“Back in my hometown
They would have cleared the floor
Just to watch the rain come down!
They’re such sky-oriented people
Geared to changing weather.” ~ Joni Mitchell
Sunday evening the Woo Girls packed up their tents and left. E.J. had gone to visit a friend and the people on the north side of me had left that afternoon. I could not see (or hear) another camper from my site. It was heaven.
Monday the weather was perfect, but storms were predicted for the next 3 or 4 days. I had to go into town for supplies and on Wednesday I had an eye doctor appointment scheduled. As beautiful as my site was, I was filthy. With me and Cosmo, and often E.J. and Shelaigh constantly moving around the site, the dark brown earth was stirred up into a fine powder, several inches deep. I’d soak my feet in a bucket at night and use a scrub brush to get the embedded dirt off, only to take Cosmo out for his good-night pee, and return with black feet. I couldn’t stay in this spot when the monsoons started on Tuesday. I thought about heading to Two Guns, but I had the eye appointment in Flagstaff. I finally checked out motels and found a good deal in town, near the eye doctor and central to all the errands I needed to run. I booked a room for Tuesday night.
When I got up Tuesday morning, E.J. came over and joined me for coffee. We sat outside my van in the cool morning air. The weather was sunny, not a cloud in the sky nor a sound in the forest, and we couldn’t see another soul from my campsite. I’d never seen Marshall Lake so perfect. I questioned my decision to leave this spot to stay in town at a motel before moving to Two Guns for the holiday weekend. E.J. assured me that there was a 79% chance of thunderstorms, and I knew the dark brown dry powder I was fighting beneath my feet would soon be a thick, black, tarry mess. I packed up and left. E.J. was still tearing down as I pulled out. I got my chores done, ate a sandwich from the Subway next door, and just as I got checked into my motel room the skies opened up. I’d made the right decision.
The motel room was adequate, with no frills, but quite clean. I immediately found the guest laundry and washed my sleeping bag and some clothes that were covered with the dark Flagstaff earth. While the laundry was going through its cycle, I brought in my laptop, some power cords and toiletries. I had no luggage, so the van served as my suitcase, and throughout my stay, I went back and forth between my room and my home parked outside to gather up whatever I needed. When the laundry was finished, I took a long hot bath, appreciating the packet of bath salts I’d purchased at Walmart. I soaked for a long time, and scrubbed my feet, which seemed permanently blackened by wearing flip-flops during my stay at Marshall Lake. With a little extra soap and a scrub brush, they came surprisingly clean.
I went to bed early and slept intermittently. The noises of the city are now foreign to me and as annoying as it can be to have a neighbor down the road in the forest run a generator at night, it is nothing compared to someone staying in the room above seeming to rearrange furniture at 2:00 a.m. or the man in the room next door running the shower at 4:00 a.m. The pipes groaned and squealed and groaned some more. At 5:00 a.m., I gave up the pretense of sleep and went to the van and made myself a cappuccino and returned to the room to check e-mail and play my puzzles from the NY Times. I got another bath, and when I was finished, I put Cosmo in the tub and rinsed him off. We took a walk while we both dried off and then packed up and checked out.
I stopped at a grocery store for two things I’d forgotten to get the day before. I drove to three different places where Google said I could find potable water but found none. One had yellow “Police tape” wrapped around it and adjacent poles; two just didn’t have spigots, in spite of being listed on Google as “Free, potable water.” I gave up and went for take-out Thai and got detoured. Traffic in downtown Flag was bad and there was a lot of road construction. I got my food, put it in the fridge and headed to my eye doctor appointment.
All is well with my vision, and the problem I had with some flashing/vibrating visuals in my peripheral vision is occipital migraines. Nothing to do about them. No cure as of now, but the good news is that they are not harmful, just annoying. I left with my eyes dilated. The doctor gave me sunglasses to put over my regular glasses. It was storming outside and was too dark to wear the sunglasses, but without them, it was quite bright. The first few miles, driving in the rain with my eyes dilated was disorienting, but the rain let up and the sky stayed quite dark, so I did well without the shades. I put on a Cat Stevens/Yusuf CD and sang (you know I use that word loosely) and as I drove I could feel the city peeling off me. The dilation gave everything a pink, surreal overtone. It felt like an acid flashback, and in that state I could almost see pieces of city ugliness flaking off me and blowing out the window as I drove east on I-40. When I got to Two Guns, the sky was still salmon-colored, and the wind was howling and when I stepped out, I felt light, and free, and blissful. I pulled into my favorite spot, and Cosmo and I got out feeling that such a burden had been lifted.
I felt like dancing (I use that word with the same caveat as when I talk about my singing) and so I did. And Cosmo joined me. I heated my Thai curry, ate it and sat listening to the howling wind encircling my van. Pure Ecstasy.
On Thursday, the rain returned in the afternoon. We had quite a storm, complete with mothball-sized hail. It passed quickly, but the skies remained black. It is quite common in Two Guns to be able to see it raining in Winslow to the east and Flagstaff to the west, while the sky directly overhead is blue. And the storms create staggeringly beautiful images.
L
essons From The Road: When I used to live in the Empire, and worked full-time, I LOVED to “play motel.” Staying in a motel on the way to a craft show, or on the rare vacation was so much fun. It was a way to leave my reality behind, sit on a king-size bed and watch an old movie on TV. I’d take a long bath, and get take-out food. There was something fun and out of the ordinary about it. This recent stay in a Motel 6 didn’t have quite the same charm. Everything I needed and wanted was in my home parked in the lot outside my room. I had to make many trips back and forth. When I wanted to eat, food was in the van fridge. When I wanted coffee in the morning, the equipment and ingredients were also in my van outside. Instead of it being a quiet break from work, it felt like a holding cell before I could go back to my real life. I made the most of it, but the rude front desk clerk, the noisy people in adjacent rooms, and the lack of any amenities (no fridge, no microwave, not even a coffee maker) left me ready to return to nature. I did at least get laundry done, took two baths, and got a take-out sandwich from the Subway next door.
But it’s hard for me to describe the joy I felt when I got out of my van in Two Guns. In spite of the coming holiday, the place was deserted. And even after a storm, there was no mud as the ground is rocky and sandy. The puddles acted as mirrors, reflecting and magnifying the beauty all around.
It’s a wonderful place to hide out on a holiday weekend.