Gentle
Readers:
Dandy! Well written Barbara. I feel the same way tho I would not
have
written my thoughts so eloquently. I am tempered by too many mundane
issues.
Two days ago my oven failed to ignite and preheat just when I had a
bread
pudding ready to bake. Well! If that didn't set off a scramble around
the
neighborhood trying to find an oven, with propane, that worked. One
lady
has a convection oven that works only when her rig is connected to
shore
power. Another has an oven but has never used it. My request was in
danger
of getting sidetracked into a discussion of how one can cook bread
pudding
without an oven. Joe, a guest, piped up that his rig had an oven that
hadn't
been used since his wife died a couple of years ago; it was being used
to store books and things but he could clean it out in a minute. I was
reluctant to press him--he was a guest, he was sunbathing--but I was
getting
nowhere with my compatriots. Finally, he ran off to clean out his oven
and see if he could light it and I ran the other way to fetch my pan of
pudding. We didn't even wait for the oven to properly preheat. It was
getting
hot so the bread went in. And an hour later it was out nicely done and
he got the first bowl of it. Yum!
Now that I've got the dishes done I have my oven all apart and today
will take the failed part shopping at the RV store. We have to match it
to a picture in the cataloque. The oven is so old there are no numbers
in the index going back that far.
The weather has finally turned nice. Maybe we are now into the stable Winter pattern of boringly clear skies with daily temperatures that regularly fluctuate between 40 and 70 every day. All the water is still not out of the ground from the rains of the week I was travelling. I missed all the flooding that happened here. The campground was under water. Betty's rig sank to the axels and had to be dragged by the tractor to higher ground.
Great little walk to Indian Eye with Denali and Tamara. Denali was
being
a real little Indian doing the climb in naught but thin moccasins. The
desert is incredibly green after all the rain of the recent weeks.
Grass
even! Several inches of grass. Lush flowers of all sorts. Pools of
water
in the stream beds.
It just occurs to me that when you loose your wisdom teeth you gain the wisdom not to go through it again. I have often wondered what humans did with wisdom teeth before there were dentists. Perhaps we did not grow them then? Perhaps we did not live long enough to grow them? Perhaps we were not smart enough to grow them and that is also why they are called wisdom teeth...
Here I have at least as many books with me as can be found mouldering in my trunk in my sister's house. Too precious to give away, many already discarded by libraries, not likely I will read again--not likely I will read again most of the books I haul around with me--but they are all to precious to do away with. Such an investment and almost no value whatever to anyone else...
I am flying off to "our nations capitol" this afternoon for a quick
Antarctic party/reunion; an affair befitting my station in life as an
Elder
of the Tribe, and a desperate attempt to regain past glories. Even if I
have a good time I hope to return with the wisdom not to do it again.
The
Reunion was great! The last time I was at NASA Goddard was for the 25th
anniversary of the launch of ATS-3. That was a while ago and it is
still
functional. Now this 20th anniversary of the inception of COOL-SPACE
and the South Pole Satellite Data Link. I hope you all start now
planning
a 30th; I want to start now looking forward to it.
The weather deteriorated after Cindy left me off at BWI and it was snowing for a couple of hours prior to my flight. I had a nice nap on the floor by the gate and watched with no small trepidation as they began de-icing planes. Baggage handlers were sliding across the tarmac like kids on skates.
Finally I left BWI in the snow and left the snow in BWI. The skies were clear above and below by the time we'd reached 41 angels (You know, I remember that word "angels" being used at least in one movie to denote thousands of feet of altitude but I cannot find the reference in my dictionary now.) and the flight was mostly smooth all the way to the warm sunny of the AridZona desert.
It was great meeting all those OAE friends. I was especially
impressed
with the way we can make direct-dial phone calls all the way to South
Pole
these days. I hope they are on the telemarketers Do Not Call List.
We had a proper drumming around the bonfire and a sage smudge
blessing.
But way too cold for much pagan nudity; everyone was hidden under
layers
of polar fleece and wool blends. No point in taking photos of that, you
can see polar fleece in a catalogue.
Finally!
At this late date I have figured out what my Solstice Project is to be.
Books! Give away some books. Books I have not been able to sell I will
give away. But it is a special giving away that these books will have.
Something new I have recently come across. See The
Read & Release Programme at Bookcrossing.com for detale. I will
set a bunch of books in motion and do it in the name of The Friends of
The Cat Drag'd Inn so you all can look and follow the path they take.
Twenty
books have been set free.
This first day started with a visit to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix and then we drove across a 4500 foot pass and through Globe to Safford. Last night before supper we had a soak at Essence of Tranquility Hot Spring and then went up the street to the rest area in town to park for supper and sleep.
Tamara and Denali, mother and daughter (5yr), were just the kind of people who I have in mind for this sort of touring. We had been corresponding about this tour and discussing the stops and the route for a month or so. They paid for the fuel and brought along some of the food. I did the driving and we shared the cooking and dishes. I learned a lot about the care and feeding of 5yr-olds but I would do it again in a minute. If there was any special focus it was a quest to soak in other hot springs and a search to find snow for Denali.
We
found some in the high passes along routes 60 and 180 between
Springerville
and Pie Town (overnight at the town park and breky at the Daily
Pie Cafe). You know Denali, she rode nearly the entire 1200 miles
wearing
less than me most of the time. On more than one of those occasions when
we took a snow break she would leap from the bus into a crusty
plow-drift
with nothing on but her "footies". Finally we took to locking the door
to give her mother time to get some clothes on her.
Another peak event along the way was the before dawn fly-out of the snow geese at Bosque del Apache south of Socoro. At 06h00 we were not the first to arrive on the Bosque's "Flight Deck" viewing area. The surrounding wetland was carpeted with ducks and geese, honking and chirping filled the air. Maybe forty minutes later, the first blush of deep orange lighting up the undersides of the clouds, one snow goose stretched. Seeming to stand on the water. Wings extended. As if a human might yawn with arms extended.
On
the Flight Deck fifty bird watchers stopped chatting among themselves
but
they were already too late. In the Visitor's Center the previous
afternoon
I noted the time of sunrise and inquired when the flyout would take
place.
Anywhen within a half hour before dawn, the Docent declaimed, the birds
don't post a definite departure time. This time they were early. In the
second it took for that first stretch to register with the observers
the
entire surface of the roost errupted in a clatter and flutter.
Thousands
of snow geese lifted off, as if the entire surface of the wetland were
rising up, and wheeled about. Waves of birds flew across the Flight
Deck
as the birds made way to their breky. The quickest among the
photographing
birdwatchers swung their cameras about to capture their silhouettes
crossing
the waning moon. I just stood there in awe.
Whilst we were having delightful weather touring and birdwatching and soaking, the folks back at El Dorado were really taking a soaking. Rain and more rain. This is supposed to be the sunny and dry season. The so-called rainy season is usually in the Summer. This year seems to be backwards. The desert likes the water, it is turning green everywhere.
And for those of you following the Adventures of Ian: Ian is
moulting.
Becoming a full-fledged Teen-angler. Playing
in the band. Succumbing to the peer pressure of his
first year as a Fresh Man. Perhaps I have forgotton my own such
rites
of passage, watching him now, it is a sorrowful sight. At least we have
a bear in common.
"This, after all, is a country led by a born-again Christian, President George W. Bush, who believes he is an instrument of God and characterizes international relations as a biblical clash between forces of good and evil." [Exactly the same defence Lafferty mounts for his crime.]
Except that Bush is the President of a so-called "Christian" country
and Lafferty is a commoner.
...and
still this epistle languishes in my bit bucket and my Annual Solstice
Letter
has yet to be started. But it is interesting to see who has not sent me
their letters and cards. Last year was different, I don't know what to
make of it. Are there lots of folks not sending cards and letters this
year? Or are there that many of my set of annual correspondents who are
waiting so not to be first? Or is the ennui of some greater nature and
affecting more than me...
Love, ajo
I do not know what I may appear to the world; but
to
myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and
diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a
prettier
shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all
undiscovered
before me. --Sir Isaac Newton
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Copyright © 2004, A.J.Oxton, The
Cat Drag'd Inn , Center Conway NH 03813-0144.