“Dancing in the moonlight
Everybody’s feelin’ warm and bright
It’s such a fine and natural sight
Everybody’s dancing in the moonlight.”
~ Sherman Kelly
It has been such a magical, moonlit week just south of Winslow near Clear Creek. I’ve tried without much success to capture the full moon, in all its huge, orange glory.
In hindsight, I should have gotten out my good camera instead of relying on my iPhone, but since I use my professional camera so seldom, I feared by the time I got it out and set up a tripod, the event I was trying to capture would have passed. I also realized that attempting to capture the full moon over the vastness of the area I’m living in was about the equivalent of trying to photograph The Grand Canyon. No photo could do it justice.
I am in quite a perfect spot once again; I’m only about a quarter mile from a paved road, about half a mile from a developed campground and about 15 minutes from potable water, propane and Walmart, yet up on my hill, I can see the horizon to the north, east and south. I have a view of I-40 and the BNFS railway system about 5 miles away. There is rarely a time when I cannot see a long, snake of a train running through Winslow halfway to the horizon. Often I see a few at once since there 6 tracks running parallel in town. And yet with all that activity so close, I feel totally isolated on the BLM space I occupy.
The (nearly) full moon lights up the night sky each night. One morning I awoke with what I thought was the sun shining in my eyes, only to realize it was the moon shining through my bedroom window from the west. The landscape below it was lit up bright red by the morning sun about to make an appearance in the east. It was quite spectacular and I was grateful to be able to see for miles in every direction. When I lived in the forest, I often could see only for a few yards in any direction and could see the only the sky directly overhead because of the tall pine trees.
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On Monday, I went into town for a dental appointment. I thought I’d lost a filling but when they examined it, they told me I had chipped a crown. I had two options: I could have them do a filling-like repair or replace the crown. They said the repair could be good for a couple of weeks or a couple of years. No guarantees. I opted for the more permanent, more expensive solution and had them replace the crown. It is often very difficult to get medical appointments while on the move, so I figured that while I was in the dentist’s chair, I should get the best care possible not knowing when I’d have that chance again. My appointment was at 10:00, and by noon I walked out with a new crown.
The weather was hot, in the upper 80’s, but often accompanied by a breeze that kept things tolerable. Cosmo and I took long walks each morning before the heat limited our ability to exercise. We walked to the creek on several different dirt roads, and sometimes just cut across huge swaths of flat rock.
Arizona amazes me in its contrasts. It so often feels like being on another planet. The cacti silhouetted by the sunset in the southern deserts in the winter, and the conifers so thick that you can’t see through them in the mountains during the summer are such a contrast to each other. It can be 120⁰ in Phoenix while it’s snowing at the Grand Canyon. Arizona is so diverse and beautiful, at least landscape-wise.
On Friday, we moved back to Two Guns for our final visit of the season. I have appointments next week in Flagstaff to get new tires and to get my hair and beard trimmed. By next week I’ll be leaving my summer homes behind and winding my way south for the winter months.
Lessons From The Road: The spot where I stayed this week was primarily brown and muted sage greens. “Drab” would be an understatement. And yet, on our morning walks, we often encountered an outcropping of bright pink or purple flowers. They were always a tiny thread of even tinier flowers, but their brightness against the dreary rocks were eye-grabbing.
Several times when I’d see these bright outcroppings it struck me as a metaphor for my life. With the harsh reality of fascism taking over this country, innocent people being rounded up and shipped off to parts unknown, and our Dear Leader being a convicted rapist and most likely a child molester, the ugliness in much of this country is a pervasive harsh backdrop to daily life. We demonize anyone we disagree with, and we shoot people who we perceive as “the other.” And yet, if one pays attention and looks closely, there are beautiful people along the way. Tiny bright specks of kindness and hope and beauty. We just need to open our eyes and be receptive to experience it. Sometimes you have to really search for it, but it’s there. I’ve seen it.