“I hear the drizzle of the rainLike a memory it fallsSoft and warm continuingTapping on my roof and walls”
-Paul Simon
I spent the weekend and early part of this week in Cordes Lake, off Bloody Basin Road. My “usual site” just feels like home, not only to me, but to Cosmo who is very comfortable off-leash, and is learning his boundaries. It’s easy to go outside and play ball as we are separated from the road by a steep hill and the other sides are bordered by a canyon with cacti acting as a natural fence. I had two visitors this week; one was a man up the hill about a half a mile and the other was an off-roader who stopped in to ask about my van. I had nice conversations with both of them.
On my way to Cordes Lake last week, I picked up a small pup tent. I’ve thought about getting one for over a year for a variety of reasons. First, when I’m in a spot that I think is too small to share comfortably, I can set up the tent and it will appear that I’m taking up the whole space, or that TWO people are already camped there. I’ve also been wanting to do some massage and body work on the road, and I have done a bit, but it is always outside on the ground or in a folding chair. With the tent, there is a little bit of privacy in an enclosed space. With my blankets and sleeping bag, I can make a comfortable spot to do Traditional Thai Massage on the ground inside the tent. And since I got it, I realized I can move stuff out of the van when I’m staying somewhere for weeks at a time. Bonnie bought a tent last year (that’s where I got the idea) and could move stuff out of her way to make more room in the van. I will take stuff off my passenger seat (blankets, laundry bag, exercise equipment and gym bag) and put it in the tent. That will allow me to turn my passenger seat facing the rear of the van and move my table forward. I can then sit in that passenger seat, look out the side doors, and have a more comfortable chair for daytime use. The third option is to use it as a “guest room.” Come visit!
I keep looking at the weather forecast. I’m ready (and have been for some time now) to move southward. It looks like the heat will finally break on Wednesday, so I’ve planned to depart Cordes Lake (where there is no lake as far as I can tell) and head to New River (where there is no river, as far as I can tell). I’ll stay until it gets cool enough to visit the El Dorado Hot Springs (where, believe it or not, there really ARE hot springs) in Tonopah, hang out a few days and make it to Quartzsite the last week in October. I have tentative plans to meet a friend there if the weather cooperates.
The night before we left Cordes Lakes, I chatted with a friend who asked me if I’d taken any photos of the comet. I said I’d been looking but was unable to spot it after sunset. He told me it was just to the right and slightly above Venus right after the sun set. I still couldn’t find it with my eyes, but with my camera pointed in the right direction, I took a long exposure (several seconds) and sure enough, there it was!
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On Wednesday, we got up early and packed up and headed into town to fill propane and water. We stopped at a quirky motel/RV park where the woman who seems to be running the place came out and pumped the propane. We left there and drove to Anthem, AZ where we stopped at Safeway and got stocked up for the rest of the month. I had a coupon for GNC to get $10 off any purchase, and I found that the Dollar Tree was just a block from Safeway and intended to go to both places, but after Safeway, I realized that if I don’t check myself, I just might become a food hoarder. I hate to leave a comfortable spot when I’m all set up and settled in, just to go into town to get food. When I DO go, I tend to overbuy. I easily use up the fresh fruits and vegetables in a week, then rely on packaged beans, rice, and pasta and canned fruits and vegetables and stews. But when I run out of fresh food, I often go to the grocery store, and instead of just buying fresh produce, I often buy some extra packaged and canned food. Since I use those items far less frequently, I easily get overstocked. I decided today to see just how long I could go on the food I already had in the van. So I skipped GNC and Dollar Tree and drove to the Arizona Land Trust in Anthem. As I drove through the industrial part of town, I started to remember the spot. I soon arrived at a very rough dirt lot behind industrial buildings. There was one long trailer already set up there, and scattered around were shopping carts, wads of blankets and some debris that looked like old tent remnants. I stopped just long enough to plug in the coordinates to my back up spot in New River, AZ, just on the outskirts of Phoenix. I got there and parked in a somewhat familiar area. It definitely feels like southern Arizona with cacti and mountains and lots and lots of dirt. Home Sweet Home for a week or so.
We settled in, played ball for a bit and then took a walk. It was quiet with just a few other rigs in the distance.
Friday morning, I was awakened by a vaguely familiar sound. As I pulled myself out of a deep sleep, I realized it was raining. I hadn’t heard that sound for months. It cooled everything down and when we went out in the morning, everything felt fresh and clean. The air, for whatever reason had the vague smell of vanilla cookies. I’m still wondering if some plant or succulent gives off that aroma or if someone in the distance was making something yummy for breakfast and the wind brought us over a whiff. Although it rained fairly hard for a short time, the puddles all evaporated by sunrise and the normally dusty ground seemed to be a little bit more solid. We took another walk.
The area is quite beautiful in its own way. Here’s a gorgeous sunset and an inspiring moonrise.
The latter part of the week cooled off. So much so that I actually put on a t-shirt to go outside in the morning, and Friday night, I slept with only one window open for ventilation. It got down in the low 50’s.
My travel has once again been adjusted to the thermometer. I had planned to go to the hot springs in Tonopah (an hour west of me) on Wednesday, but the forecast is for it to get up to 97 by then. The next few days it will be in the low 80’s there, so I’ll take off Sunday morning and head west. Sitting in hot water holds little appeal to me when it is nearly 100⁰. Of course, that could all change by morning. The forecast when I went to bed last night was for sunny skies all day today, but when I woke up to rain, I checked again and it had changed to “mostly cloudy” all day. I will eventually realize that checking the weather forecast is totally futile, because they haven’t been right, or even relatively close for the past 3 months.
Lessons From The Road: In other parts of the country, there is a different kind of beauty. I’ve seen forests, rivers, lakes and oceans that are awe inspiring. Here in the desert, the earth itself is not so fantastic (although the Saguaro Cacti are pretty amazing) The real treat is usually extra-terrestrial. I had friends from Delaware send me photos they took of the Aurora Borealis this week. It’s a rare treat indeed to get to see that display from Delaware. Unfortunately, I was too far south to see that, but if I look up there is Venus, a comet, a Full Super Hunter’s Moon and some spectacular sunrises and sunsets. I’ve been quite sky oriented lately, but when my thoughts do come back to earth, there actually is earth. I spent much of my life in cities where one could rarely see the earth due to the concrete and asphalt. The landscape was buildings and other manmade objects. It is quite amazing when I stop to think about it (and I’ve done a lot of stopping and thinking lately) to be able to see a landscape that has nothing manmade in it.