find a fortune-cookie-sized piece of paper on the floor with the word enjoy! on it. I also noticed a pencil lead colored stain on the ball of my right foot. I had worn socks to bed that night and for reasons I won't go into I know that the stain wasn't there when I went to bed. It took ten days for the stain to gradually wash off. Is this a wonderful world or what?!
On February 9, I re-read my journal entries for January. My experiences during that month were very bad and they caused me much emotional pain. Yet when I read those entries I could not pick up any emotion from what I read. They were just words. Several years earlier I had related a particularly painful experience to a friend. I then asked her if she could feel any emotion from what I had related to her. She said no.
Much of what we experience in life is based on non-verbal clues, the main one being emotion. Words have no meaning without the accompanying emotion. I can express my emotions verbally but without the concomitant energy there is no meaning or understanding or relating. This has frustrated me my whole life because no one understands what I say. I can tell by the way they respond. I know this happens for a reason but I have never been able to figure out what that reason is.
While I can and do feel everyone else's emotion I can't feel my own nor express them in an emotional manner. I know how I feel. But it expresses as physical energy in my physical body rather than through my emotional body. I can talk about how I feel but they are just words and not an expression of emotion.
In prior Letters I have told of some very harrowing and painful experiences which I have undergone. Yet no one ever said to me, "Gosh, Jim, that must have been horrible." I kind of wondered why. I pretty much knew that you weren't getting the message and why. Yet it was this intense insight on February 9 that allowed me to see clearly what was going on. Maybe that is why I always claimed the title of a short story I read in my teens as my own: I Have No Mouth Yet I Must Scream.
The month of March was hot. I hiked a little, sat outside in the shade and read, and went to Parker to check my e-mails once a week. I wanted to be in Cottonwood by April 2 because the Phoenix Suns would be on TV 6 times during the next two weeks. I could pick up the Phoenix TV broadcast of the games at the campsite three miles east of Cottonwood. I couldn't get there sooner or I'd have to leave before the last of the games were played. It wasn't a very good plan but it was the only one I had. My last day in Bouse it was 94 degrees in the shade; though the humidity was only 7%.
When I got to Cottonwood I found that the campsites had been closed by the NFS. I don't know why. They were good campsites and not overused or trashed. On the north side of the highway they had dug a trench three feet deep across the entrances to each campsite. I was able to find a campsite south of the highway where I stayed for two weeks. I still got the Phoenix channels at this campsite but not as clearly and on different channels. The SNB were very bad all winter and spring and summer. I came to dread the darkness, though I did go back on standard time when I got to Cottonwood. Strangely, I can remember April and May very well while the rest of the year is a blur. Bob had left Sedona for a house in Chino Valley, just north of Prescott. The only reason I was in Cottonwood was to watch those six Suns games. They were televised because they were road games and, of course, they lost all six. That was okay, though, because they were my team. After all I was a Chiefs fan throughout the 70's so I know losing! It stayed hot and I hiked, sweated and sat in the shade for two weeks.
I was surprised to see cattle grazing on Forest land when everything was so brown. I hiked the road north of the highway and picked up aluminum cans. I also used the ditches dug by the NFS to toss brown beer bottles in. They are too heavy to pick up when I hike but I wanted them off the road lest someone slash a tire on them. That was also my way of rebelling against the NFS for closing the sites. I almost never sneeze. But while in Cottonwood I sneezed at least once for 13 straight days (and a few crooked ones, too.) The Phoenix paper said that the skies were unusually hazy from dust and the smoke from forest fires.
Nothing of moment happened while I was camped there except for five dreams I had about a woman I dated in college. These were very loving and emotional dreams and were very pleasant. These are the ONLY dreams I have had in the last five years that were not unpleasant. Although I broke up with her - twice -, it felt so very good to be with her in the dreams. Although in the last one she was supposed to give a talk to a group of which I was a member. She refused to give the talk because I was in the group. That didn't bother me because I understood where she was coming from.
In mid April I left to see Bob in Chino Valley. I camped in his back yard for three weeks. Arizona had yet to see any moisture in 2002 . It was extremely dusty and windy in Chino Valley with sustained winds of 35 to 45 mph 4-5 days per week. After Bob moved in he pulled all of the weeds from his yard. That left only dirt. It was impossible to stay clean with all of the dust and sand in the air. Dust covered the inside of my trailer faster than I could sweep it up.
As sunny as it was the solar panels kept my batteries full of electricity all winter and spring. It really is nice to have them. Free energy and I don't have to worry about them. They are just there doing their thing. I didn't need to hook up to electricity at Bob's.
I did not enjoy the energy of my campsite outside Cottonwood but I did like the energy of Cottonwood and of Chino Valley. I felt comfortable camping in Bob's back yard. The physical and emotional pain which I had been experiencing daily lessened quite a bit during my time with Bob. I had to stay out of Prescott and Prescott Valley as the energy there was very bad. But that is judgmental. Let me rephrase it. I stayed out of those cities because the energy there hurt me very badly.
Bob is very right brained and spontaneous. He is tuned in and very intuitive. He would often answer my question before I asked it. One morning I got up and went into his house. I was thinking we could go out for breakfast somewhere. I found him standing in his kitchen holding a pound package of bacon. He looked at me and said if I had any eggs he would cook breakfast for us! Bob had a metal detector and we took it out several times. It beeped and squawked at us nearly constantly but we never found any gold or silver or anything else of consequence. Though it did take us out into nature.
Bob also got into panning for gold and I watched him do that also. Bob being spontaneous, we would set out to do something and spend all day doing everything else but what we set out to do. The first couple of days that bothered me because I like making plans and following them. But I quickly learned to go with the flow. If there was anything I wanted to do, Bob would drop everything and we would do it. I just had to learn to take water with me when we went to the grocery store because it might be six or 8 hours before we got back home!
One long spontaneous day found us panning for gold at a lake outside Prescott. Actually I watched Bob pan. At 4:15 I was tired and wanted to go home. It was a nice day and a very pretty setting and I didn't want to spoil Bob's fun. I sat there enjoying being in such a beautiful setting going with the flow. But I told myself that if he weren't finished panning by 5:00 I would ask him if we could go home. I was looking at him squatting by the lake while I was lost in thought. Suddenly he turned around and asked if I was ready to go home. I looked at my watch. It was exactly 5:00. I smiled and said yes.
One of our major tasks was digging up dirt and gravel from the National Forest; where we found huge piles of it, probably dumped there during road excavation. The round trip took 90 minutes, only 20 minutes of it actually shoveling gravel into large buckets which we carried in Bob's Jeep. His house had no driveway so we were building him one. We figured the two of us probably dug up seven tons of dirt and gravel.
The Chino Valley area is supposed to be a hotbed of UFO and Bigfoot activity. One day Bob and I were out in the Forest digging up a small pine tree to transplant in his yard. Near the tree we had picked was the carcass of an animal the size of a large greyhound. The carcass was intact but without skin, fur, a head or paws. Later we would come back to this place. The carcass was rotting but had not been scavenged.
In another place we found an abandoned bridge over a deep ravine. A Bigfoot was supposed to live under it. The only evidence we found was limbs on and off a nearby tree. Limbs the size of my forearm had been twisted and torn from the tree. There was no evidence of any tools being used. The limbs torn off had been about 20 feet off the ground. I don't know how the limbs were torn from the tree, but is was very strange.
Bob had two bathrooms in his house and he insisted I shower in one of them. I fell in love with his showerhead. It was six inches in diameter and sent warm water cascading down my body from above my head. The caressing of the water on my body made it feel like a light massage. It was wonderful!
While at Bob's he patched up my tub and installed the circuit board in my refrigerator. I watched him do both tasks in case I had to do it again myself. He kind of took me through the steps as he did it which made it easy for me to follow. I was very grateful to him for doing those things for me. He was very grateful to me for helping him dig up all that dirt and gravel.
It was tough to leave Bob's company behind as I really did have a good time playing with him. I was not going to Montana this year. I wanted to camp in the forest and slowly work my way across northern Arizona to Show Low.
On May 10, I left and found a campsite several miles north of where we had dug the gravel. It was about a mile down a Forest Road. But there weren't really any trees around. I got out my maps and found another road that came south from I-40. I rode my motorcycle there and found a place to camp on Welch Road with some trees but which also would provide sun for my solar panels. I went back and got my "stuff" and came back to my home for the next 19 days.
While in Chino Valley my right shoulder and low back hurt. The morning I awoke at this new campsite, the pain was gone. Although I did not like the energy of this campsite - it made the SNB worse - I seemed stronger and was able to hike longer and farther. I was five miles east of Ash Fork and about 50-60 miles west of Flagstaff. I hiked more here and enjoyed going into Ash Fork. It was a small town but had a couple of gas stations and lots of pay phones. The weather was sunny and mid 80's with less wind than in Chino Valley.
I was sitting outside reading one afternoon shortly after I got there when Bud Sheppard showed up on his bicycle. He was retired from the Navy and then from the Naval Shipyards in San Diego. He was camped on the other side of I-40. He insisted I come for a visit so I showed up the next day. There was a large, flat clearing with about a dozen vehicles. I met a few of the people camped there. One of them was an old Indian they called Chief. I asked him if he was related to the KC Chiefs. He didn't think that was funny.
Bud's younger brother joined the Navy two years after Bud did. On his first paycheck his name was spelled Shepphard. It would have taken two weeks to get the records corrected and a new paycheck so he kept his new name.
Bud had to return some "cage free" eggs to Safeway. One of them exploded and knocked the lid off the pot when he tried to boil it. Another one splattered all over the skillet when he tried to fry it. I think they were Terrorist Eggs.
Except for feeling extremely uneasy while there, those days were pretty carefree. Hiking lessens the SNB so I tried to hike at least every third day. Interestingly I did a lot of target shooting with my pistol while camped there. For some reason it made me feel safer.
In 1987 I psychically extrapolated that current civilization 25 years into the future. It didn't exist. I saw a gray nothingness. I concluded that either we no longer existed or that the civilization of 2012 was so different from that of 1987 that it didn't exist in that form. I knew that we were polluting the rivers and land so rapidly that we might make the earth uninhabitable by humans. I also realized that nuclear bomb technology was out there and it was merely a matter of time until some rogue dictator used it. I knew that we had to learn to live together in harmony with each other and with the earth very soon or the human race would be over. It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I realized that 2012 was the year the Mayan calendar ends and the year that "eleven-eleven" comes to fruition. This is certainly consistent with what we are seeing played out on the world stage today.
Due to extreme fire danger, they closed the Kaibab National Forest in which I was camping. They also closed most of all of the other Forests in Arizona and New Mexico. I have no trouble with them doing that because most fires are human caused. Though it did pretty much mess up my plans for the summer, which were to slowly camp my way across northern Arizona, arriving in Show Low in mid July. But such is life.
I had to sell the rest of my gold in Flagstaff so I would have money to live on. Since the eastern edge of the Coconino National Forest was open to camping (the part without any trees), I decided to go to Flagstaff for a while and then on to Show Low. While camped on Welch Road I was able to get a couple of over the air network channels on my trailer's antenna. Unfortunately the antenna broke just before I left for Flagstaff.
I packed up to leave a day ahead of the closure because I had to be gone by 8:00 AM and that would be impossible for me. I don't do mornings. I was hooked up and ready to go. I got in and started the van. I pushed on the brakes before I put the van in "Drive" and the pedal went all the way to the floor. I checked and found that the brake fluid had leaked out the left rear wheel. I had some brake fluid with me and put it in. Thus began a very long day, the details of which I will skip (I wish I could have then!) I had some brakes and I decided I only needed to stop once, when I got to Flagstaff, so I went.
It took five hours before I reached Flagstaff, about 60 miles away, because of those details I mentioned. I was able to sell the rest of my gold for $322 per ounce, which I feel was a very good price. Then I went to the NFS office to find a place to camp. The first one they sent me to was closed so I went back and tried again. They found me another place but the road to it was closed. After some more talk they decided that the road was a county road not subject to closure by the NFS. So I did get there eventually. It seemed like 2 or 3 days since I had started out that morning.
The circuit board I had installed in my refrigerator had different temperature settings.
For the previous several weeks, the temperature in my refrigerator had been getting warmer and warmer. I had fiddled with the temperature settings to no avail. I even re-installed the old circuit board. When I got up the first day camped outside Flagstaff the temperature in the refrigerator was 70 degrees. I had to accept, then, that the refrigerator wasn't working. Some campers had driven by earlier that day. I went to them and gave them everything in my freezer because it would just spoil on me. I gave away about $60 worth of meat I had just bought.
The next day I unhooked the trailer and took the van into Flagstaff to shop at Sam's Club. I also took in a movie. When I got back to my trailer it was 97 degrees at my campsite. They were having record setting high temperatures in Flagstaff and I didn't even have anything cold to drink. Flagstaff is at 6900 feet above sea level. I was 15 miles east of Flagstaff at about 6000 feet. But I endured. I am a Pioneer. By this time I had contacted Ed and Lisa in Show Low. Ed told me as long as I kept brake fluid in the Master Brake Cylinder, I would probably be okay.
I left the next morning. I got one mile down the frontage road and had a blowout on my van's right rear tire. (I have had eight new tires on my right rear wheel in the last 7 years. Obviously it is cursed. That is why I was surprised that the brake fluid had leaked from the LEFT rear.) I unhooked the trailer and unloaded the back of the van to lighten the load and put on the spare. Again skipping many details, I did make it eventually to Ed and Lisa's before the sun set.
The first thing I did the next day was buy a new tire for my van. Then I had to take my trailer into Show Low to an RV repair shop to get the antenna and the refrigerator fixed. It was not the circuit board but the gizmo which tells the igniter to ignite. The young man who fixed these things for me really knew his stuff and worked real fast, which is what you want when you are paying by the hour. Actually he had me all fixed in 30 minutes. It felt like I was regaining some control over my life again.
Now all I needed fixed was the brakes. Several days later Ed had time to look at them. I was sitting outside my trailer while he worked on my brakes. He said, "Jim. Come here, I need to show you something." It seemed the rear brakes were shot, could not be fixed and had to be replaced. A couple hours he called me over again and I groaned. I knew what was coming. The front brakes were shot, could not be fixed and had to be replaced. $650 later (most of it in parts), I had brakes again. When I had sold my gold I deposited the check and took $1,000 in cash. It was gone after one week in Show Low.
While in Flagstaff I checked an RV parts store. There was a sign which read: I've left to find myself. If I should return before I get back, please keep me here. Well, that sure explained how I felt at the time!
I slowly got back into the Show Low way. I got in touch with Shari; saw Kelly again and met Jason, Chris and Jerry. I met Jerry and Chris at a drumming ceremony. Jerry was the leader. He had incredibly wonderful energy and the more he spoke the more I liked him. I wasn't able to get to talk to him personally just yet but I sure wanted to get to know him better. Chris was a friend of Shari's and was Kelly's age, about 28. Shari, Kelly, Chris and I got together often and I always enjoyed myself. We talked and laughed a lot. It was so cute to watch Kelly and Chris flirt with each other. More about Chris and Jerry later.
I met Jason only once, at a dinner party at Shari's. I listened to him talk for at least an hour. He is also young and had great energy and had spent a lot of time with Hopi Elders. He told me the Elders say the end of time is near (within a year.) (My words.) Unfortunately I didn't see Jason again. But at the dinner table Jason said he was going to take a floating holiday. Shari said: Why? Are they expecting floods?
I don't have much to say now, so I'll skip straight to the jokes. Though I have been told that these Letters ARE one big joke. What a Compliment! I was so pleased when I heard that!
My grey and white matter got even madder and just left.
It was so hot in my trailer that I didn't cook anything. One time I was really hungry for something besides a sandwich so I cooked a can of soup on my stove. But I noticed that the flame actually made the soup cooler.
Shari used to be a Rehab nurse in Las vegas. She told the story about one of the nurses who was pushing a man in a wheelchair. She heard the sound of a large Brraaap! The nurse looked down and found a turd in her hand. Kelly said that since it was Las Vegas, the man must have been a crapshooter. This really happened. Does this give you any idea of why I had so much fun with those two and Chris (who was there at the time)? Ed's new automotive repair garage is about 150 feet from the edge of his house. However he drives his truck to work each day. Down his driveway, onto the street and into the driveway to his garage. I called him on it. I told him I was going to put it in this Letter. He said he wanted his side of the story told. So I will leave it up to you. Here it is: He has tools on his truck which he uses for his mobile repairs. He needs the truck at the garage (150 feet away!!!) in case he gets a mobile call. He can't leave the truck at the garage because that leaves the truck vulnerable to theft of his tools. Yeah, I know. I didn't buy it either.
Also, since he had a lot of trash from his business he cancelled trash pickup at his house and got a dumpster at his garage. Now, whenever Lisa, sweet, loveable Lisa, has trash to take out, she has to walk 150 feet just to put it in a trash container! Still believe his story?
Although I can't get down on Ed. After all, he was at Woodstock! I have met about five million people who claim to have been one of the 500,000 who actually attended the Festival, half of whom weren't even born in 1969. But I believe Ed. He's da Man! He is also a guitar player and a damn good singer. He was 14 at the time. A buddy of his and he hitchhiked to Woodstock and spent the weekend. He never told his parents that he was going. When he showed up on Monday he was grounded for two weeks. Had he been my kid, I'd have locked him in the basement until he turned 21 or until he stank real bad, whichever came first.
On June 13, I checked my e-mail. I had 2 or 3 e-mails to me from people I did not know. AND they were not addressed to my e-mail address either. I don't know how that could happen. I just report the facts, it is up to you to understand them. I also had two whose "From" address was just a series of letters and numbers. There was no message with them so I sent a reply to both of them that I had received no message. Just as I was deleting the second one I happened to notice the address ended in "@FAA.gov." I kid you not. Now we know where our tax dollars are going. Either the FAA was sending everybody empty e-mails or they were spying on me.
After I got to Show Low on June 1, I began to feel totally drained of lifeforce. I could not do anything. One day I sat outside my trailer all day in a chair. I didn't read, I didn't think. I simply vegetated all day. I felt fine in the exact same spot in Ed and Lisa's yard the previous Fall. I couldn't figure out what was going on. I did notice that now there was a power line going to Ed's garage. But so what? It transmitted only the energy which Ed used and most of the day he wasn't using any. Yet it was the only thing different. I kept noticing it so I figured it had something to do with the way I felt. After two weeks I moved my trailer about 30 feet away from it. I couldn't move it any farther away from it because the feeder line was a couple of hundred feet in the other direction. That seemed to help. I still felt very bad but not as bad as I had. At least I was able to function.
The big story in Show Low that summer, of course, was the Rodeo-Chediski (rhymes with sky) fires. The Rodeo fire started first and spread from 300 acres to 20,000 overnight. Every morning at 11:00 and every evening at 10:00 we sat around our TV's and watched the latest fire updates. Jim Paxon was the NFS press liaison and gave us our updates. He lived in New Mexico, was from Lubbock (you can't get that drawl out of your voice!), and had been married two days before being called to Show Low. He had the most calming influence on people. Even though he never fought the Fire, he was hailed as a hero by the local populace because of his wonderful down home presence.
Shari was worried about evacuation because she has three cats and two tropical birds and couldn't just get up and leave. She evacuated two days earlier than the rest of Show Low because of this. Chris's Mom lived in Holbrook, 50 miles north of Show Low on I-40. Chris and I helped Shari load "must haves" and her pets. She had intended to evacuate to Las Vegas but Chris said she could stay at his Mom's house with him.
Actually, what happened was that I was helping Shari pack things to evacuate. Chris showed up at 12:30, went to the kitchen and started cooking bacon. Bacon grease is the base ingredient in everything he cooks for breakfast. An hour later the three of us sat down to a great breakfast of bacon, hash browns, eggs and probably something else that I can't remember. Chris then laid down on the couch and napped until Shari was ready to go at 3:30, when she woke him up.
There are three cities along a fifteen mile stretch of highway with Show Low being the northernmost. Lakeside comes next and Pinedale abuts northern edge of the Apache Reservation. The entire area of over 30,000 people was evacuated to Red Cross shelters, relatives and private homes.
The Chediski fire joined the Rodeo fire and eventually burned 469,000 acres. Flames from the fire reached 500 feet in height. Temperatures were estimated to be 1,000 degrees. The fire was 50 miles wide as it travelled toward the Northeast. It was too hot and moving too fast to fight it from the ground. It cost $43 million to put out the fires. 485 house were burned and six businesses. No houses were lost in Show Low. Most of the losses occurred in Heber, Pinedale and Clay Springs, all west of the Show Low area.
The fire burned for three weeks and the evacuation lasted for one week. On Sunday, the day after the evacuation order, the 11:00 AM fire press conference stated that they expected a wall of flames 200 feet high to come roaring through downtown Show Low by 4:00 that afternoon and hit the airport, at the east edge of Show Low, the next morning. This caught my attention, as the airport was directly south of Ed and Lisa's.
Lisa and I went for groceries to Snowflake, north of Show Low. When I got back I loaded up my van and trailer, hooked them up and prepared to leave at a moment's notice if we saw flames coming our way. Then I and two of Ed's friends got busy cutting down trees surrounding Ed's garage and taking them to a bare five acres on the other side of his house from the fire. Ed and Lisa had six evacuees staying with them; two couples, one with a son who was Haylee's best friend and a daughter.
We kept our ears glued to the radio for the latest news. All of the stations in the area had continuous commercial-free coverage of the latest fire developments and public service announcements. The fire came to within one quarter mile of the western outskirts of Show Low and then seemed to stop and burn in place for two days. During that reprieve, firefighters were able to dig a firebreak which the fire was not able to jump. Deprived of fuel it gradually burned itself out. As it travelled north, the fire left the forest and encountered desert.
Later Ed and Lisa were told that they were never in any danger because there were two natural firebreaks between us and the fire. But we didn't know that at the time. Just as dust was everywhere in Chino Valley, there was ash everywhere in Show Low for those three weeks. It was snowing white and black ashes. I went from being a sun bleached blonde to an ash blonde in one week. On the positive side, everything I ate tasted smoke flavored. You are what you eat so I made an ash of myself. (Oh, Stop! You're killing me!)
Officially once the two fires merged the fire was referred to as the "Rodeo-Chediski" fire. I called it the "Oh Shit" fire because that was the most common words spoken as we sat around watching the TV updates.
There were many heartwarming tales of goodwill. People would go to the Shelters and tell those in authority that they could take some people into their homes if they were tired of staying at the shelter. The laundromat in one town said evacuees could wash their clothes for free. People offered free boarding for horses and other livestock on their pastureland, even offering to go get them. These were not one time incidents. The radio broadcast these announcements time and again, day after day.
The Red Cross and the Salvation Army were involved in the relief effort. After two days, they both said they had enough donations of food, tents, blankets and other stuff. They needed no further donations unless people wanted to donate cash to their general funds. There was so much food at the relief centers, donated by the local grocery stores, that the shelters were hard pressed to give it all away. All of the shelters served three meals per day to anyone who showed up to eat them. It was a very frightening situation made easier by the generosity and helpfulness of the people of Northeast Arizona. Actually help came from as far away as Phoenix and Tucson. People bent over backwards to help their fellow humans.
Finally it was over except for those whose homes had burned. Gradually life in the cities returned to normal. The grocery stores were re-stocked overnight after the evacuation order was lifted. It was truly amazing. You heard tales of how some houses on a block burned to ashes and another was untouched. No one I knew lost their house but some had their houses seemingly miraculously saved when the fire either jumped it or split around it. I don't have time to tell all of the stories, but there were many.
It was the hottest summer on record for Phoenix and similarly hotter than normal in the Show Low area. Phoenix recorded 115 days of 100 degree heat or higher. 28 days were 110 degrees or higher. It was hot and dry throughout the western states that summer. Most cities in Arizona had no precipitation in 2002 before July 1. The Monsoons came but dropped little rain and did nothing to stop the 4 year old drought. Many reservoirs were below 15% of normal capacity.
On July 3 Veta had a talking circle. Many people blamed the Apache people for starting the fire. (It was an out of work Apache contract firefighter who wanted some work who started the Rodeo fire. It was a white woman who claimed to be lost in a closed area who started the Chediski fire.) When the Apaches came to Show Low to shop they were often shouted at and vilified by dumb white folks who lived in Show Low. The houses which were burned did so because of the Chediski fire anyway. Veta's talking circle had a few Apaches and a few of her Anglo friends. We came together to build energy for reconciliation between the two neighbors. There were good people there that night and we sure built good energy in that room and it felt real good. I didn't want to leave.
The summer is basically a blur to me. I did meet with some old friends I hadn't seen for a long time, Rick and Shirley. Shirley had met Monika, Jerry's wife, at a Shelter during the evacuation. Rick and Shirley's house was spared while houses around them burned. More on them later.
My whole body hurt; my neck, back and shoulder muscles hurt all summer while I was in the Show Low area. I don't know why. Things were beginning to get back to normal for me, starting to visit with Shari and others when it was time to go to Kansas City for my parents' 60th wedding anniversary.
But first there's some stuff I just gotta get out.
I was playing Mind Games and I lost.
The only questions I can answer anymore are rhetorical ones.
In Lisa's kitchen there was a sign which read: I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look too good either.
A sign in Amy's massage room in Lincoln: Normal is just a setting on your washing machine.
I once read that a woman knows if she wants to go to bed with you ten seconds after she meets you. I once met a woman I was interested in. I waited ten seconds and asked if she wanted to go to bed with me. She slapped me. I took that for a no.
Why was the thin king always thin? He was always thinking. (It's a toughie. Bonus points if you get it. Hint: It is not really funny.)
A butterfly is a moth with a makeover.
They have finally found the Fountain of Youth. It is at Viagra Falls.
The trouble with cordless phones is that you never know where they are.
I was going to say in here that I have CRS disease (can't remember shit.) But the day after I wrote it in my journal's Letter outline, someone sent it to me in my e-mail. I continued to get it from different sources for a week. THAT I found to be funny. The Universe telling me not to bother.
I always wanted to become one with the earth. I guess I did just that when I got covered with sweat and dust on my hikes.
You are what you eat. I ate a comedienne once, so I must be funny.
Haylee, Ed and Lisa's daughter, doesn't play soccer. I told Lisa too bad because now she couldn't be a soccer Mom. Lisa stays busy because Haylee takes golf, dance and swimming lessons and is very active with Girl Scouts. Lisa replied that it was okay because she was a sucker Mom. (Succor? I didn't ask.)
I read that if you listen to the music you listened to as a youth your body's cells react to it and keep you younger. (This is true.) I listen to 60's music all of the time and in a few years I'll be 60, so it must be true.
The above is what spare time will do to your brain.
Anyway, I left for KC on July 19. I stopped in Boulder to spend two nights and one day with Amy Winters and her husband John. I got to meet her 3-3/4 year old son, Andrew and her father. The last time I saw Amy she was pregnant with Andrew. Amy's older son Eric was out of town visiting his Dad in KC then, as he was now. Actually Eric and I passed each other on my way to KC as he was on his way back to Boulder that same day.
My one day there was very hectic. Andrew had swimming class in the morning and then Amy had dance class in the afternoon. I wandered the Pearl Street Mall while Amy had her dance class. I really, really like the Pearl Street Mall. It is a street which has been closed for four or five blocks and given back to grass and pedestrians. There are shops, coffee houses and bookstores and other stores. What I like so much are the street musicians and entertainers. I can wander the Mall all day and be very well entertained.
But the energy there is always very intense. Boulder must be some kind of vortex which magnifies energies. I really like Boulder. There is a lot going on there and the energy is very nice. But being there always wears me out. I have noticed that for many years. That night I did not sleep at all. When the rest of the family got up I said goodby and left for KC. After an hour on the road I was too tired to feel bad but I definitely was not sane. I arrived at my sister's house at 8:30. I have no air conditioning in my van and I drove through temperatures in central Kansas of 108 degrees.
I saw family and the few friends I usually see when I go to KC. I spent a lot of time with my parents this time, though my Mom probably doesn't think so. It was very hot and humid.
I saw a lifelong friend I hadn't seen in several years. Don retired last year as the Director of Information Technology for the state of Kansas. As such, Don worked on the computer Y2K problem for the state of Kansas. He told me that in about August of 1999, president Clinton hired General Kind (a general whose last name is Kind) to co-ordinate the government's Y2K program. General Kind got IBM, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and others together to work on it. They created a Time Machine program. This was a program that would piggy back existing programs and take the program and system past the year 2000. They were then able to repair the code errors without having to read every line of code, which was the way they had been doing it for the prior five years.
We also gave this program to our allies and suppliers overseas. I believe what Don said because I have known him all of my life and because he was involved in it. This would explain why the U.S. government said on September, 1999 that it would not be ready for the year 2000 and on November said it had fixed and tested the entire system for all departments of government. There is much it doesn't explain. I also wonder why, if this is true, we never heard about it. I read nothing about it on the Internet in early 2000. But there it is. Investigative journalism at its best and you heard about it right here!
The morning of my first day in Boulder I noticed some fluid leaking from my left rear wheel. I thought it might be brake fluid but it wasn't. I kept checking. The left rear was where the brake fluid leaked the end of May. I kept checking but lost no brake fluid. After a few days it stopped leaking. While visiting David and Vicki in Lawrence, KS I mentioned it to David. He said it sounded like a rear axle seal leak. He used to work on cars, "specializing in anything on the bottom of a car."
I came back the next week for him to fix it. As he took off the wheel he said I needed a new axle, also. We called around. A new one was $300 and 24 hours to order. The last of six junkyards we called had one for me. It was in a town 25 miles north of Lawrence. Vicki and I went to get it. David said a used one would cost $150. It turned out that this one only had 8,000 miles on it when the van had been totaled. It had already been taken off the van. They charged me only $50. Parts, grease, etc. were another $40. Had I gone to a Garage it would have cost me $500 easily, for a new axle and labor at $70 per hour.
This was the first time in ten years that when something went wrong it didn't cost me at least $300 (note $650 brakes.) I think my friend Vicki married David after I left KC. He is a wonderful man and I am glad that Vicki married him. It was very hot and humid for the four hours he worked on my axle. And then he had to go to work the 4 to midnight shift. He's a Angel!
I met a friend for lunch at a restaurant in a trendy Johnson County neighborhood. As I waited for him in the lobby I watched all the men walking through the front door carrying cell phones on their hips, like some gunslinger in the Wild West, ready to draw their cell phones at the ring of a bell and make a quick deal.
I spent two weeks in KC. I remember very little of it. The energy there pretty much tied my body into a knot and shut down my brain. I visited with family and a few friends and nothing stands out except the Y2K stuff and the rear axle.
From KC I went to Lincoln for a few days to visit with my insurance and New Age friends. By this time I was on a schedule as I wanted to be back in Show Low by August 10. I wanted to spend more time in Lincoln visiting but had none left. There are some very special people in Lincoln whom I call friends.
From Lincoln I drove to Boulder for another brief visit with Amy and John. John is a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and he was going to Bangladesh on September 1 for a four month job. Amy, Eric and Andrew were going to go with him. This time Eric was in Alaska with his scout troop and got back the day I left but after I left, so I didn't get to see him this time either. I missed seeing him. He is a neat kid.
The reason I wanted to be back in Show Low by August 10 was because Jerry had a New Age group which he lead which met every two weeks. And I REALLY like Jerry. Rick and Shirley often attended his groups so I got to visit with them even more. While in KC I had a thought blow through the back of my mind that I would get back all that I have lost in this life and more the second half of March, 2003. While in Lincoln, a couple of my friends asked me what I saw coming for them. Again, I felt good things coming their way this Spring. Attendance was declining at Jerry's groups. The second one after I got back was his last. When we hugged after the group he whispered in my ear: Trust yourself. I had never given him any reason to believe that I didn't trust myself. Due to the exact words he used I felt it to be a True Message, one coming from spirit.
That message has meaning for me on several different levels. One being to trust what I pick up from other people like in my readings. Also to know that I am who I believe myself to be. And to believe that there is a huge light at the end of the tunnel and the end of the tunnel is at hand.
On September 5 as I got back to Ed and Lisa's from Shari's at midnight my radiator overheated. I took a look at it and the leak seemed to come from a heater hose. Two days later Ed fixed it. Ford wanted $180 for a new hose but Ed was able to jury rig one up for me. The total cost to fix it was $40! Two times in a row something went wrong and the cost was minimal. This lent added credence to the end of the tunnel being at hand. I don't get signs. But there were too many things happening that all pointed to one thing, so I have to believe. Also, my sense of humor is returning after a five year absence. This is the first time I have regained anything that I have lost.
It was still hot back in Show Low. They claimed that it did rain once or twice while I was gone but stopped when I got back. I felt very breathless, lightheaded and faint after I got back from KC. Every time I bent over, when I straightened up I felt dizzy. This stopped around Labor Day. Good riddance.
Ed and Lisa subscribed to the Phoenix paper on weekends only and gave them to me after they were finished with them. When I got back from KC they started getting the paper every day even though they didn't want it nor were they being billed for it. So I got a paper everyday for free and didn't have to go get it either. That saved me $20 per month plus the gas and time of going to get a paper. I was plugged into electricity at Ed's garage. He claimed that I used only $10 worth of electricity all summer. I think he was just being nice but he wouldn't take any more.
During my sojourn in KC one of my favorite places to eat in Show Low burned and was closed. It was called Burg 'N Brew. The fire started in the kitchen, some grease caught on fire. I wanted to ask one of the people who had worked there if, because their place of employment had burned down, they had to give back their shirts that read: I survived the Rodeo-Chediski fire.
While in Show Low I discovered half.com. E-Bay bought them out but left them intact. People list things for sale at half price or less. I buy books there. Unlike e-bay, the sellers try to undercut the other sellers' prices so you will buy theirs. I have bought hardback books on the current bestseller list for as low as $5.80 plus postage. Many paperbacks are 75 cents. It is my preferred book shopping store if I know what I want.
When I got back from KC I figured what was making me so tired at Ed and Lisa's. It was the power line to Ed's garage but in an indirect way. Now I had power lines on all four sides of me within 200 feet. Without the power line to Ed's garage I had an opening for the energy to escape. Now it was blocked in there with me in some kind of Force Field. I don't know what about this bothers me so, but I have had trouble with power lines before when camped too close to them.
This September I watched the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament every day. I used to play tennis when I knew other people who played and enjoy watching the game. I especially enjoy commentary by John McEnroe. I find his humor uproariously funny, and his insights into the game and the players are very helpful.
On September 9 the remnants of a hurricane from the west coast of Mexico brought some much needed rain to the area and also brought some cooler temperatures for a while. The next day I moved back to the Forest, three miles from Ed and Lisa's house. It was at the edge of the forest but a very beautiful view. I was on the top of a long slope to the southwest. In the distance I could see bushes turning into trees and the mountains in the distance. The recent rains had greened up the grass around my campsite.
I was camped on the gravel road I had been hiking all summer. I explored the area and found a normally dry wash turned into a river due to the recent heavy rains. I followed it a ways and it widened into a small lake which probably held water much of the year. It was a very deep wash and I had seen the rock embankment on my hikes but had never explored it before.
On the first morning I awoke at my new campsite I had a splitting headache which lasted five days; gone two and then on for four more days before disappearing for good. That same morning my right wrist hurt as if I had jammed it, which I hadn't. It still hurts today, no more and no less. My life is real weird.
I really appreciated Ed and Lisa letting me camp on their land all summer. I had no where else to go as the Forests were closed until I got back from KC. I never did asked them if I could stay there. I moved in so Ed could work on my brakes and never left. One of Ed and Lisa's evacuees, Eileen, asked me in front of Lisa how long I was going to stay there. I told her until they kicked me out. Lisa just laughed. I was hoping she would pipe in that I could stay as long as I wanted but she didn't. But when I left, they each told me I was welcome there anytime. Which I had already figured out since I had been there three months and they hadn't kicked me out yet. But that did make me feel good.
With all of the problems I had with the brakes, refrigerator, blownout tire, rear axle and heater hose, etc., I noticed that I no longer got mad when bad things happened to me, even when they piled up on me as they did at the end of May. I have truly become a no mad. Gotcha!Just before I left Show Low I ran into Monika, Jerry's wife, at Wal-Mart. We talked for 20 minutes. I felt that running into her there was very significant. I just don't yet know what it means. As much as I wanted to I never had an opportunity to get to know either Monika or Jerry well. All I know for sure is that Jerry is a very powerful healer.It was a very strange summer in Show Low for me. It was broken up first by the fire and then by my trip to KC. I felt that I never got anything going. I didn't get to spend as much time with the people I wanted to. I didn't get to see Shari very often. And I am not saying that just because she is a great cook and likes to cook. That has nothing to do with it and I want to stop those rumors right now. Shari has been a good friend to me for many years and I felt that I didn't get to see her as often as I would have liked this summer.
I saw Kelly and Chris only at Shari's. I wanted to get to know Chris better. Several times I tried to ask him personal questions but he had a shield around him that said don't ask. I could have anyway but I respected his privacy and didn't. I knew that he was psychic, very sensitive, knew more than he let on, worked as a carpentry foreman and was an all around nice man. I had to settle for that.
On September 24, I left for Hannagan Meadows In the White Mountains of eastern Arizona. I was headed there in 1996 when Barb made me stay in Show Low for an extra week to meet Robert. I never regretted it but still had the desire to see this beautiful country.
One of the reasons that I did not go to Montana this last summer was because Robert had decided to walk from Lavina to NYC. He made it in early November. Although after two months of walking he did start accepting rides if offered but he did not ask for them. Details and pictures of his walk can be found at his website, lavinamontana.com.
I stopped at the NFS Ranger station at Alpine and two men gave me suggestions where to camp at Hannagan Meadows. They were very nice and helpful, as they usually are, but I couldn't find their suggested campsites. Though I did find a nice one, which was where I had planned to camp from looking at the map. It is tough to find a place to camp from just looking at a map. A map will not show level areas and breaks in the trees. But I found one a quarter mile off Highway 191. It was mostly a flat open area with bright green grass and forest all around but plenty of sun for my solar panels (except for the big, puffy clouds which arose every afternoon.)
Hannagan Meadows is just that, a meadow. There are lots of cienegas in the forest. This is a Spanish word which means marsh land. These cienegas are low lying meadows in which rain runoff settles. There is one Meadow that is The Hannagan Meadows. It is along the highway, 22 miles south of Alpine. The drive from Alpine took 45 minutes. The road is very hilly and curved. It is a beautiful drive with breathtaking views at every turn. It is densely forested with lots of hills, valleys, mountains and ridges with a few flat areas.
Across from Hannagan Meadows is a private Lodge. They had gas for $1.95, a convenience store with little in it, a restaurant open from 7:30 to 9:30 AM and 5:30 to 9:00 PM and a few rooms to let at the lodge. This was off season; summer and winter are their seasons. Very little traffic passed by on the highway. The next town south of Alpine is probably 25 miles by air but 90 miles by road. With all of the switchbacks and hairpin curves it is hard to average 30 mph. There was a pay phone at the Lodge but no paper. The nearest paper was at Alpine. They stopped delivering the Phoenix paper to Alpine on October 1, not to re-appear until April 1.
Except for the hundreds of bees swarming around my campsite, it was very quiet and peaceful. It was so quiet I could hear my thought bouncing around inside my head for lack of company. It had been back to record high temperatures when I left Show Low, but it cooled off to the 50's at Hannagan Meadows, which is 9120 feet above sea level. There were several hiking trails within walking distance of my campsite. I hiked two of them. Going out they were slightly downhill. At that altitude coming back was huffing and puffing time. I was surprised at my reaction to the additional 3000 feet in altitude.
My back, shoulder and neck muscles had hurt even worse since my return from KC. When I woke up the first morning at Hannagan Meadows the pain was gone. That was a tremendous relief. My time at Hannagan Meadows was extremely relaxing for me. The quietness and peacefulness were palpable. Even the uneasiness of the SNB receded a bit.
After a week there it was supposed to get colder so I went 30 miles south to a lower elevation at 6500 feet. To get there I had to leave the Mogollon Rim, an uplifted plateau that goes from northwestern to southeastern Arizona (and back!) It was raining and foggy yet even so the view from the edge of the Rim was awesome. You looked down and saw mountains, hills, ridges and forests as far as the eyes could see. The road followed a ridge. Sometimes you were on the east side of the ridge and could see what was on that side of the ridge and sometimes you were switched to the western side. There was always something new to see and ooh! over.
I found a place to camp just off the highway. It appeared to have been a rock quarry at one time but was now flat and treeless. Actually the trees had thinned out here on the only straight stretch of highway between Alpine and Morenci. It was quiet and peaceful here, also, but without the bees. I was within sight of the highway and on a weekday maybe a handful of cars would pass by each hour. The temperatures here were 50's and 60's and the skies some sun and some clouds. I did need my generator a couple of times. My two weeks here were very pleasant.
There were some Monks in southeast Arizona who baked bread to make money for their monestary. They expanded to potato chips. The brand name for these chips was Chip Monks.
During my two weeks here I got no paper, did not know the forecast and took each day as it came. If it was sunny I went outside and played. If it rained, I stayed inside. I couldn't plan anything. Most of what I do is weather dependent.
Interestingly enough although I was 140 miles from Tucson and 350 from Albuquerque, I got five TV stations from Albuquerque on my trailer's TV antenna. I even got to see a Chiefs game from the Albuquerque station which was not on my satellite. That was a pleasant surprise. I think I was getting the stations re-broadcast from Silver city, NM on a translator. If you don't know what a TV translator is you have never lived in a small city.
Before going to Texas to spend the winter with Phil and Kaye Horton who had moved there from Lavina 18 months earlier, I wanted to go to Mexico to buy some prescription medicines. So after two weeks in my mountain abode I left for a campsite 15 miles south of Safford, AZ. Highway 191 is a national treasure. If you ever get a chance, drive it from Alpine to Morenci and back. It will take all day. North of Morenci is a Phelps-Dodge copper mine. It is huge. By highway it is 8 miles long, sometimes on both sides of the highway. From an overlook, looking down into the hole, huge trucks moving slowly appeared as ants.
My new campsite was at 4000 feet and back to desert landscape but I was at the base of some mountains. There were plenty of dirt roads to hike. I took a motorcycle ride over the mountains to a town called Bonita. All it was was a small hacienda-like house with three pickups in it and a school house a quarter mile down the road from the house. There was no place for the teachers to live. It was at least 35 miles from the nearest town which would be Safford.
The mountains were pretty. They were much taller to the north but still had a nice forested landscape. I searched for other places to camp and found several, in case I ever came back here. An hour after I got back from my ride I was in my trailer when I heard and felt a large BOOM. I went outside to see what had hit my trailer but could find nothing nor any damage. This was about the fourth time I had heard and felt something hit the trailer but nothing did that I could find visual evidence of.
One strange thing that happened there is that I picked up over my trailer's TV antenna CNN, MSNBC, TNN, TBS and WGN. Since I was there only a week I didn't bother to set up my satellite. But I was 1500 miles away from the broadcast towers of TBS and WGN and the others are not broadcast over the air. So how did I pick them up on my TV? If you have any answers please let me know. Because as far as I know this is impossible. Like when I picked up Phoenix radio stations while in Lavina.
I took a day long trip to Agua Prieta, Mexico. I could not find the medicine that I wanted. It wasn't until later that I realized that I could only find it in Algodones, Mexico, just west of Yuma.
By this time I knew it was time to head to Texas. Kaye would never forgive me if I arrived after Charles' junior varsity football season ended and I did not get to see him play. Two days later I was in Goldthwaite, Texas in the Hortons back yard. I was greeted by Phil and Kaye and their daughter, Sara, and son, Charles. I was also greeted by two weeks of cold, wet, cloudy weather and was told that it had been that way for a week before I got there. But two weeks of sunny weather would follow so all was not lost.Before I left Show Low I asked Ed to check my rear tires as they appeared overly worn on the inner and outer edges. He said they should be okay for several thousand miles. I said I just needed them to get me to Goldthwaite. And that is what they did. On the second day of my journey my right rear tire needed air bad so I filled it up. Again at noon it was low so I filled it up again. My first day in Goldthwaite I had to buy new tires for the rear. The steel belts were sticking through the left rear and the right rear tire had a big fist sized air bubble between the inner and outer walls. I was lucky not to have had two blowouts on the way to Texas.
I have come to really like auto repair. I hate working on cars so when they repair themselves, I think that is great.
Phil ran a powerline out to my trailer from his circuit box. Phil would often cook us breakfast in the morning and Kaye cooked for us each evening. I was well taken care of. And I got to sit in the cold and watch Charles' last three games. He is the best player on the team. He plays linebacker and offensive guard. Thursdays were football nights.
When football was over Sara's 7th grade basketball games started on Monday nights. 7th grade is the first grade for organized basketball, at least for girls. Sara is a very aggressive player and occasionally will lead her team in scoring. There is talent on her team. The only downside to these games is that the Away games are from 30 to 80 miles away from Goldthwaite. I am getting to know the towns of central Texas. Although it has become obvious that if I am going to spend any time in Texas I am going to have to take a course in "Texan as a second language." I am truly in the middle of Texas drawl.
Of note is that it is impossible to starve to death in Texas. Too much roadkill.
Also of note is that this is the heart of pecan and goat country. There are goats everywhere, though nobody can tell me why people raise them. There is no goat milk or cheese or goat meat in any of the stores. One person told me they might export them to Mexico. Maybe so. But not fast enough because there are still thousands of them here everywhere you look.
Behind Kaye and Phil's house there is a pasture with goats in it. Though on the other side of the pasture are houses. There is a rooster that crows day and night, and dogs who occasionally bark. It is almost like living in the country. Phil claims he saw a goat climb a tree and took a picture of it in the tree. I have seen the picture. Phil pointed the goat out to me, but still....
On November 1, I went to Dallas to visit George. This was fun except that it was in Dallas. I found the energy somewhat crushing but it is always good to see George. Besides, I figured that if I came to visit him first maybe he would come down here a couple of times before I had to go back to Dallas. While there I got to meet his girlfriend, Jeanne. I had heard a lot about her over the preceding 18 months. She is a sweetie. I didn't get to talk to her much. The three of us went out to dinner and were just getting into a conversation. George was told that he had left his headlights on so we left instead of sitting around talking. Jeanne rents a room from a retired airline pilot. We went back there to continue our conversation but the owner of the house hounded the conversation so we never got to talk. But she seemed real special.
I got a kick out of the title of a live stage production in Dallas called, "I love you. You're perfect. Now change."
At the Red Wagon Restaurant in Brownwood, TX is a sign which says: If idiots could fly, this place would be an airport.
The Hortons have four pecan trees in their yard so we were always picking up pecans. One day as I was picking them up one fell off the tree and hit me in the head. For an instant there I knew things. Big things. Important things. Then it went away. I figured it was like telepathic communication from one nut to another.
A new book of the Bible has been found. It was written just for dudes. It is called Dude-er-onomy.
Kay likes to cook and out did herself on Thanksgiving. We had a lot of food. Fortunately there were lots of leftovers, which I like. I ate the same food three meals in a row: Thursday noon, Thursday evening and Friday noon. But as usual I ate too much. And I found out that the punishment for gluttony is that you are sent to the purge-atory.
I have had trouble sleeping all of 2002. Then I can't wake up in the morning even after I get out of bed. It reminds me of that Neil Sedaka 60's song, Waking Up Is Hard To Do.
Phil and Kaye bought an old house in Goldthwaite which needed a lot of work. Phil built a large addition in the back by himself. Then he refurbished the rest. Most off it was done by the time I got there. But I did get involved in sheetrocking, painting and laying carpet, and there was some furnace duct work. Mostly I watched Phil work, lending a hand here or there and acting as go-for. I did get to crawl around under the house in the crawl space a bit. I sent Phil in first in case there were snakes or large spiders. If he were still alive after five minutes, I crawled under.
One morning Phil asked if I wanted to go to the store with him. I said sure, thinking we were going to the general store in town. Two hours later we were in Killeen, Tx, 80 miles away. I've learned now to ask if the trip involves leaving the county. Most do as there are only two towns in the county and this, at 1802 people, is the bigger. So if it is not available in Goldthwaite, we have to leave the county. I've also been to Abilene and Waco. Except for Brownwood, population 19,000, 35 miles away, any town of consequence is about 100 miles away. Which actually I like because there is no crushing population center nearby. It is rather peaceful here.
Phil installed an outlet into his sewer so I could dump my waste water. He dowsed for the sewer. He is a Pisces. He found it and drew a line on the ground. After he dug the hole, the line he had drawn on the ground exactly paralleled the center of the sewer line. That is awesome, dude. My younger brother is a Pisces and is also a dowser. Maybe it is a Piscean trait. The only radio station I could find that wasn't country was an oldies format I had heard in SW Arizona before; mostly 50's music. Unfortunately they turn the power down at sundown and I can't pick up the signal then. Further darn, on Thanksgiving they switched to an all Christmas music all the time format. Another reason to dislike the Holidays
On November 15, I went to Kyle, Tx, just south of Austin, to visit Cat Sherrow. I hadn't seen Cat since she and her daughter, Katrina, moved from Tulsa to Hawaii in September of 1990. It was great to see her again and now 16 year old Katrina. Saturday was hectic with errands but we had all day Sunday to talk and do stuff together. Cat is an RN, energy worker and healer. I read cards for both of them but still have not had the opportunity to get any energy/healing work from her, though I hope to remedy that soon.
One of the reasons I decided to come to Texas was that George and Cat were nearby. The main reason was that January of 2002 was so bad I didn't think I could live through January of 2003 without having friends around to ground me. I have every reason to assume this January will be even worse than the last one. Alone, it would surely kill me. Since early last February my plans were to summer in Arizona and then spend the winter with the Hortons in Texas. I have no further plans. After an unusually bad winter I believe things will take a sharp turn upward for me next Spring.
The world political scene is coming to a head and could explode at any time. We MUST learn to live together in harmony and we don't have much more time in which to do so. One of two things is going to happen. Peace will break out all over due to the Hundredth Monkey Theory or we will have World War Three. This assumes no alien or divine intervention. Actually I expect divine intervention after the war breaks out. YOU are the divine intervention. That is why you were born at these times. All of you who knew you could do more but have been unable to do so will soon be doing it. And I mean within the year for most of you.
George Bush seems hell bent on starting World War Three. He doesn't understand the ramifications of invading Iraq. The extremists in the Muslim world will erupt. They will destabilize the governments of most of the countries of the Near East and Asia. Then they will come for us. But if George doesn't do it then Ariel Sharon will.
Back to Goldthwaite. I wrote the first draft of this Letter the first two weeks of December. While I was otherwise occupied, Phil bought two lots in Hamilton, Tx, 35 miles away. One of them had an old mobile home on it which was unsalvageable. If it were still standing on January 1, it would be taxed as a dwelling. So for the next five days Phil and I went to Hamilton each day to tear down the home and cart it away to the dump.
Phil is magic. His next door neighbor there was an 85 year old man who let Phil plug into electricity. This man, John, wanted to salvage the cabinets, doors, toilets, etc.. So he not only took them down for us, we then didn't have to cart them to the dump. And John had a brother-in-law who wanted us to dump the junk in a ravine on his farm to help fill it up. This was free and ten miles away rather that 50 miles away and $29.50 per ton. Phil also found someone to cart off most of the insulation which we took from the ceiling and the walls. It was amazing to watch Phil work.
To Phil there are no problems, only solutions waiting to be found. He has a tool for everything and knows how to do everything. After making the sewer dump for me we tried to find a tote tank to transfer the waste water from my trailer to the dump site without having to move my trailer. We couldn't find a used one and a new one cost $119. So he made one from a plastic container. He put wheels on it and welded handles on it. I shuffle papers. Phil knows how to do stuff; real, practical stuff.
Also while writing this Letter during the day, in the evening I watched the Scifi Channel's "Taken", which I enjoyed very much. The ending was a little lame but it was a good story.
In mid December I asked Kaye what I owed for food and electricity. She said she would think about it. The next week she said that since I was helping Phil so much my food and electricity would be free. I thought that was extremely nice of her and Phil and did not complain a bit. Sometimes I actually know how to keep my mouth shut.
Kaye loves Christmas. I prefer to avoid it all together. But she dragged me into it and included me in the gift giving even though I bought none. We also had a turkey dinner three meals in a row. George and Jeanne came down for two nights and a day and we all had a good time. My only regret was that I had to share them with the Hortons. George had met them in Lavina. I got to know Jeanne better. She is just as sweet and loving as I had first thought. Kaye's parents came down for two weeks at this same time so we had a household.
Well, this is about all the remembrance I can handle for one day. It is time to see how many pages I wrote this year. Y'all write or e-mail me and visit my website. I should soon have some more "Essays" for y'all on my website. And pictures, too! 7730 Howe Drive, Prairie Village, KS 66208-4226. datelineaquarius@yahoo.com. datelineaquarius.com. As we say on the Internet, 10-4 good buddy. Catch y'all on the flip flop.