Chapter Endings

I don't think there's an experience quite so graphic for marking off chapters in one's life as moving. When the movers come in like an ant invasion, touching, shifting, packing, boxing up and disposing of everything that makes up one's nest, it's impossible not to feel a part of your life ending. It's the big Control-Enter that gives you the Page Up for the next phase of your life. We have been married 38 years and this is our 15th move. It gets harder, not easier. We are older now and the nest has been through so much. There is more to protect since starting a new nest from scratch is beyond the years or willingness we have at this point.

The accumulation is smack in your face during a move. The boxes and boxes and boxes......and you keep thinking that you had gotten rid of so much of your junk because THIS TIME it was going to be different. You don't need that stuff! Where did it come from??? If I had to name everything I thought was in the boxes--and I could only get back what I could remember having-- I think those items would fill maybe a quarter of the boxes that are on the trucks.

Taking the long road trips in the RV opened my eyes to the freedom of not hauling around a lot of stuff on the journey. It sounds so noble to type that. But in reality, one gets things, one is given things, one uses things once a year, etc. I could open a Santa's Village with just the Christmas decorations alone!!! It will be strange this year--we won't have a Christmas. We will observe Christmas--but we won't DO CHRISTMAS. I wonder if it will matter.

At this stage of our lives more chapters have been written and closed than there are chapters left to write. A good editor could pare this life story down to a few pages--no chapters even needed. Will this book have mattered?




In an empty house you see every nail still in the walls. Every spot on the carpet glares twice its discoloration. Every nick in the wood, every chip in the tile jumps out to the homeowner's eyes. I know--the movers must have done all that dinging. We were far too careful to have ever run a dolly into a white hall wall and left that black skid. That's it--it's all their fault.

I'm reminded once again that a major theme in most lives is that there are far too many good-byes compared to hellos. People go; health goes; scenery changes; concerns unimaginable in your thirties start to be traveling companions in this chapter.









Not much is humorous about a move I suppose. There are no funny stories to tell. I did ask the movers if I happened to bop Mr Toccata a good one would they put him into a big box and put him in storage in San Jose but they didn't find that amusing. Perhaps they've actually moved a body before! Maybe humor is cultural. However, I am happy to report that all the movers speak English and are all legal. That was checked and approved before the first roll of tape was out of the truck!




More will follow. We are now between residences as they say. Back to the desert for a few days to catch our breath then up to the Bay Area and into a KOA until we come up with a plan for the next few months. Now there's a good thought--for the first time in a quarter century we are without a mortgage payment!

Joy in the Desert

It's truly grand to be poking around the Death Valley area with one's RV, one's dogs and one's camera! The day was perfect and there was no schedule to keep. Still laughing over needing to be "downtown" Shoshone for wifi, I stopped to snap these pics of St. John(who else)the Baptist Catholic Church.

Here are some more shots of the amazing terrain outside Tecopa of the mineral flats, the hills, and the waters. Some of the pools here can hit as high as 118o. The muds are considered healing but after reading the warning sign, I opted not to get buck naked next to the road and slather up with mite-ridden mud.

The hills are so dramatic in this area. At times they are a quilt of colors; then the scenery becomes just shades of black and gray that more resembles a moonscape rather than California.

I'm always a sucker to get a picture of a fence, a road or a gate. These were abundant.

The biggest delight of the day was stopping at a new(to me) place just outside of Baker and south of Dumont Dunes. It's Cedar Salt Creek and an actual oasis in the middle of rocky dry desert. Birds filled what cedars were left--the government tree-huggers think the cedars must be evil and destroyed since they were introduced by humans.

Read the sign about leaving a few trees so they can bring joy to the birds! Where do they hire these people??? Wonder if the joyful owl leaves the dead mouse who came to enjoy the water with the same feeling of joy as it was plucked from the desert floor to become owl dinner?

I ended the day before heading back to Holy Resurrection Monastery by stopping in Baker to get one of the world's best strawberry milkshakes at The Mad Greek. "Mad" is the operative word here! The parking lot is filled with RVs, sand toys, big rigs all parked helter skelter. Inside it's total controlled chaos. I counted 9 counter workers just taking and filling orders. They were all yelling Spanish to each other. They had to yell because of all the people and the frantic Greek music blaring over the tinny speakers all through the joint! I got the last 3 spinokopita and was rejoicing in my good luck--but I rejoiced too soon. Byrdie managed to get them out of the bag and wolfed down before I got the RV maneuvered out of the parking lot. BAD DOG!!!

My ten new best friends

November 16, 2007 Friday Tecopa Hot Springs

Morning comes early in the desert. I was up by 7 to take the dogs out. Poor Byrdie has cut the pads on her paws on the salt flats. She is so intent on chasing the ball she doesn’t seem to feel pain. I will have to figure out some type of dog shoes for her.

(The German is out hand cleaning his car--washing of rigs and vehicles isn’t permitted in RV parks so he has a squirt bottle of something and is doing it one spot at a time. When asked why he was washing his car he replied that they’d had a few drops of rain and it had made dusty rain drop marks on the car. Well, duh!! It’s freakin’ Death Valley and there’s dust and the most rain ever seen at one time is 6 drops--guess they all landed on their ride!)
Coffee is served in the common room beginning at 7am--bring your own cup. I opened the door and was immediately greeting with “Good mornings!” and invitations to sit at the women’s table. Introductions were made all around. They seem to know each other and mark their calendars to be at this particular RV park at the same time every year. They have their Thanksgivings and Christmases here. I was invited to spend Christmas here if I wanted but I’d better hurry and get a space because they might already be filled up. The park supplies the turkeys and hams and there’s a sign-up sheet for everything else. When I told them our house had sold and we’d be living in our RV at Christmas one of the women said so matter-of-factly, “We got kids the same way--that’s why we’re here--please join us.” They cut to the heart of the matter so quickly.
I got some good advice during coffee: don’t back up your rig if you’re towing a vehicle! You get in the vehicle and back that up while pulling the rig the way you want to go! This was pure brilliance and I never would have thought of it. I just might get my nerve up one of these days to tow the Jeep.
Doggy advice from new best friends: take Byrdie down the road to the mud baths and let her swim in the water. The water is 118o in places?? Doesn’t bother dogs! The signs say to beware of mud mites but not to worry! The dogs swim, not walk in the mud. Smell like sulphur and mud when they get out? Not to worry! They smell better than when they went in! )
After coffee it was time to “take the waters” for the first time today. I solved the problem of the water making it hard to breathe if I have my chest below the water. I took an empty 2 gallon water container and used it to hold me up. It worked great and the 20 minutes flew by.
Inspired by the Germans I did a load of laundry and thoroughly vacuumed the inside of the RV. It has been so long since I’ve had the energy to do anything that it was actually enjoyable being able to be useful.
I have a busy afternoon lined up: get the washing off the line, “take the waters” again, walk the dogs, and be ready for Happy Hour at 4pm back in the common room! I could get into this routine very quickly. Dr. Dean Adell on TV says that the retirees who do the best both mentally and physically are those who have taken up Rving. I can see why--the people are so nice, there are lots of stories and an exciting pioneer spirit.

A Country/Western Music Confession

brought two new Cds with me on this quick trip: Alison Krauss “A Hundred Miles to Go” and Dwight Yokum’s “Dwight Sings Buck.” Both of these albums are A+ first rate IMHO. I’ve always thought that if one had a basic Country music vocabulary one wouldn’t even need a Bible to know all about life and how to live it. I began to imagine how similar listening to Country music is to going to confession.
How’s the world treatin’ you, Father?
Bless me Father, I think I’ve got a heartache.”
I shot a man in Tulsa just to watch him die.
I caught a south-bound train instead of going to Liturgy.
I committed murder down on music row.
I made fun of a boy named Sue.
Last time I was in Bakersfield I met a man I didn’t know, but I sure didn’t like him.
I tried to go down to the river to pray but instead I thought I’d put a bottle to my head and pull the trigger.
I’ve been singin’ Whiskey Lullaby instead of Amazing Grace.
And finally, Lord, if You’d just close up all the honkytonks, we’d be together again!
That about says it all. It’s been a whiskey-drinkin’, country music listenin’ kind of week.

Taking the Waters

Thursday, November 15, 2007
Tecopa Hot Springs
Run away! Run away! So I did and here I am. The place is Petersen’s Tecopa Palms RV park, resort, private baths and generally wonderful place. I’m just south of Shoshone which is just south of Death Valley--one of the truly beautiful places on the planet. I have no cell phone, no TV and no internet. Can one survive? And what does a person have to do to arrive in this paradise? In my case, it was reaching the breaking point on the stress-o-meter.
Our house went on the market 10 days ago at a ridiculously low asking price. Thanks to greed, incompetence and the general ineptitude of the plicks that run Bakersfield, we are living in the #5 city in the nation for foreclosures. 18 months ago our house would have sold for $200,000 more than we even dared ask in today’s plunging market. We priced our house $30,000 less that the nearest competitive house. After ten days of neurotic cleaning and vacating at the drop of a hat for prospective buyers, we ended up with two offers and one of them was for our full asking price. By the time I knew we had two bidders I couldn’t handle the stress and was in my trusty Jeep heading for the hills. During the two hour trip I got cell phone calls telling me that the house had been sold and that the movers would be there to pack us up in two weeks!!! Egads! We have no place to go! Mr. T has been working up in the Bay Area for several months but I’ve not been able to do any house hunting--thank you Bakersfield lung crud. Our plan is to live in the Minnie Winnie in a campground in the Bay Area and do some fast house-finding. But two weeks?? Not this girl! The choices are get the vapors and take to mah bed or head to the monastery, grab the RV and run away. I choose to run away!
Let me tell you about this area of perfect desert. The hills are purple, rugged and high. The desert is green with blooming greasewood--mesquite to the purists. The colors are magnificent and the scope of the landscape is so huge one really can’t take it all in. It was wonderful to be back in the rig and on the road. This time I have both dogs with me--a definite liability since the poodle hates to travel. But when one is getting out of town, one just grabs a toothbrush, change of underwear and the hooch. No time to book pooches into kennels.
I pulled into Petersen’s around 2:30pm and was greeted by several friendly campers and one of the owners. My neighbor is a German man who has retired in St George, Utah. He also drives a Class C RV and we chatted a bit about our preference for them over the Class As. Then he looked at my Minnie and asked if I had run into a bad bug storm? I’ll be the first to admit the rig needs a bath and that we are probably wearing a representative from every bug family known between here and Wisconsin. I looked over at his rig, sitting there in New RV right-off-the-lot splendor, complete with tire covers, and couldn’t help comparing it to my traveling entomological Exhibit A. I tried to make the excuse that they had wanted $50.00 at the truck carwash in Barstow to clean the rig. He totally agreed that was way too high and he would never pay over $30.00--but then he ruined it by saying he’d never had to wash his RV in five years!!!! But I bet Mrs. German-frau washes it every morning to keep it so pristine. Oh well--ah been sick
The dogs had a great run on the salt flats across the highway and even managed to find a muddy pool and stream to romp through. After they were totally exhausted I had my first soak in the mineral waters. These waters are one of life’s pleasures. The RV park has private pools so one doesn’t have to go publicly naked. After a certain age, one doesn’t want to even see oneself in a communal birthday suit setting! The water was at least 105o and so silky it seemed close to oily. It’s hard to sit in the pool longer than about 20 minutes before it’s too hot. I also get a bit bored. I kept a pen and notebook handy and most of my first soaking session was making lists of all the minutiae that buzz in my brain cells with so much happening.
It’s now evening and I’ve missed the sunset. By the time the dogs were fed and I’d poured a refreshing G&T I’d missed the light. That’s okay--tomorrow is another day. One last nighttime soak in the healing waters and it’s blessed sleep time.