I sure am enjoying my life these days. I started off the week with Chase and Kitty both staying on at the BLM land south of Joshua Tree National Park. Kitty is comfortable like an old pair of jeans. Good fit, worn in. No surprises. Chase is funny, smart, and very independent. We had a really nice weekend.
Chase decided to head to Palm Springs on Monday, and Kitty and I were staying behind.
When Chase was ready to leave, my very first “friend on the road” arrived. Ben and I met in South Dakota after I left Madison two summers ago. He was going east; I was heading west. We were both totally freaked out because “van life” wasn’t quite what YouTube told us to expect. We gave each other some courage and have been friends and support systems for each other ever since. He and his wife Kristen pulled into Joshua Tree Monday night just as Chase was leaving. (Good timing, as Chase had a dead starter battery and Ben pulled right up and gave him a jump.)
We all got settled in and soon had a raging fire going. I got caught up on Ben and Kristen’s new house (yes, sticks and bricks, in Portland) and their recent excursion to Baja. They made dinner (Kitty and I had already eaten) and we sat and chatted until bedtime. They all retired to their vans/trucks but I stayed out for another 20 minutes, watching the coals of the fire, recapping my week with such wonderful friends on the road.
We all got up by sunrise or shortly after. I was heading back to Ehrenberg, Kitty was going home to Yucaipa, and Ben and Kristen were heading north to Oregon. It was bittersweet; I hated to let go of any of them, but I also knew that after almost two weeks living with other people it was time to get back to the desert, park remotely, and get some time to myself with Cosmo. Little did I know what isolation was ahead.
By the time I got to Blythe, the wind was howling and driving my van was becoming difficult. I stopped in Blythe, picked up an Amazon package and got a few necessities before going back to my spot on Ehrenberg BLM land. I got level and took Cosmo for a brief walk and then we hunkered down for the rest of the day. I texted Bonnie to let her know I was “home” and said I’d see her when the wind and rain let up, probably in the morning. I had woken up that morning with a terrible, dry cough. I didn’t know if it was from allergies, or from smoking cannabis (I rarely smoke it; I much prefer to take an edible if I partake at all. Chase and Kitty are smokers and I probably joined them too often during our lazy week together) or, I was coming down with something. By the time I got to Ehrenberg, I was achy, had a very sore throat and was still coughing a lot. I settled in with some tea, and went to bed early after taking a Benadryl to knock me out. I felt only slightly better the next day. I decided to follow the advice of the ages and rest, keep warm and drink plenty of fluids.
When I saw Bonnie, she suggested I should take a Covid test. She had an extra one, so I did it. It came back positive. I called my doctor in DE. I like my doctor, an Indian woman who I suspect has a background in Eastern Healing (judging by conversations I’ve had with her) but who, unfortunately, is employed by a Medical Conglomerate in Delaware where making money and prescribing unnecessary drugs take priority over patient care. I spoke with her assistant, who asked me a few questions about my condition and said the doctor would get back to me and probably want a Zoom appointment before prescribing me any medication. About two hours later the assistant called back and said the doctor felt my symptoms were mild enough that she wasn’t going to prescribe anything, but recommended OTC medications to treat the symptoms. I had some children’s cough medicine in my first aid kit and took that for the congestion. I took Ibuprofen for the headaches and after a couple days, I was pretty much past the worst of it. I “played sick” (surprisingly similar to “taking a snow day”) for two days, drinking hot tea and honey, watching old movies on Netflix and napping in the afternoons. I surprised myself at how often I had a strong desire to call my mother, who was always there with tomato soup and grilled cheese when I was ill as a child. I don’t think anyone could possibly make me feel more taken care of when I’m not “up to snuff” as she used to say. I sure missed her this week.
Besides movies and audio books, I spent some time cleaning. Being quarantined in such a tiny space made me take a good look at things like the seams where the sink meets the counter, the crevices at the base of my kitchen faucet, and the dust on my solar system. I spent some time each day remedying those situations and it relieved the boredom of being cooped up inside day and night.
By Saturday, my symptoms had subsided greatly and the weather broke. It was sunny and mid-seventies outside. I took Cosmo out for a long walk. Bonnie had been checking on me daily and offered to pick up anything I needed from the grocery store when she drove into town. I told her all I needed was some nasal spray recommended by Google for my aching sinuses. She got me some and I visited with her outside wearing a mask. I felt pretty much on the mend.
Lessons From The Road: While in JTNPBLM, I saw my friend Rob’s pop-up camper. It looked a bit ransacked. We’d met when I was there in November, and I shared all my Thanksgiving leftovers from Tom and Roy with him on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I called out to him, thinking he might be inside. No answer. I texted a couple of times trying to see where he might be. No reply. Outside the camper, there were overturned tables, a mattress in a hole dug in front of his pop-up tent, and some solar panels, all in disarray from high winds. I told Kitty about it when she arrived, and we decided to go inside and see if we could find anything with his last name on it so we could try to track him down to see what might have happened. We found no ID, but we DID find pounds and pounds of weed and mushrooms, a scale, microscope, and marijuana seeds. It looked as if Rob had taken off suddenly, a half-eaten tangerine on a makeshift shelf starting to dry out. I guessed that he took off on one of his adventures, expecting to be back quickly, but never made it. When he didn’t show up for a week, we suspected that either he got busted for carrying so much weed with him on his electric bike (the bike was not there, nor was his wagon that he pulled behind with his dog in it) or had an accident. He never returned in the 10 days we were there, so we suspect the outcome is not a good one. He seemed a bit of a loner, and perhaps a little reckless with his drug usage. By the time we left, his pop-up camper was obviously being rummaged through by neighboring campers, with stuff outside looking picked-over and some of the expensive items he had outside (power tools, solar equipment, etc.) missing. It saddens me to not have any resolution as to what happened. Did he get in an accident on his bike? Was he in jail? I likely will never know.
Up the road and across from our new favorite camping spot, there was a white sedan parked at the edge of one site. It was filled with trash bags containing empty water bottles. No one ever returned to it while we were there. And “up the street from me in Ehrenberg” is the wreckage of a trailer that was destroyed by a storm in September, killing the occupant. When I arrived in October, the trailer was falling down, but the SUV next to it was intact. Over the months, people coming and going have taken the wheels, sifted through the remnants of the trailer and taken anything they could make use of. The SUV is up on blocks now, windows smashed out.
Who were these people? Did they have no friends or family that cared enough about them to go gather up what was left of their lives? Did no one know they were missing, or dead? It makes me appreciate how tentative life is, and how important relationships are to me. I told Kitty and Chase where they could find my van key if something happened to me, It was a running joke all week…when I went for a walk, they’d tease me and say “If you are not back in an hour, I’m taking your waffle iron…I know you’d want me to have it.” We made light of it, but it was a serious reminder that “stuff” that we treasure is often not valuable enough to anyone else to come and take it. At least not valuable enough for people we know to come get it. It still feels a bit like the hyenas picked over a dead carcass, carried off what they could use, never knowing the person who was gone. I think it’s sad to me because they were living the same life as I am.
The other side of that is how taken care of I felt this week from my family on the road. Bonnie checked in with me each morning and night. I was parked up the road an on the other side in a huge, open space, next to a ravine. She couldn’t see me because of the trees in between us. She apologized for “bothering me” when she called, but said she just wanted to make sure I was OK. I assured her that it was not at all bothersome for someone to care enough to make sure I was OK and didn’t need anything. I texted with Chase every day, and Ben checked in a couple of times to see how I was doing. Kitty likewise. I haven’t seen another human for 5 days, but I still felt quite cared for.