Masterpiece Conversation Theater

Spent three days in a parking lot. Waiting. Looking at the road atlas. Checking email. Calling back. Waiting for calls. Trying to arrange for a new owner to feel the love of the Minnie Winnie. But the title is still in Salem, Oregon, holding me up.

It’s been ‘processed.’ They cashed my check. But it takes five business days, I’m told, to be mailed. Of course. You don’t just throw something in the mail, all willy-nilly, when it’s ready to be mailed…you naturally wait – what? C’mon, DMV, get in the game.

So I sat in a parking lot. A strategic parking lot. Right next to Yuma. Free. Close to the Mexican border with bargains on hot sauce and off-brand dental care.

Met my neighbor, one motor home over. Nice guy. Likes to walk around a lot. Especially in the middle of the night, when he can’t sleep. Says that’s been an issue in the past when they stayed at the RV park adjacent to the border crossing, what with border patrol in their guard towers wanting to shoot him at 3 am and all.

He has sudden, extreme and aggressive hand gestures that don’t usually match what they’re illustrating. He’s a retired electrician, so he’ll be telling you about a broken neutral wire, then his hands fly out, abruptly – like they’re pantomiming a plane crash or the collision of subatomic particles on a grand scale – really fierce sweeping and jutting of the hands and arms. It looks like he’s fighting angry bees.

But he’s still telling you about one time when he put an electrical connection where somebody thought he wasn’t supposed to, but it turned out he was right and he could put it there after all. But with angry bee hand gestures.

So my favorite conversation was this one. We’re standing in that parking lot I hope I never see again, where RVs and longhaul truckers have been staying.

A semi truck pulls out. My associate comments on how that guy sure is loaded down.

Then this:

“Boy, those truckers…they sure do come and go a lot.”

I wish I did have to fend off a swarm of bees right then, just to distract myself from having to reply to that. I’m all for chit-chat, but it’s give and take, mister. You can’t say “truckers come and go a lot,” and look at me for reaction. That’s more of a definition than a statement. It’s not fair.

So I say, “And they’re always carrying stuff,” which isn’t true. Sometimes they’re empty, on their way to getting full to carry more stuff and keep on coming and going.

Not long after that I caught Bula banging her head against the Winnebago because she was so bored. I agreed. We got out of there and I’m now close to Slab City, a decommissioned military facility near the Salton Sea, home to a bunch of RVers out squatting on the concrete pads left behind.

All those people coming and going.

...ssssshhhhhh....

There are two churches that made especially large deposits in my memory banks. Notre Dame, because the gargoyles were so freaky and also because, you know, it’s Notre Dame. And this one. In Sedona, Arizona. I came here with my folks years ago after we dropped my little sister and her stuff off at college in New Mexico.

Impressive, this Sedona chapel.

Back to Paris though. I got kicked out of the plaza in back of Notre Dame for taking a nap. I’d been inside, lit a candle and was taking everything in when a voice came over the loudspeakers inside.

Now, a disembodied voice in the house of the Lord automatically makes you pay attention, even if you can hear the static from what is obviously a PA system.

This voice said, and I quote: “…sssssshhhhhhh…sssssshhhhhhhh….”

It was a priest, or somebody, shushing everybody inside. And to be sure, there was some chitter chatter going on, and Notre Dame isn’t your standard tourist attraction. But the shushing went on for some time and it was, I don’t know, it wasn’t enhancing the experience.

So I went outside and sat on a bench in the sun, and it was warm and I was glad I was in Paris and next thing I know I’m being kicked in the shin by a gendarme, or whatever cops are called in France. I had nodded off in the sunbeam and miraculously hadn’t been robbed while I slept, I’m sure because of the refuge clause on church property. But I had to go.

I apologized and made a show of rubbing my eyes and making American hand gestures to make it clear that sort of nonsense wouldn’t happen again. I wasn’t done enjoying Notre Dame, and promised I wouldn’t nod off again. But I had to go. “Non,” he kept saying, pointing his nightstick at me, then the exit. I tried to reason with him using my limited French, replying, “…sssshhhhhh…ssssshhhhhhh….” but he wasn’t buying it. I was cast out from my bench in the sunbeam, gargoyles on the end of their gutters watching me leave.

Painted Rocks

I’m not the only one who confuses petroglyphs and pictographs, apparently. The state of Arizona identifies this site as Painted Rocks, which, as you can see in exhibits A and B, have been chipped into stone. Not painted.

But I’ll allow for there having been paintings here. Maybe I don’t have the full story.

It’s impressive. A jumble of boulders just covered with designs. It seems the location is way out in the middle of nowhere, but the Gila River is right handy and this spot has been a corridor for travel since way back, according to a friendly interpretive sign that told me so.

Some of the graffiti is not so old, like 1924 and some from the 1800’s. Wagon train teenagers sneaking off to do graffiti, no doubt.

If there had been additions dated since, oh, say the 1970s, or 60s, or 50s, I would feel obliged to track down the owners of the initials and have a stern talk with them. And by stern talk, I mean break their knees with a baseball bat.

I just am not OK with messing with history. You just don’t wade into a fountain over in Italy, climb up and chip a tattoo onto a marble sculpture. Or go back and dub orchestra music onto the original recordings of Lynard Skynard albums. And you don’t chip or paint or scratch on or over or nearby a picto- petro- or any other kind of glyph.

Some folks do. And I wish it would stop. Because it takes a lot of time, tracking you down and beating you with a bat. I’ve got other things to do, people. Please.

I’m so thirsty

This is marketing genius. Not only are they selling water in the desert, which is hard to beat for a location in that line of business...but they also give you free salt first. It's like complimentary pretzels in a bar, but better. I plan to invest in this company.

Alien art forms

I didn’t know extraterrestrial artwork was even a genre. But I saw two paintings in one day here in Sedona, which you see here.

I don’t need to see anymore, because I’m quite sure I have now seen the best and the worst of this field.

The “Survivor” painting wins two ribbons. One for worst painting I have ever seen, ever, for many reasons. And that’s saying a lot. Also it wins best in its class for worst alien study. I mean…really? A dramatic, poorly-foreshortened rendering of Roswell? You can just feel the anxiety captured here. The gravity of the moment put down on canvas, freeze-framing the calm before the frenzied storm of self-published books detailing their conspiracy theories.

But, hey, I like the warm hues and jaunty feel of the reclining alien cowboy. That one’s a keeper.

They’re Here

Sedona is known for its power spots and vortexes, where the earth’s magnetic fields converge to create unusually high concentrations of souvenir stands, casting visible auras of t-shirts, refrigerator magnets, bumper stickers and crappy jewelry.

Damien lives up in Flagstaff and comes down here on climbing trips. He told me where his favorite camping spot is, and how they usually have it all to themselves. Except one time, when he drove out there and saw the area jammed with vehicles. He asked someone what was going on and they answered, “Aren’t you here for the UFO landing? They’re coming tonight. Right here.”

I present to you the image of a lenticular cloud, taken yesterday over the vicinity of Sedona…and also another image, taken with a zoom lens, that may suggest otherwise.

Tour de Slo-Mo

Took Bula on a stroll this morning. Gravel road went uphill, downhill, back up, then down and we came upon an older gentleman pushing his mountain bike up the grade.

“Pretty steep,” I say.

“It’s not too bad,” is his reply and I let that go, because I respect my elders and don’t point out that rarely do bikes get pushed up hills that aren’t too bad.

We chat. He asks where the dog and I are from. I tell him. He says Oregon is beautiful. I say Arizona is beautiful and we both nod and that kind of exhausts our things to talk about.

“Well,” he says, getting back astride his bike. “I guess I’ll be pushing on.”

“Have a nice ride.”

He’s got the bike in the lowest of low gears, the one where you make 48 revolutions with the crank for every inch of forward travel. So Bula and I are walking at the same speed, even a tiny bit faster, because he’s fighting the hill that’s not too bad.

“Nice talking to you,” I say, because it’s a little awkward to be right next to someone who said they’ll be pushing on a minute ago, and they’re still right beside you.

He nods, but keeps his head down and churns the pedals.

There’s a slight squeaking from his chain, plus the sound of tires and footsteps and pawsteps on gravel. Other than that, I walk and he rides and we’re exactly side-by-side.

“Man, I’m walking really fast,” I say, to ease the situation. He shifts up a gear, but it’s too much, then shifts back.

I reduce my pace, but then I’m just walking five steps behind him and it feels like we’re in a chase scene from the tortoise and the hare.

Finally I just stop. Bula had been looking from me to the guy, then back at me with ‘what the hell?’ stitched in her eyebrows. I signaled back: ‘I don’t…know.’

Mercifully, he crested the top and got on a downslope. Otherwise we’d still be out there.

A word about the word “boondocking,” which shouldn't be a word

I have scratched the underbelly of the RVing society and encountered some things I don’t much like. The gas mileage of the Minnie Winnie, for one.

And the term “boondocking” I have a hard time with. This is when you stay in your RV somewhere that’s not an RV park, so you’re not hooked up to water, power and sewage.

But self-contained RVs have a water tank, a sewage holding tank, and the Minnie Winnie has a generator for power. You can pay twenty, thirty, forty, fifty bucks to stay in an RV park, and sure, some have swimming pools, laundry facilities and the like. I can see doing that occasionally to empty your tanks, wash your clothes, refill your water and charge your batteries. But all the time?

That’s like buying an espresso machine so you can make your own coffee, then driving it to a coffee shop and paying them to plug in your coffee maker so you can have coffee from your own machine. I just don’t get it.

Plus, most RV places I’ve seen pack you in next to other RVers and, well, I’d rather “boondock,” except I can’t stand to use that phrase in the context it’s been given.

Boondocks is a fine term. Means out in the boonies. The sticks. Hinterland. Originally “bundoc” in Tagalog, adopted by WWII GI’s who heard it used in the Philippines, where it means “mountain.”

So it’s a noun. But RV folks have turned it into a verb, where you’re boondocking, or you boondocked, or if you want to boondock, you can stay in the WalMart parking lot, or behind the Applebees restaurant.

“WalMart parking lot” and “boondock,” in any form, should never, ever, be seen or heard in the same sentence. Except the one you just read.

It’s called “freedom camping” in New Zealand, according to my source Damien Seuss, who toured around NZ for six months in “Teeny-Tiny,” the 16-foot RV his family of four stayed in.

And then there’s the movie “Boondock Saints.” It takes place in the city. I don’t understand.

Bushwacking is what I kept calling it by mistake when I began Operation Minnie Winnie. Though you can’t really get off the beaten path in an RV, so that’s not accurate either. Matter of fact, you can barely travel a washboarded dirt path in an RV, for fear your molars will rattle from your head.

“Dry camping” is an alternative phrase I’ve heard. Which is pretty dry, but makes more sense than boondocking.

OK, I’m done. That’s been bothering me for some time. You can go back to what you were doing now.

And that photo up there was taken while I was out dry camping/bushwhacking/parked far from the nearest spigot, electric hookup, sewer dump, swimming pool and/or laundry room. Beautiful, isn’t it.

En-Spired

Got up to Flagstaff and went to visit Damien Seuss, formerly of Wallowa County. He was wearing an Ember’s Brew Pub hat, so I guess he retains some WC residency status.

Cypress had a school concert that night, so I stayed at the house with Banyon, who’s four. We played with some Legos, watched Lion King and read Dr. Seuss. Which presents an interesting question. Cypress and Banyon have the last name of Seuss. So if they were to go to medical school, I’m not sure if they’d have a thriving medical practice, or potential patients would be suspect of being treated by a real Dr. Seuss, for fear of getting their diagnosis in rhymed verse. Hard to say.

Damien took me up Morning Glory Spire outside of Sedona the next day. Breathtaking. I don’t mean the scenery, I mean climbing the thing took my breath.

But the scenery was a little bit out of this world.

Maxi Winnie

I did manage to escape from the Verde Valley Motorplex by adding the lift kit to the Winnebago that you see here, with 56” Super Swampers, then just driving cross country over mountain ranges, across rivers…I am now unstoppable.

OK, so I tracked down someone with a key and got a little bit scolded, but they did open the gate.

That is a rather impressive photoshop job on the Minnie Winnie, though. Shadows and everything. That’s the work of a visionary graphic artist friend back in Wallowa County. It’s a good look.

But You Can Never Leave

Burro traffic is what Sedona had in mind when they designed their streets. Not large burros, either. Squeezing a 29-foot motor home through that town is one constant scraping noise as your Winnebago mirrors snap off and you pull down storefronts on either side.

“No outlet” and “Dead End” signs were coming at me on all sides while I looked for escape routes. Turned into the parking lot for a museum, thinking museum parking lots would be, you know, big. But not this one. I believe it was a museum for pygmy-burro drawn carriages. I had to unhook the Toyota then pull forward, pull back many times before pointing the snout of the Minnie Winnie back at the exit.

Yegods. Almost got bottlenecked again in the designated RV parking zone, which…what the hell, Sedona? Does the harmonic convergence and crystal powers magically shrink things to fit on your streets and in parking spots? Why doesn’t this Harry Potter magic work on my RV? Why?

I got pointed out of there and kept going. Ended up outside of Cottonwood, where Al had told me about a big spot off the side of the highway where lots of RVs stay for free.

Found it. Pulled in. Parked. Unhooked the Toyota and went to town. Came back and the gate was locked. RV on one side, me on the other. Squeezed through the fence, hiked my groceries in to the Minnie Winnie and been calling around all morning to find someone with a key to this place.

I learned a lot yesterday. I don’t know what, but it was a lot of it.

Clearance Sale on Old Dead Stuff

Elk hide. Rattlesnake skin. Taxidermied deer head. Dried cactus. Pretty rocks. All for sale at Brand New Dead Things. Plus some knick-knackery and maybe even a windchime.

Very nice proprietress. I asked about the name and she said something along the lines of, “We all come from the same [something…elements, maybe?]….rocks, trees, humans…” and so essentially we’re all brand new dead things.

I was with her at first, and kept nodding even after I’d veered off from following the connection of…well, I don’t know. Go ask her yourself. It’s in Yarnell, Arizona.

Watch out for these things

Cactuses are pokey. Little safety tip there.

I walked out to water the desert one night, relieve myself of some lemonade if you know what I’m saying. I was camped way out somewhere south of hither, east of yon, but I thought to myself, well, I’ll walk out a little further. Don’t want to start a flash flood so close to the Minnie Winnie.

It was dark. And I walked into a cactus. A low-lying variety I would later have identified as "cholla." Pronounced "choy-yuh."

Piercing your shin with a cholla is pronounced "son-of-a-[gun]…what in the [for goodness sakes]…"

The spines, I guess they’re called, have some manner of barb to their design, because they don’t pull out that easy. The skin on my leg pulled up a good half-inch before the little [buggers] let go.

Bula got into a patch and learned her lesson. Tried to bite the cholla bulb off her foot and got a snootful of barbs for her trouble. I’ve brushed prickly pear and wished I hadn’t.

The worst I’ve heard is Jesse’s uncle, who was out four-bying in a Landcruiser with the windshield down, and the rig drove over some cholla, which flew up and attached itself to his face…I don't know how that was pronounced, but I bet it was worth hearing.

Young artist has mastered the pigeon portrait

I’ve been seeing some top-notch artwork on this galavant through the southwestern zone.

The riders painting is hung in the museum in Wickenburg. The pigeon painting is currently on display in the living room at the home of Jesse Rens, propped against a lamp. His daughter Savannah created that. And aside from her brush mastery, she is a formidable kickball player. I can vouch for that.

Jesse, Brennan and Savannah let me park the Minnie Winnie at their place and showed me around Prescott.

Things to do in Prescott include: go to Jesse’s parents for Thanksgiving dinner. Go there again for Thanksgiving leftovers. Go there yet again for enchilada soup, which is my new favorite food, edging out caeser salads.

All we need is Love, backwards…and Revolution, together, somehow

The youth of Yarnell, Arizona seem to be more politically active than most youth, based on this sign here they put on the side of their youth center. They also don’t give up easily, as this picture was taken a couple days ago, which is a good long while since the election. But they’re still pulling for him. Hang in there kids.

What are you talking about, this badge doesn't smell

Well, I got a new hat. And bandoleer. My old one was, I don’t know, it was getting kind of stretchy. Bullets were falling out once in while and this one here was on sale at Macy’s and I just thought, you know what? I’m going to do it. What the heck. I’m going to buy myself a new bandoleer – and then I shot the shit out of the ceiling in there, celebrating my impulse purchase with, you know, squeezing off a few rounds and security did not like that. Not one bit. But we smoothed it out and I do like this new ‘brero.

...and then a right on Harsh Reality

Even when there’s accidents on the Carefree Highway, nobody cares. Police show up, fenders are smashed, radiators boiling over, cars demolished, thousands in damages and the officer looks at both drivers, they look at each other and they all just start laughing.

“Ah, what the hell, we’re on the Carefree Highway.” The cop tears up the ticket and accident report he was starting to fill out, casts the fragments to the wind and then they all just run off out in the desert, playing a game of tag.

I’ve seen it a million times. But only on this road.

Crispy Chicken Bombing Range

That there is what my campaign headquarters looks like on the inside.

Which I never did get to show Hector. He was my first prospective buyer for the Minnie. I had just … I mean, just, put for sale signs in the windows, then walked across the street to the Verizon store to straighten out my far-talking magic box.

If Alexander Graham Bell had been shown a Blackberry, and had it explained to him how he could add a line, friends and family, phone is free after additional mail-in rebate with a two-year contract, upgrade nights and weekends, off-peak minutes, blahty blahty blah … The first phone call ever might have gone like this:

“Mr. Watson … smash it, destroy it … we’ve created a monster … and I forgot to put you on my friends and family list, Watson, so this call is costing me a fortune … text me back, lol.”

So I’m in the middle of trading phones and mine rings. “Hello? How much you take for the RV? I’m standing right here, are you inside sleeping? I got cash.”

I’ll be a few minutes, I say. I’m across the street.

He calls back. “Hey, it’s Hector. You coming? And what about this truck? You selling that? Because I’m standing right here and want to see inside … you know what, don’t worry about it. Bye.”

That kind of got me worried about it. Bula the wonder dog was inside and things just did not sound above-board.

Signed a bunch of agreements in a hurry to get out of Verizon – I think I’m now an organ donor on nights and weekends, as long as you’re a Verizon customer – rushed over there, but no Hector.

I called him again. “O, hey. My uncle, he’s the one who wants the motor home, but we ate at [anonymous restaurant] and he had a real bad reaction … first, he…”

“Uh, Hector,” I cut in. “I don’t think I want to.…”

“…first he was just vomiting, O man, all down the car, we had to peel out of that parking lot…and now he’s been in the bathroom for like 20 minutes and from the sounds of it, he…”

“Hector, please. I don’t need to…”

“…seeeeerious diarrhea. O man. Sounded like a bombing range in there…Hold on. I’ll listen at the door to see if he – Ohp, he’s still at it….”

We did not come to an agreement for the purchase of the Minnie Winnie, Hector and I. But I wish his uncle all the best. Also, I’ve developed something of a standoffish attitude toward crispy chicken sandwiches with special sauce.

Gila Bend, AZ

Was heading south to visit Don Lawyer, my buddy Jude’s father. Last time I visited D. Lawyer was at his place up in northern California in the redwoodsy country.

He was talking to us, and without pausing or seeming to think about it, reached over for the neck of the stand-up bass that was leaning in the corner, then started thumping out a bass groove to the conversation we were having. It was great. Every discussion should have a soundtrack. And his cabin was great. Old records. Guitar. Harmonica. Very musical, D. Lawyer. And a helluva artist. Surfer. Full of stories. Great guy.

I remember him cooking a meal for Jude and I, chopping garlic cloves in half, not dicing them up tiny-style like normal. “That’s what’s wrong with Americans,” I recall him saying, “they’re afraid of garlic.”

I don’t know if that means we’re vampires, or what. But I do enjoy me some garlic, so I was all systems go to visit him in Ajo, Arizona…which, unless my Spanish has fallen off more than I think…Ajo means garlic in espanol, and him moving there now makes perfect sense.

But it was not to be. I got detoured north for aggravating reasons that involve Verizon and the worthless Crackberry phone they’d sold me and I needed to get that sorted out, so I had to take a left instead of south to Ajo.

While in Gila Bend, I saw this mural. Creative, and well done, but what is that guy doing with his hand? I mean, it looks like he’s got an imaginary pet on a leash, or it’s a Michael Jackson dance move, or?....I simply don't know.

Children of Light

Left Yuma, climbed a big steep hill, then stopped and found the tailgate on my pickup had been down, with all my tools still in there, somehow.

Agua Caliente Hot Springs on the map looked perfect, off the highway and looking oasis-like. Drove out there and it wasn’t so perfect or oasis-y. Spring had dried up. Old resort abandoned. Tumbleweeds. Lonesome flute music playing in the background…well, maybe not all that, but might as well have been.

They’re not big on road signs out there. I wasn’t entirely sure how to get out of there, as my map situation had some deficiencies….but Rooper called right then and I had him look up directions on his computer back in Oregon.

Before turning around, I beheld this sign for the ‘Children of Light.’ Sure, it has a rainbow, but it still creeped me out. I looked it up later and I’m told they’re a religious sect from Canada. So I was correct in being creeped out. No. But I wasn’t going down there and drinking any Kool-Aid, that was for damn sure.