Lleaving Llano

Gray, overcast and cold--just the way I'm feeling as today I start the long trek back to California. This has been the nicest little town there could be. Good-bye JoAnn who keeps the park where I lived so beautiful. I hope that rosebush is full of blooms by next week. Good-bye radio station KBAY that played the best country/western music I've heard. Good-bye all you nice people at Holy Trinity Catholic Church and the Llano Art Gallery. Good-bye "turkey" at the Acme cafe. Good-bye Super S Grocery that let me park in the parking lot so I could get wifi. And thank you to the nice folks at the llano Llibrary for letting me set up my 'puter and use their internet connection so I could keep up on this blog. Next time I hope to meet Doodles and LaVerne.

I'll miss Don and Sylvia. What a jump to last see someone as teenagers and then get reaquainted as senior citizens! You have such cute kitties and take such good care of Jake. Jake has a spinal cord injury so they have to move him and prop him up to eat and then put him on his "tinkle towel" when he has to do those other functions. The hummingbirds will sit on Don's hands and eat out of the feeders he has to fill up everyday.

There must be at least two dozen birds that elbow each other for a spot at the "bar"!

The drive back to California seems very long right now. The goal today is to make Fort Stockton, Texas. Wish me well and an uneventful day's travel.

Made it to Fort Stockton, Texas. The drive along the back roads before having to get back on the Interstate is so beautiful. Old cemeteries with blue bonnet-covered graves; a real buffalo who was cooperative about posing; a tree that had caught on fire. Right now the weather is the usual thunder, lightning and wild wind. I really hate to say good-bye to Texas.

Arrived at the Fort Stockton KOA and survived another storm. This is the worst KOA I've stayed at so far: no cable, hit and miss wireless--mostly miss--and just 2 snowy tv stations. That means I missed an episode of "24" so I didn't get my Jack Bauer fix for the week. I'll just post some of the pics I was able to shoot yesterday. It was a great day for pictures.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday
April 8, 2007

Good Friday

Good Friday
April 6, 2007

I knew this morning as soon as I woke up early that some disenchantment was setting in. I’ve never liked Good Friday—I know it’s the most necessary of days to remember—but this is always a depressing day for me. I know my sufferings today are nothing compared to Jesus’ suffering on the Cross but still, I did my best to try and keep the day from being totally without redemption. I think I failed.

I thought getting out of California and having a change of scenery would prove that my illness was only psychosomatic. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be so. All my activity caught up with me today. There is no energy but I pressed ahead. For two weeks now, I’ve had to get up and make my own morning coffee. JR spoils me wonderfully and this morning I was thinking how nice it would be to have that coffee brought to me. I got up earlier than usual since one school bus and many cars full of kids showed up down in the park below my parking place. Apparently they were having an early Easter egg hunt. That got Byrdie all excited so I took my coffee outside and let her run. While I was using the “chuck it” to fling the ball as far as I could, I met yet another guy and his adult daughter who had stopped to run their dogs. To our surprise, he had been stationed in the Army in Ft .Irwin outside Barstow for the last few years! The Monastery is just outside Barstow so we had a good time comparing snake and desert stories. He and his wife had decided to come to the hill country to check it out as a place to live when he was discharged. They fell in love with this area and had both immediately gotten jobs and were in the process of buying a house. And this is after only two weeks time!!! We enjoyed talking about how friendly and gracious the people here are. He had some regrets that he hadn’t seen Llano before settling into a different place but was happy enough with the town up the road. We chatted a long time and the dogs all got along. (Later on I will tell you about the way Texans pronounce words. I’m convinced it’s designed to confuse tourists who can’t possibly know the true pronunciation. Considering the Texans got to name the towns in the first place, you’d think they’d name them the way they pronounce them—but no, that would be too easy. One quick example: Burnet—anybody would call it Bur-NETTE or Bur-NAY but they call it BURN-it.)

I don’t believe in coincidences and have really enjoyed hearing the stories of people who have done exactly what I’m doing now. One of the best parts about Bakersfield is that there are loads of friendly people. But the smallness of the community here lets you know right away that the folks are genuine—and that is pronounced GIN-you-WINE!

And now I will tell my woes about today. First of all, I was trying to shave a leg in the mini-shower last night and caught my big toe on the nozzle hose. Somehow I pulled it a little loose and now the water is shooting out of the connection at the faucets as well as through the shower head. It seems to take out the hot water faster and since I only get six gallons of hot water per shower I was pretty annoyed with the situation. It only got worse because when Donald Lee tried to check it out it was spewing water from the entire faucet connection. I think we have insurance for such things but it’s just one more thing to do.

When we got back from Fredericksburg I let Byrdie out as usual to run and let off some of her boundless energy. After about half hour of playing chase and retrieve ball, I let her back in the Minnie Winnie and realized her face fur around her mouth was green! Then I looked closer and realized that somehow she had gotten in some green stickers and they were stuck to her long fur EVERYWHERE!!! Oh groan—this was going to mean a very long combing out. I began and HORRORS!!!! I found a tick in her ear!!!! What to do??? I remember my grandmother using a match or kerosene or some home remedy that is lost in the ages. I kept thinking of our propane tank in the RV and didn’t want to be playing with open flames. I got the tweezers and pulled on that tick until it came out. I was NOT prepared for the gushing blood that accompanied the removal of the tick. Now, I am not a “tick-removal” kind of person. This was gross. Cousin Sylvia talks about killing snakes as turning them into “good snakes.” Well, I turned that tick—which was still alive—into a good tick. Thank heavens I’m in Texas and didn’t have to worry that I might be killing off some sort of endangered species of tick the way I would in California.

Do you know what happens when you pull out a new tick on a dog? THEY BLEED!!! Suddenly my precious Labradoodle was gushing blood out of her ear. Double gross!! I kept patting her ear with a paper towel and she tolerated me combing dozens of green stickers out of all her fur. Don’t you know that there was not just ONE tick on Byrdie—there were several. Her other ear also was hosting an embedded tick and I combed off two more that I got to turn into good ticks as well. This is about the time that my mind began doing a system search of country/western songs that mention anything about pulling ticks off dogs, combing out stickers and wiping up blood. THEY DON’T EXIST!! My romantic view of Texas began fading rapidly. Maybe the men get one good dog and one good woman but it’s the woman who is picking off the ticks! After that disaster I had to clean all the floors. That’s when I realized that Byrdie had also tracked in all those green stickers onto the RV rugs. I got out the Oreck and vacuumed everything I could. Then I got out the Swivel Sweeper and went over everything again. I threw all the rugs out the door and then scrubbed all the linoleum floors with hot water and vinegar.

(Let me put in an unpaid plug here. These Swivel Sweepers are fantastic!! You can get them at K-Mart for under $25.00 and they go everywhere and pick up everything on your flat floors. They do alright on carpets but don’t deep clean carpets. But on tile and wooden floors, they are fantastic—as good as a broom.)

By this time I’ve totally missed the Good Friday liturgy. I’m also feeling very sorry for myself and thinking there aren’t green stickers and ticks like this in California. I think the pity party was to try and assuage the guilt over not attending the Good Friday service.

So, here I am, a long ways from home, drinking a very strong gin and tonic and feeling a little sorry for myself. I think that getting down and drinking is the prerequisite for writing a country/western song. My song will be about dogs and ticks! I wonder if Nashville would like to pick up a song like this one?

Ah got a good dawg at the county pound
Lemme tell you that gal had been around
She the sweetest dawg there ever were
With her big brown eyes and long black fur.

Ah let that dawg jes’ run and play
Thru the high park grass 6 times a day
I’d throw that ball and she’d be on it
While I was admirin’ those Texas blue bonnets.

Now you don’ hear the dark side in a country song
When the dawg you luv gits somethin’ wrong
Yew don’ hear how when yer throwin’ sticks
The dawg comes back with burrs and ticks.

So you comb and pull and wipe up blood
And comb s’more and clean up crud
And think the man has a better life
‘Cause the one poppin’ ticks is always the wife.

I don’t think it has much chance of being picked up even by the Dixie Chicks.

I just turned on the TV and wish I hadn’t. What was on? It was an in-depth study of Islam in a “modern” Egyptian woman’s life. ON GOOD FRIDAY!!! I believe it is intentional to slam Christians and their faith. Why go to the effort to portray a religion of hate on the very day that Christians all over the world believe that Jesus, the very Word of God, the Prince of Peace, died to free us from the evil such as Islam espouses and the distant, severe god they worship? Why was there not an in-depth piece about the devotions of Christians all over the world on Good Friday? Why not show the millions who go to Church for 3 hours and remember with humility and gratitude the salvific work of Jesus on the Cross? Why not highlight the millions of Christians who go to Church and pray for the Moslems and for the conversion of the hearts of the entire world? I wonder how often one finds worshippers in mosques praying for their own hearts to come to love Christians instead of vowing to kill them? But most of all, why does a public television network feel compelled to highlight a religion hostile to our own culture instead of shining some light on the Person who is Light Himself?

So, I switched the channel to one of the alphabet stations. And what are they showing on Good Friday? A wife-swap with the most counter-cultural family imaginable! The forces of evil certainly rise to the occasion when Christians remember with intensity the ultimate battle of good and evil. The culture wants us to believe the lie—they want us to think that evil is acceptable and that those who try and follow the Good are somehow defective. It is a sick society. Good Friday provokes those who specialize in marketing to our lowest nature to bring on the full assault.

Llife in Llano

I'm beginning to feel quite at home here in Llano. I'm enjoying the expressions I hear from the dj on the morning radio show. I will always think of gaining weight as having "blowed up bigger than Dallas!" from now on.

I overheard a conversation the other day. Roughly, it went along these lines:

1st speaker--that boy's runnin' hot
2nd speaker--I'll say he's runnin' hot
3rd speaker--wonder where he's runnin' so hot to?
4th speaker--maybe somethin' happened.

It's a very folksy way of chatting and indicative of the communal atmosphere. If you live where everyone knows what's going on and everyone is pretty much of like mind, that's how it is. Not that individuality is banned-but one doesn't want to stick out too much. Quirkiness is fine; a little diff'rent is fine; keeping outsider ways is not fine. Threatening the community is not fine. But at my age the pay-off seems wonderful.

I don't think community like that can exist past a certain number of people. At some large population, you get the option of anonymity. That allows very diverse thinking but also allows crime and unrest. It seems it also leads to distrust of outsiders. These things have always been portrayed as "rural" and "backwards" but I see the advantage now. Outsiders truly are a threat unless they conform to a certain degree. I love the absence of graffiti. I'm not worried about miscreants. It's worth it for a peaceful life and not always having to be watching your own back.

I've never taken advantage of all the things the cities have to offer-so called offer, that is. I don't like crowds. I need a lot of alone time. Here in Llano I'm not just nurturing my inner redneck, I'm discovering that I AM mostly redneck! And I don't find it bothers me one bit. These people are not losing anything-they've gained or always had what we've lost. So now we go on road trips or try wacky things to find what it could be that is lost. We've lost feeling safe and belonging. We've also lost our Christianity which is not as easily thrown off as we thought it could be. We thought we could and not suffer for it. But there is a lingering memory of truth that truly was the light of living. We know our shadows are much larger and threaten to overwhelm us with darkness. But we still move away from the light and deeper and deeper into searching the wrong way.



















Thoreau did the country a big disservice when he canonized the simple life. Just at the beginning of the cultural shift from rural to urban he wrote his nonsensical book about living in the woods as a rugged individual. It seems to be a recurring theme in any advanced culture. I'm not sure the people who had no choice but to live that simple life would have glorified it so much. (Did I really just hear a c/w song that went 'the only thing my mom and daddy did together was go their separate ways'????)How much are we fooling ourselves that we can leave our complicated lives and actually fit in and enjoy a much simpler life?















We went by a Starbucks in Austin yesterday. I almost grabbed the steering wheel out of Donald Lee's hands. He didn't even see it!!! Did I want the coffee or did I want what it represented? I think Starbucks has sold much more than expensive coffee--it's offered membership in a complicated lifestyle. When I think how much of my time in Llano has been walking around, dragging that cart with computer, camera and purse just to find a way to use band width across the river I should realize how entangled I am in a different way of living. JR doesn't want to do any yard work and I sure don't want to cook. Doesn't that kind of eliminate us from living an hour away from places where there are lots of good prepared speciality foods(and wine!) and gardeners?

Perhaps I should set a trend by writing songs that praise the complex life!

Drivin' the interstate lookin' for free wifi

Starbucks coffee an hour old

Still pickin' last night's brie outta mah teeth

Spandex shorts sure don' keep out the cold.

I can hear it now-but I don't think it would catch on. However, I continue to nourish my inner redneck. Maybe I can still make it work.

All the sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

---James Russell Lowell

April 3, 1907

DOWNTOWN

I mentioned yesterday about the growling cow--well here it is. This cow did NOT moo--she growled! Just look at the mug on her face and you can tell this is not a contented cow.






After this menacing cow it was nice to come across a very friendly horse. With a few "here horsey, here horsey" calls, she trotted right over and let me rub her ears and scratch her neck. It's all very picturesque.




On our way to see the Llano Cowboy Church we passed a large ranch with great wrought-iron gates. I was startled to see a life-size white rhino statue right next to the driveway on the other side of the gate. Apparently this rancher also keeps camels, giraffes and other 'un-Texan' critters on his ranch. It certainly catches one's eye driving along the road!

Today I'm in the wonderful town library--our taxes at work in the best way! It's 82o outside and the humidity is 100%. This sure beats last night sitting on that exposed bench on the sidewalk with the traffic racing by. For your viewing pleasure, here are a few shots of the "View from the Bench."

Now--the store that so kindly provides a bench for bloggers on the loose and stealing band width is a used book store. Check out the notices posted on this guy's store door and try and guess how well he fits into this town! When I asked my cousin about him he said that, "yes, he's a mite strange." When I asked how so, his answer was, "Well, he jogs."

I still find that the funniest comment. This is the rock-solid liberal agenda but what makes him odd is that he JOGS!!!!!

Just one last word about food. Today I had the best chicken-fried steak, huge mound of mashed potatoes with so much gravy over all of it I had to hunt for the steak, corn and a kind of fruit salad. It was all great except the fruit. I'm sure that would have been good as well if they could have figured out a way to fry it up!

At the potluck for the Art Guild workshop everyone brought food. It was my idea of a successful pot luck--the number of desserts was equal to the number of casseroles. There were at least 4 kinds of deviled eggs. I haven't seen so many deviled eggs since my last funeral! Lots of chicken dishes and good barbeque. These folks sure like eating. I was too full for dessert but was told it was the custom to ask to "take a plate home" for daddy or yourself for later. Then everyone wants you to put more of the food on it because of course it would be "too much trouble to have to take any of this stuff back home!" I like their customs!

Tomorrow we go to Austin to visit an aunt and another cousin.

Last night as Byrdie and I walked back to the RV, toting the bag with puter, camera and all immediate essentials, we had to walk over the bridge over the Llano River. The sun had nearly set and it was one of those beautiful moments that come when you're not expecting it. So, for today, I'll leave you all with this.

Finally Arrived

March 30th I finally pulled into Llano, Texas. It had been pouring rain, thunder and lightning that scared both me and Byrdie and what is called locally "low water crossins'" the entire way.

It was great to see my cousin after 40-some years. He helped me get settled in the town's RV park which is beautiful. It is right on the Llano River with grassy knolls, flowers, seclusion, full hook-ups for Rvs and just $15.00 a night--all on the honor system. At first I was concerned about spending the night in a public park but it seems to work out fine here.

That first night though was a new experience for a California girl. We were under tornado watch and flash floods. I thought I was going to end up in Kansas before the night was over. I can't write too much right now. I don't have wifi in the park and after driving the 2 streets of Llano, I found some open bandwidth outside the local FM radio station. Right now I am seated on a sidewalk bench, puter on lap, Byrdie at my feet terrified by the loud traffic and barely able to see the monitor in the glare of the sun.

I did spend the day with the local Art Guild. I had to paint a flower--which was the first thing I've ever painted since the 7th grade. I am not good. All the other participants in the workshop are real artisits. Their flowers looked like real flowers--artistic flowers! Mine looked like well, like maybe 6th grade.

Later we took a tour of some spectacular Texas hill country and saw gorgeous displays of Blue Bonnets.

We even had an exciting encounter when some local yahoo with a big 'tude stopped his rusted out pick'em up truck and began berating all the motorists about trespassing on private lands. It did not seem the time to point out to him that it was a marked country road and had been the time-honored loop for years for the best Blue Bonnet viewing in Texas. Why wasn't it a good time? Because this jerk had a gun tucked into his jeans' waistband, a big rifle in his truck and a knife on his belt. He was the only bad egg I've run into so far. But oh boy!!! Did he make our car full of little ol' Texas paintin' Grandmas madder than hornets. I don't envy that guy after they finish their plan to sic the Chamber of Commerce and the local sheriff on him.

I will write later about the cow that growled at me, the local Catholic Church and their Nigerian priest and a very friendly horse. Oh yes--and the lifesize statue of a white rhino behind the gates of a ranch just outside of town. I will also update you about the local lingo I'm learnin'--such as saying "that's boy's runnin' hot" when a cop goes by fast with his sirens flashing! Ignore any typos--it's just too hard to proof read when the glare is so strong. However, if anyone knows how to adjust for brightness on a Dell laptop I'd greatly appreciated hearing how to do that.

A Phd in D.U.M.B.

I got out of Van Horn just before noon which was early by California time but under the wire by Texas time. I got off the I-10 as soon as I could so I could take advantage of slower speeds and more photo ops. The land was beginning to look familiar compared to my childhood memories. Finally there were some trees and hills to break the monotony of the flatlands. By the time I crossed the Pecos River--another dream image bites the dust(Pecos Trickle was more like it)--there were even scrub pinons growing. The ground is covered with wild flowers and those beautiful blooming Mojave yuccas.












Probably the funniest berg I drove through was Iraan, Texas. I bet the local teams have a hard time on Friday nights. On the back roads the simple lifestyle is more up close and personal.

I think of the hard life my dad and his dad before him had trying to make a living on rocky, prickly-pear infested land. They knew what it meant to have nothing. I had hours to think of the strange twists of life that resulted in me being where I am now compared to just two generations ago. My dad graduated early from high school in Dublin, Texas, to join the Marine Corps.

That was his only realistic way of getting off the farm--a farm that wasn't supporting the family. There must have been young men from farms all over suddenly scattered to military posts across the country--and then sent overseas for World War II. Because of that huge global upheaval, the biggest--certainly not the greatest--generation(Boomers) grew up in a degree of prosperity our grandparents could not even imagine. My Texas grandparents didn't even get indoor plumbing until the Sixties! Perhaps that is why I can drive through the land that generations of my family farmed and feel nothing. I can't relate. I don't even know if that is a good thing or not. It might as well have been centuries ago rather than 2 generations. Did my dad go to a school that looked like this one? Just ghosts are left behind that we Boomers can't even guess at.














I have been on the road for one week now. One week since I last saw a Starbucks (in Barstow). Radio stations are few and far between. I've managed to catch just bits of Rush but there is no scarcity of Bible preachers and Mexican stations. Has anyone done any studies to find out if Mexican disc jockeys have more high blood pressure and heart attacks than other groups? This one man was nearly apoplectic in his announcing. I did get to listen to a show about financial advice. The host had a great expression: (in reference to a mother) "She's just a travel agent for a guilt trip!" He was also fond of reminding his listeners that he'd gotten his Phd in D.U.M.B. It helped the time go quickly.

I tried to get an ice cream cone at the Dairy Queen in Big Lake but the water main for the town had broken. I'm still not quite sure why that meant no one could get ice cream but the entire town of 800 was closing up. No business could get done.

San Angelo is a real pretty town. I'm staying next to one of their lakes where Byrdie immediately took a dip. She loved the swimming. She's been a great traveler and it was fun to see her in her element instead of riding shotgun in the RV.















Tomorrow is the final destination of Llano. I will be so glad to see family and get some rest in one place for awhile.