“The wind is in from Africa
Last night, I couldn’t sleep
Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here,
But it’s really not my home
My fingernails are filthy, I got beach tar on my feet
And I miss my clean white linen and my fancy French cologne”
~Joni
Soundtrack for a Sunday Morning…
(69) Joni Mitchell – Carey – Matala Crete – YouTube
This was an easy week (I say that as if I ever have a difficult week.) I effortlessly fell back into my Ehrenberg/no events mode. Cosmo and I visited Bonnie each morning. She always has treats for Cosmo, and he has zero manners (I don’t know where he gets that from). He races across the dirt road and jumps up on Bonnie excitedly and snarfs down the first treat without even biting or chewing it. Slurp. I don’t have much experience with this analogy, but I suspect it is very similar to a human slurping an oyster from the shell. Not sure he even tastes it. Then he starts the begging routine, alternating between sitting, laying down, giving Bonnie his paw. He nudges her with his snout until she produces another cookie from her pocket. Eventually he lays down and watches what little activity there is in the neighborhood or dozes off. Bonnie and I solve all the world’s problems. We would make good co-dictators.
The rest of the day is either me checking out YouTube, or answering e-mails, or sitting outside in the sunshine. It’s been warm all week, although some days it was quite windy. The warm sunshine is always welcome, and my solar banks are appreciative of all the input.
While plotting my trip west to JTNP, I had a snag in getting the new Wi-Fi router I ordered. Seems FedEx mixed up the shipping address and the billing address and sent it off to Ehrenberg, DE. (No such place). I tried without any luck to get a human being who works at FedEx. Their phone tree is as convoluted as any company I’ve ever dealt with and although I was never able to reach an actual human being, I did manage to find out (20 minutes into pressing buttons on my phone) that I could not change the shipping address. So I called the company who I bought it from, explained the problem and they had me wait on the phone until they completed the change of address with FedEx. They told me it was still scheduled to be delivered on the 26th of January. By the 28th, they still insisted that it would be delivered on the 26th, AND they still had it going to Delaware. I called the company back and they refunded my money. The next day by some fold in the time-space continuum, my device was delivered to my friend in Delaware whose address I use for my credit cards. She was kind enough to send it priority mail to my P.O. Box in Ehrenberg ARIZONA, and I got it on Monday. It was an easy install and so far it seems to be working fine.
Matt and I have texted back and forth most days. On Sunday, he said he had moved to a spot on the Arizona side of the Colorado River, and that I should stop by on my way west. We’d explored spots on the river when we were at Skoolie and when we drove around in his side-by-side we promised each other we would camp there, but never quite got around to it. I drove into Blythe, CA (just the other side of the Colorado River) on Monday, stocked up on supplies and on the way back to Ehrenberg, drove down a long dirt road along the river and found Matt. He was set up in a huge site, right on the river. I told him I’d come back on Tuesday and stay a night or two.
So on Tuesday morning, I went to say my good-byes to Bonnie.
We made tentative plans to meet up again on my way back north in the early spring. Then I drove to the river and Matt helped me get my awning out and we set up camp. We really have learned to make a statement when we set up our compound. We both have a variety of solar lights, and we string them up all around our awnings and in adjacent bushes. It looks pretty stunning at night. Matt drove us up to a nearby peak and I took some photos of our compound.
I love being near the water and it is so seldom that I get to do it. This site offered us our own private trail down to a tiny beach, and Cosmo and I got in the water up to our knees most days. (It was COLD. 62 degrees.)
As always, Matt drove us through nearly impassable desert trails in his side-by-side and we had many adventures, but one of the coolest was coming across a miniature village created by someone(s) out in the middle of nowhere.
This would have been kind of cool anywhere, but to accidentally stumble across it in the middle of the desert, accessible only by an off-road vehicle was just sort of mind-boggling. It was 8 miles from any real road. Who did it? Why? Who else has seen this? For now, it’s a mystery.
We also came across fields of the most beautiful purple flowers, in full bloom in 80⁰ drought conditions. An app I have on my phone told me these are called sand verbena. They make a carpet of purple across the landscape as far as the eye can see (and, I’m assuming, far beyond.) The photos just cannot show their reach.
I had intended to head west to Joshua Tree National Park on Wednesday, but Matt’s debit card had expired. The new one was sent to his sister in Michigan, and he asked if he could have her overnight it to my P.O. Box in Ehrenberg. So I stayed another night and we drove into town on Thursday to pick up his new card. While there, we got snacks from the dollar store and filled up a bladder with water so we could top off each of our fresh water tanks. Later in the day we drove around and collected firewood and had a blazing fire every night (and some mornings). Matt made dinner for us several nights. We both contributed vegetables, and he seasoned them and grilled them. I contributed some onion rings. We sat overlooking the river and feasted like kings.
The days were sunny and in the upper 70’s and low 80’s. We sat in the sun, flew our drones, took rides and mostly just appreciated that while much of the country was shoveling snow, we were basking in sunshine on our own private beach.
Lessons From The Road: All week long, I’ve had this shit-eating grin on my face. My jaw hurts from smiling so hard for such long periods of time. I am in a spectacular spot, with astounding views, stumbling across wonderful sights, accompanied by an amazing man, and the best dog in the world. The best part of all that is that I know how lucky I am to be living such a carefree life. I am grateful. Every Single Day.