“Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’”
~Bob Dylan
Click here for Sunday Morning Soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90WD_ats6eE&list=RDrXcIwQ-_XEc&index=11
We had an easy, relaxing week. An acquaintance that I’d met briefly in Quartzsite texted and asked where I was. He joined us at Mitry Lake and parked close by. His dog Eva and Cosmo hit it off, were about the same size and played well together. Everett was very independent. We did a couple walks by the lake and one afternoon he took me and Cosmo in his Jeep and we went off road around the lake. He showed me where to get potable water nearby. He was a good neighbor.
I met a couple other people who were camping nearby. Everyone was nice except for one young woman who was living in her car and played loud music into the night. She had several conflicts with other neighbors. My take was that she was on drugs and took great pride in being obnoxious. I had only one conversation with her where she asked me if I thought she was an asshole for playing loud music into the wee hours and I told her that not only did I think she WAS an asshole, but that she probably was a Karen as well. She wanted to argue the point and I just walked away. Everyone else I met was polite and laid back.
As much as I’ve tried to avoid “news” it seems to creep in from so many places. I get notifications on my phone of the latest fiasco caused by the criminal in the white house. I watch a lot of YouTube videos, and they keep trying (sometimes successfully) to lure me into clicking on the latest drama of the U.S. Government. The late night talk show hosts try to make the disaster that is the U.S. government seem more palatable making light of it. I really don’t hold out much hope for the U.S. It seems everyone in the Executive branch is a criminal or mentally ill or just plain stupid. The congress is full of orange cult members and Democrats with no spine. It baffles me how the orange felon can hold so much sway over his cult followers, how he has managed for years to avoid obeying laws, and how the court system now seems ill-equipped to deal with him. I don’t see it ending well, and am glad that I, for the most part, live on the fringe of the U.S. and am only affected in small ways by the new regime that seems to already have become a dictatorship. I am encouraged by some of the clips I’ve seen on YouTube of protests around the world against authoritarian governments, and the rising tide of people in this country who seem to have had enough. I wait for karma to do its thing, but it always seems to take so long for the wicked to pay the price for their evil deeds.
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I guess it’s the beginning of rattlesnake season. A neighbor said he saw one outside his tent. I’m always scanning the ground when I’m outside with Cosmo and now I’ll need to take it to a new level of awareness to keep myself and Cosmo safe. I’ve only seen one rattlesnake since I left Delaware nearly 4 years ago, so I probably exaggerate the danger in my head, but hey—Better safe than sorry.
I packed up and moved on Thursday morning and headed east along I-8 to Wellton Canal. It is Arizona Land Trust, I guess sort of like the state version of BLM land. A permit is needed to park on it, but the permit is only $16 a year. Well worth the price for the variety of options it offers. My spot is close to stores, propane, water and gas, and yet with the mountains surrounding me, it feels quite remote.
Lessons From The Road: I meet a lot of damaged people in my travels. I wonder if the incidence of damaged humans is higher among the nomadic community, or if the general population is as full of mentally ill, drug addicted, or just plain incompetent people. I do believe that in the current political climate, the “Karen factor” is in play. I meet people who may otherwise pass for stable who don the cloak of karenhood and seem to go out of their way to pick a fight. The woman playing loud music was a perfect example. My guess is that she has a drug problem, probably meth. She was manic and confrontational. She wanted to be seen and seemed to want to fight. Most of the people I meet are less aggressive, but many seem to want to go out of their way to be the star of the show, to be noticed, and if doing a good deed won’t get them attention, they will gladly resort to being a nuisance in order to be in the spotlight. I’d occasionally come across such people when I first started out in my van. Now it seems much more commonplace. I think social media is a main factor. It has given everyone a platform to express his or her opinion, no matter how ill-conceived, AND to make them feel that their uninformed thoughts are vital to the rest of us. I also think the current political climate takes it toll, and makes all of us, to some extent, skeptical of “the others” whoever we conceive them to be. I’m so often grateful for my tiny home on wheels and the ability to put the key in the ignition and move to a more distant spot whenever the need arises.