“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. ~ Ancient Proverb
Monday morning the temperature reached 80 degrees before 8:00 a.m. The prediction was for temperatures to get into the upper 90’s and then be in the triple digits for the rest of the week. It was time to leave Two Guns. But the night before I left, I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to go outside and look for the Milky Way.
That view never gets old for me and every single time it fills me with awe to realize I’m part of such a mind-blowing galaxy.
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I had a package to be picked up in Flagstaff and I had to find potable water as my water pump was sucking air when I turned on the kitchen faucet. I took my time and got packed up and headed west to Flagstaff. Traffic seemed heavy and there were many detours and torn up roads. I guess when you get heavy snow all winter, roadwork must take place all at once in the summer months. I got my package, and noticed a text from my friend E.J. He had moved close to Ashurst Lake on a forest road the previous night. He said it was nearly empty and much cooler there, so I headed in that direction. On the west side of Lake Mary Road, just opposite Ashurst Lake Road is a campground that allows you to fill your freshwater tank for $5. I took advantage of that before crossing over onto Ashurst Lake road and then taking the first fire road off to the right. Although campers were sparce, there was someone in every spot for the first mile. Most spots will accommodate more than one camper, but I continued down an extremely rutted road, farther than I’ve ever gone in this area, and found a perfect spot with lots of shade to set up table and chair and a sunny spot to park in to assure I could top off my solar batteries each day. I believe I was the deepest in of any campers (so far, anyway…the road continued much deeper into the forest, but it is nearly impassible at some points.)
E.J. had gone into town to visit a friend, and was gone overnight, but he returned on Tuesday morning and set up camp across the road from me. I set up my table and chair in the shade of a tall pine and Cosmo and I enjoyed the breeze and shade throughout much of the day. E.J. joined us at times. Sometimes we sat and talked about life. Sometimes we just sat. I’ve been very aware all week of being deep in a forest and that makes me feel very connected to the earth. And since E.J. tent camps all summer, I’ve also been aware this week of just how many amenities, how many LUXURIES I enjoy on a daily basis. I have running water; E.J. has a collection of one-gallon water jugs. I have a variety of electrical options on my solar system; E.J. has a 12-volt AGM battery with alligator clips that connects it to his solar panels. My laptop is constantly plugged in and my phone charges by placing it on the charging pad; E.J. has a much more elaborate system of wires and alligator clips to do the same tasks. I have a variety of ways to make coffee and espresso and even a milk warmer/frother for making cappuccino; E.J. drinks cold instant coffee as he has no stove, I made him a cappuccino several afternoons, and we sat outside my van, under a tree and pretended we were in some upscale café. It made me so aware of the full spectrum of camper/nomads, from those in big rigs complete with washers and dryers and full-size stoves and ovens, to those who car camp and have only the backpacking basics. We all seem to make it work and I’ve been overwhelmingly happy this week with all that I have, in such a tiny space and my ability to live in a forest for long periods of time, fully self-contained with so many luxuries.
E.J. and I stood outside Thursday night watching the full moon rise over the forest. Spotting it through the trees, it seemed huge on the horizon. We just stood there in the dark, shared background stories, and finally got to know each other a little more.
E.J. has a new friend he found online, and she has come to visit a couple of days and spent the night with him. A full-blooded Navajo, and I suspect a trans woman, E.J. says she identifies simply as “queer.” She’s intelligent, has wide-ranging knowledge of music spanning many decades, and is a bit more conversational than E.J. The two of them seem like they couldn’t be more opposite, but they appear to connect in their own way. They’ve been good company.
Friday afternoon the weekenders started rolling in. I don’t think there is any way to avoid them in Flagstaff. Nels, E.J. and I all took our jabs at their “city folk” ways, most noticeably, when they exit their vehicles, they automatically press the “clicker” to lock their doors. The constant tooting of car horns as the Faux-mads get in and out of their vehicles to retrieve something, clicking to unlock and then again to lock would have been maddening, except the three of us rolled our eyes and made jokes to keep from screaming. A group closest to us seemed to have brough three carloads of “stuff” from home. They brought out totes and ice chests, one item at a time, locking and unlocking in between removing each item. At night they made a blazing campfire in spite of ubiquitous warnings up and down every road that we are in stage 5 fire alert—no open flames of any sort, no smoking within the forest. You can’t even have a charcoal grill. But the morons, presumably from Phoenix must have decided that didn’t apply to them even though they were surrounded by dry grass, dead branches and pine cones covering the forest floor. The trees in this area are still blackened near the bottom from a forest fire three years ago that devastated thousands of acres of forest. It filled me with deep sadness and a lot of anger that people are so stupid.
Lessons From The Road: I watched a fascinating and (to me at least) very moving documentary this week. It was about two guys from Canada who hitch-hiked across America counting on the kindness of strangers. Their rules were that they could not spend any of their own money and they must find strangers to put them up each night of their 28-day journey. The premise was that in this age of division and hating “the others,” there are many good people who will help their fellow man. We just don’t hear about the good people because, as one podcaster recently put it, “Another jumbo jet lands safely” is not news. They proved their hypothesis and found many people along the way to buy them meals, and even put them up for a night. I found it to be a beautiful and reassuring film. It was also an interesting depiction of the many types of people they met along the way, and how some people with next to nothing will still share some of the little they have with complete strangers. If you are up for a strange, yet feel-good documentary, here’s the link:
I Hitchhiked Across America (Full Documentary)
I also had to pause a couple of days and take an objective look at how strange my life is at times. Here I was sitting in the middle of a forest, with a recently out gay man, his Navajo (trans?) friend, each of us taking turns picking the next music selection and drinking cappuccino. I think the strangest thing about it was that it didn’t seem strange at all. Just three forest creatures, not so much different than the ground squirrels and woodpeckers that we see occasionally.