Letting Kids In On The Fun

I can't believe my eyes.

I'm sitting four or five rows up in  $20 "preferred seats" (actually, butt space on bleachers) at the National Professional Bull Riding Association's rodeo in Kingsville, Texas. I'm surrounded by Texans, whole families of Texans, whoopin' and hollerin,' clapping, standing, pumping their fists in the air (and chugging down huge cups of beer). 

I notice a darling little girl, about 6, decked out in pink -- a pink cowboy hat and pink chaps -- climbing on the fence, the only thing protecting her from those bucking, rocking, snorting bulls inside. Then I notice more kids, lots of kids, all looking like little cowhands and they're moseying on down toward that fence. The little boys wear black or plaid shirts, chaps and cowboy hats, just like their dads. The little girls look like their mommas, wearing cowboy hats, and vests, boots and belts all bedazzled in bling. Lots of bling. There are ribbons in their hair.

And then I see the darndest thing. Those moms and dads pick up their kids and drop them, DROP THEM like sacks of potatoes, over that head-high fence into the rodeo ring, that place where seconds earlier angry bulls snorted, bucked and rocked. What are they thinking? Why, some of bigger kids scramble up and over by themselves.

Soon there must be a 100 miniature cowboys and cowgirls milling about inside that ring.

What I see next, drops my jaw.

Three calves, cute little things with bows on their tails, charge into the ring. And those 100 kids? Round and round they chase those baby cows. The kids work like cattle dogs, moving those calves,  cutting them off from each other, all the while grabbing GRABBING for those bows on the little cow tails. The audience roars. It's bedlam in there. The calves kick, rock and buck and the kids dart, duck and charge. 

It doesn't take long, maybe three minutes, before three kids secure the treasured golden rings of calf chasing. For their efforts? They get $5. Enough for a pony ride.

The kids pant, gleefully, as they climb back over the fences to where moms and dads retrieve them. 

I gawk, still, at what I've just seen. And then applaud. Because no one stopped all the fun, worrying that it might be too dangerous. No one stopped the fun. Thank goodness, no one stopped the fun.

Spring Brake

Ah, the vagaries of youth, and the weather.

We're walking the dogs along the road that bisects the campground because a storm dares us to try, just try, to walk along the beach.

We did that a few days ago; we pushed past that weather bully and met its wall of 50 mph winds that blew us, our dogs, buckets of sand and an ocean of water all the way home (well, all the way back to our motor home.)

So, today, because we lost to that tyrant in the past, we stay off the beach, walk the road then turn to head home.

Ahead of us, we see a couple of college kids carrying sleeping bags and other stuff across the road to pack it all into the back of their car. Then we see more kids, climbing/struggling through the sand, wrestling with that thug, that tormentor I told you about.

"Hey, guys," I holler. "Were you the ones in the tents, on the beach?"

"Yes," the guy groans. "We give up."

Ah, the weather bully wins again.

So I chat for a while and learn there are eight of these kids from Texas State University in San Marcos  trying to live out their spring break dream of camping on the beach at the Padre Island National Seashore, enjoying the surf and the sun.

Instead, the winds billowed their tents all night and early this morning, the rain seeped through and they all got wet. And exasperated. And called it quits. Because the wind is relentless and the skies are gary and the Gulf of Mexico won't let anyone in to play.

And, anyway, one of the girls shyly admits, they noticed all the other people here in the park are, well, old. She grins her apology to me, one of the ones she consider, well, old.

So they're striking camp, but they've already shed their sadness. They no longer see this as a failed vacation. Instead, they've revamped  and plan to drive three hours north to San Antonio, where the mom of one of the kids will dry them off, cook their meals and pamper them.

So they are happy to be leaving, laugh at the memory they've just created and acknowledge the weather, tomorrow, should be swell.

One Man's Trash Is Often Just Trash

I'm walking my dogs (two Standard Poodles) on the county beach on Padre Island, Texas, (it butts up to the National Seashore) and I see a nail. So I pick it up.

Then I see another, so I pick it up, too.

I'm not infuriated at some careless Joe who dropped nails where my dogs or someone's child might step. Because I know how the nails got here. Well, I sort of know. 

You see, Padre Island is trash heaven. Because of the way the Gulf of Mexico ebbs and flows, trash from around the world washes up on the beaches. Mostly, the debris is worthless household trash -- soda pop bottles, plastic food containers, plastic bags, rope, balloons, and itty bitty swatches of plastic, cloth, glass, wood, metal and Styrofoam.

It's doubtful anything of value awaits my discovery. (Sherry: I Googled that John Adams dollar coin you found: Minted in 2007. Value? $1.) But, I keep looking, and pick up anything dangerous I find along the way. Like the nails.

So far, I have two nails in my hands, a rusted piece of metal that looks like an old bent coat hanger and a belt buckle.   Now I see more nails. I take a few steps and see a lot of nails, embedded in the sand. Far too many nails for me to pick up and tote away. So I stand and stare and begin to see, oddly enough, some beauty in the way the nails swirl randomly in the sand, a snapshot of chaos. 

So I take a picture. And I rethink what I think about all this trash.

It's worthless now, yes, but in the hands of creative people (the kind who turn found objects into art)  the debris becomes art. The trash becomes something of value.

I walk on, see more nails, bits of burned wood, then a dead duck,  a dead catfish and a dead jelly fish.

All thoughts of art end.

A Genuine, Generous Midwestern Kindness

Doris is at my front door. Well, it's a side door really, to my motor home. And, as is the custom in campgrounds, she doesn't knock. People don't knock on motor home doors, I've noticed.  They stand a few feet away and holler out "Are you there?" Or "Hello?"  Or as my friend Carolyn hollers, "Are you up?"

Doris hollers "Hi" so I know she's there.

When I answer the door, she holds a Mason jar of maple syrup up to me (she doesn't climb the three steps into my motor home; I'm standing at the top of the stairs and she's at the bottom, so she holds the syrup up to me).

And because she's holding it up, the sun tries to pass through it, and I see it's nearly opaque. The thick, rich amber  syrup is clean and pure, not a blemish floats in it. I know immediately how special this pint jar is.

Lowell, Doris' husband, taps his Minnesota maples in early spring and cooks the sap out in the woods until it turns into this delicious, naturally sweet treat. It's his hobby, he says, just like bird watching.

I met Doris and Lowell while bird watching (they rode in my car), and later, I invited them to use our Wi-Fi.

The syrup is a Thank You. A Thank You that far outweighs the favor, I'd say.

Tonight, we buy pancake mix.

A Bunch Of Little Birdies

My girlfriends know I always volunteer to drive. I like to drive. I like the way my car feels with me inside. I fit in my car.

So I volunteer to drive me and three birders around Padre Island National Seashore to watch the birds. For four hours. We're part of a group of 13.

Before we go, George and Mary, the 70-somethings leading this group, deck us out in bird-watching gear: bright orange vests (so the birds see us coming?), walkie-talkies (in case someone gets lost, or is attacked?), binoculars (I know why we need these), bird lists and pens, all pulled from the trunk of their car.

I'm feeling like a bad fit here. The vest pulls around to my sides only, I can't work the walkie-talkie. And the bird list? Well, some of the names are familiar because I used to edit a bird column for my local newspaper. But the chit chat convinces me I'm with hard-core birders. They discuss the list with each other, point to names, share vignettes about the last time they saw this bird or that.

Clearly, I don't fit in. I'm glad I'm driving. 

So the little three-car caravan gets underway and minutes later, we land on the beach and spill out onto the sand, us in our orange vests, holding binoculars, lists, pens and walkie-talkies.

Yes, people stare.

"The birds down on the fence," Mary begins, "Are Forster's Tern. In winter plummage." 

Wow. They are beautiful birds, Bird's I'm familiar with. Last year, I took their picture (above) and I thought how unusual these little birds looked. So, wow. I know these birds.

"And the black-headed birds bunched up in the surf are laughing gulls." 

And they really laugh. HA! 

"What's the little round bird, up in the surf?" someone asks. (Ruddy Turnstone, Mary says.)

"And how about the other one, the one that keeps running away from the water?" (A Sanderling.)

And more questions, more pleas for identifications, lifestyles, habits. I take note of who's asking. He is. She is. And her. Why, I'm not so alone here. More than half of us don't know what we are doing, except we are having fun and learning a little about birds.

So I'm as good a fit with this group as I am in my car, which is where we return time and time again throughout the next four hours, driving from spot to spot, documenting sightings of 33 different kinds of birds. Asking questions. Laughing. Looking silly as we stand in the road (AHA! The orange vests!) peering all which ways through the binoculars for the bird (a hawk, falcon or harrier or something) that just flew away. And talking to each other on the walkie-talkies, helping each other locate the birds (at 4 o'clock, just below the log ... see the log? Well look to the left, then down.)

And, of course, making friends. And plans to do more of this stuff later, together. 

Tales From the Dog Park: This Is All True, Promise

About 10 years ago, Mary Scully was arrested (and acquitted).

Her crime? Loving animals so much, she joined an organized protest over using them for genetic research. ("It was after I saw a dog, a black lab, in a cage, one day without an ear, the next without an eye. She was in such pain."). For this she was fingerprinted and booked (unlawful gathering.)

Several months ago, she learned, the FBI suspected her of harboring weapons of mass destruction (dismissed in January). ("Now what would I do with those things anyway?")

Today, she's at the McAllen Dog Park in Texas, telling her stories while her charges, Princess and Madam, two heavily spotted dogs,  sail around the perimeter of the 12-day-old park in unison, like greyhounds on a racetrack.

"What WMDs could I possibly have? Exploding underwear?" she tilts sideways, embarrassingly, then  giggles with the rest of us. There are six of us sitting near her, some on benches, some on the ground, all mesmerized by her tales. We're like kindergartners at her feet.

It's no wonder. She spent years teaching children with special needs.

Mary's from Minnesota and talks with a delicate lilt. She's tiny, just a few inches over 5 feet and has to sit forward on the bench before her feet touch the ground. 

She's 65, but looks 10 years younger ("oh, ya know, I dye my hair"). She's delicate, soft-spoken and sweet. It's hard to imagine this woman a threat. To anyone or thing. 

But the school system in McAllen, a mid-sized city in southeastern Texas near the Mexican border, felt threatened. It  denied her a job based on the misinformation. This sweet, former nun, from a family of 19, just wanted to continue teaching children with disabilities.

How sad, we all say. Then we sit back for more.

As she regales us with her tales of medical tests on animals, jails and conspiracies, her dogs soar round and round, their feet exploding dust bombs when they chance to touch the ground.

The dogs, she says, belong to her neighbors, a working couple who spend the days away from home. She felt bad for the dogs, cooped up inside. So she asked permission to bring them to the new dog park while the couple was at work.

How nice of you, Mary, we all nod.

She talks on and on about these dogs, about their life in Mexico, before their family moved here, about how one of the dogs, Princess, was abused. There's a permanent lump on her head to prove it.

Mary, you are a gem, we all agree, a great neighbor, a fabulous person.

Her phone rings. 

She answers, then squawks! Albeit, a dainty squawk.

Seems her neighbors, the ones who own the dogs, weren't off at work today at all. They ran an errand and when they returned, they discovered their dogs missing and panicked.

"I have them," Mary exclaims and points to where she last saw them fly.  

She finishes her call, then giggles, just a bit. Her eyes twinkle, because now she can add "thief" to her stories to tell.

And her stories are true. I found them online, at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune.

A Playdate With The Zoo

We're at the zoo, the Gladys Porter Zoo, in Brownsville, Texas, and we ohh, ahh, giggle and smile at all the babies.

It's sunny and cool, about 55 degrees. Which means nearly everyone mills about. Because they can. (Pics.) Because the normally oppressive Texas heat went somewhere else for a while. The wonderful weather invites the animals to get up and move, and it invites the animal mommas to bask in the sun with their babes.

We see a momma mandrill (like a baboon) tucked up against a viewing window, clutching her infant (I can see just the baby's ear).  A spider monkey lays on a grassy bank with her baby sprawled on her lap.  She picks at the baby's head. The baby reaches up with her long spindly arms and returns the favor.

Around the corner, another baby monkey romps with her siblings, until momma crashes the party and whisks her away, climbs a tall palm and hangs out on top. She glares down at me.

I walk on. Look back at her. She still looking at me. So I walk on, feeling a little intimidated, then foolish for feeling intimidated. 

I see a momma giraffe nuzzle her little one; and at the nursery, a lonely camel baby searches the crowd, probably looking for mom.

It's at the tiger's exhibit we see the most action.

There are no babies here, but the pen is full of big guys who play just like kittens, rolling, leaping, swatting, whacking each other with their hips. One lays in wait behind a big rock and attacks when his "brother" strolls by. Another dances on his hind legs, boxing something (or nothing) he sees (or imagines) in the air. 

We stand mesmerized by their kitty-like antics, a spell broken when a zoo worker heads behind the exhibit, we think to mop out the muck.

Immediately, the curious cats lunge toward a metal grate at the side of the pen, three, four at time, up to six of them jockeying for position at the gate. Feeding time? At 3 p.m.?

Outside, there's more action. Three electric cars pull up and the drivers leap off and run -- not walk -- inside the back of the den.

From inside, where the men are, I hear a growl, then a mournful wail.  From a cat. There's a tiger inside there with all those men.

A car, not an electric car, a real gas-driven car, pulls up on the walkway and stops. THREE men leap out and dash in. They all have walkie-talkies. They  look concerned.

What could it be? I hear the wail again. The cat is not happy.

Is a  baby being born? I wonder I wonder. Of course! I'm sure it's a baby. The zoo is full of babies today. How exciting. A baby!

One last electric car pulls up and the driver, a woman in full zoo uniform, parks and walks in.

We wait. And wait. So do the tigers outside, trading spaces to stare through the grate.

Then one by one, the men leave the den, like bees from a hive. The final person to leave is the woman. She's the one I approach. Because she's lingering, not flying away. 

"What's happened?" I ask expectantly.

Nothing exotic or exciting, she replies. 

The cat didn't eat breakfast; his handler freaked, panicked over the walkie-talkie, making it sound like death was imminent.

But all's well, the woman says. The cat'll eat when he's hungry. And no, no baby's on the way.

At least, not today.

Tales From The Dog Park: Scarlet, the one with a big heart

Scarlet stays close to Rob Breeze. She's a dog (part-Great Pyrenees, part wolf, part other things) and he's a guy, 40-something.

They visit the Old Pearsall Road Dog Park in San Antonio so Scarlet can play, but she stays close to him, very close. She wants to play with my two Standard Poodles so very badly. But she circles Rob, then sits right next to his legs.

She looks up  at him.

"Go on, girl," he waves over toward where my Poodles play. She instead scoots closer to him,  and stares. She wants to play, but her devotion to Rob is strong, Super Glue strong. So he walks close to my Poodles and Scarlet finally plays.

"She won't go too far from me," he says. She’s protecting him. Keeping him safe.

Rob figures she’s repaying him, because he rescued her from certain death eight month ago.

Her first life was as a guard dog, but her heart's too big to do much guarding, so she wound up at the shelter, where they discovered diseases serious enough to take her life.

Ron ended up at the shelter, too, a month after his 17-year-old lab died.  He wanted a quiet dog. With a big heart.

As he walked the shelter’s chain-link row, little dogs, big dogs, all desperate dogs, woofed and leaped, rattling the chains. Too much for Rob, until the end, the last cage, where Scarlet sat quietly, just, well, smiling as he walked by.

He was smitten, so was she.

After  an extended medical stay, Scarlet came home to Rob’s, where she guards his bed until he falls asleep each night. Just like she guards him now, at the dog park, to make sure he’s safe.

So really, Scarlet, sweet, sweet Scarlet, is a guard dog after all.

Yin Yang in the Natural Word

We're at the World Birding and Nature Center. But we aren't birders.

A guy at the dog park thought we might like this place, and considers it a Must See for tourists to South Padre Island, Texas. It's a world-class bird watching area. With an incongruous neighbor: A sewage treatment plant.

It looks bad (well, not in the picture above, but when you are here, you see it from just about every viewpoint) and it smells bad, too (ESPECIALLY when you climb to the fifth-floor observation deck and stand downwind. PHEW!)

But on most days, it's not so bad, says the volunteer/birder we meet.  Before the center opened in 2009, he'd slog through the dank boggy waters next to the plant to watch his birds.  Now, he sees his birds and stays dry by walking out over the center's mile of boardwalk. The walkway traverses the dank, brackish water and extends out into Laguna Madre (a huge lagoon and the only one in the U.S. saltier than the ocean).

So this Odd Couple is, apparently, good for each other. The water spilled by the treatment plant helps create the center's multiple water environments which attract about 300 species of birds. And an alligator or two. There's freshwater, brackish water, salty water, even saltier water and two kinds of wetlands, a muddy one and a watery one. So birds, take your pick.

Today, there are few takers.

A North Wind  (which means it's a cold wind, I've learned) sends most of the birds into hiding, so we spend more time with the few we see.

We are not birders. So we don't know if this big white guy out there is a heron or egret, or maybe a ibis? It doesn't matter. We stay with him for a while, watching as he walks stealthily though the salty lagoon, dining on little silvery fare he fishes out of the water with his bill.

We spend time watching a blue guy do the same.

We watch a black duck-like bird fly away and a lot of little round birdies with yellow bottoms dance in and out of the fence. We see a lot of white birds with black heads swoop down to the water and slurp? Are they drinking? Dining? We can't tell, but it looks like a ballet.

We watch and hear a black shiny bird (a grackle?) complain when we get too close and a big grey bird take flight.

We are not birders, so we don't know who these guys are or why they behave as they do.

But we're watching birds. So we're bird watchers. Next to a water treatment plant. And by the end of the hike, I don't mind at all.

Mardi Gras Fun in Texas

Where are all the cops?

We and maybe a thousand  other curiosity seekers (a gazillion of whom have brought their dogs) mill about the county beach on Padre Island, Texas, just waiting.

We're waiting for the Island's first-ever Mardi Gras parade. Revelers jump up and down in the rear of open-bed trucks, just checking to see if the parade's coming. (They have to jump to see over the dunes.) 

Others (much older than the jumpers) circle up their chairs in the sandy parking lot, partiers, revelers. They raise their cocktails in a unified toast. They laugh, down their swill, then laugh again.

The party spirit flows as freely as the beer and wine and tequila, but there are no cops.  No one cordons off the parade route. No one directs cars where to park, or chases away revelers who've circled up their chairs in the parking lot, hogging six and eight slots.

A truck pulls up onto the beach, skirts the crowd, then backs up almost into the surf. A woman, dressed in all white with a fluffy white boa wrapped loosely around her neck and flowing teasingly toward her knees, hops out. Her guy-friend hops out the other side, shoots around to the back and pulls down the tailgate. And tailgates while the surf gently laps the truck's wheels.

No cops make him move.

Kids run back and forth from the surf to the dunes, criss-crossing the parade route. No one shouts "Stay back."

Where are the cops? 

Oh, I  see one, in a truck. He's just sitting there. Doing nothing. But smiling at the crowd that's already smiling a lot.

And, guess what. Nothing needs to be done.

The parade is coming and the revelers whoot and holler and jump up and down and every one laughs and grins and chases the candy and Mardi Gras necklaces paraders toss our way.

The parade is a tiny beach parade. Two horses, a slew of kids holding banners, a few politicians, a couple of bars, a Save Our Beach float, a mermaid float, a rock and roll band. 

Oh yes, and a cop car. Holding up the rear. And his side-view mirror sports a Mardi Gras necklace.

At the end of it all, no one directs traffic, in or out, and amazingly we all know how to do it ourselves. No fenders get bent. No children or dogs run over. And that truck in the surf? She had to move it before the parade began because a wave tried to steal it away.

And no cops arrest that wave.

Tales From The Dog Park: Bullies or Babes?

At the Old Pearsall Road Dog Park in San Antonio, I see six, no, seven, no, six  Pits (two of them puppies and two of them look alike blue fawn-colored Pits), a massive Rottie, two Boxers, two shaggy Goldens and a couple of rowdy mixes.

And that's just the welcoming committee, the dogs at the gate, the ones poking their noses through the fence  waiting to get a good sniff.

Wow. Look at all those macho dogs. Pit Bulls, a Rotweiler and Boxers. He-man dogs. And then I glance at my two newly groomed Royal Standard Poodles (who five minutes earlier still had bows in their hair.) Well, looks are only looks; but my guys look like girls. Because they're poodles, with brand new hair cuts. I square my shoulders. Looks are deceiving. My dogs are all dog, too.

We reach the fence. I peer in. My shoulders sag. Look at them. They are all, well, such massive rough and tumble boys. I notice all of the Pits, the Boxers and the Rottie retain their manhoods (can't tell with the long-haired Goldens).

All that testosterone often translate into lots of squabbling, lots of positioning for power, lots of domination.

My guys'll get squashed under a pile of dog-fighting dogs to be top dog.

How, I wonder, can we slide unnoticed into this sea of machissmo?

We can't.

They're at the gate, welcoming us in, slobbering, leaping and barking. Just being dogs, even though they look like bullies.

One of the Pits, an all-white bruiser, must be a bulldog mix, because he walks on his knuckles, pounds the pavement, sort of threateningly. And he grunts when he walks. And sniffs, "Watch it there, buster."

The Rottie's so muscular, he has no neck, just bulging shoulders and chest.  He wears a Jack Nicholson, "Shining"  grin rimmed in thick silver threads of spit.

I see one of the boxers circling, looking at us sideways, carrying a filthy large rubber toy in his jaws. He won't put it down. Or make direct eye contact. He arches his neck. Was that a growl?

The other Pits, all muscle and jaws, swarm like killer bees.

The potential for disaster heightens when I notice the people attending these dogs. All macho guys. All clean cut, muscular. Wearing hoodies. No doubt airmen from the nearby military base.  Young. Twenty-somethings.

Oh, what do they know about dog behavior, fighting, power plays?

What to do, what to do?

We go in. Because my dogs want to.

Joshua prances to greet each man then fades from the crowd. Too much for him, I suppose. He plays it safe.

Jacob plows right into the crowd  (Oh, Jacob!) and pals up with Rico, a tan-and-white Pit who clocks 0 to 60 just chasing a tennis ball. Rico's a cannonball after that ball, shot low to the ground, if he even touches the ground.

Jacob, to my dismay, can't follow the ball, even with his line of sight. Rico blasts off and Jacob prances, DANCES with his head and feet held high, like he's tip-toeing, or into ballet, looking toward where Rico goes. He meets Rico halfway back and starts nuzzling the dog's neck. NUZZLING! Rico ignores Jacob's advances and drops the ball at his macho master's feet.

Jacob steals the ball and prances around, teasing Rico and his man. This man does circles with Jacob to get the ball back, succeeds, and fires it off again for Rico to chase.

I'm shocked. Not at Jacob. At my own embarrassment. Why should I care if my dogs belly up to the bar or barre?

Then it all happens again. Rico soars. Jacob tip-toes. Rico scores. Jacob steals. The human persuades Jacob to drop the ball and the routine happens again. And again.

Yet when it happens again, I notice, PROUDLY, my boy's winning the race. He's making the score.  He's faster than that speeding Rico bullet.

YEAH JACOB! GO JACOB!

Time and time again he shoots, he scores!

I get it. Jacob wasn't being a doll baby. He was taking his time scoping things out. Assessing the lay of the land.  Calculating distances, getting the lead out, laying it on.

By the end of this play date, Jacob's covered in slobber. Panting. Ready to run again and again.

But it's time to go. A little dog, a Shitz Tzu, about a foot tall, has entered the fray and wants to take charge. She probably will. But we won't hang around to find out. 

It's time for us to go.

So I collect my dogs like trophies and leave.

Teddy Bears Stuffed With Faith

It sounds so cute. A church in southeastern Texas uses Teddy Bears to cheer up the sad, visit the lonely and  tend to the sick. 

The bears, my friend Carolyn says, have colorful ribbons around their necks and sit around the church sanctuary until they are needed. Anyone can donate a Teddy for this mission. There's a tag on each bear that says something like: "This bear has heard the Word, songs of praise and sermons. It has been given love. Now it comes to you, with the blessings of worship and love."

How cute to give a Teddy Bear to a sick child, a teen struggling with loneliness, a young mom whose baby is ill. Limited in its use, I think, but cute.

Then my friend Louie opens my world.

Louie's a man's man, a former grain elevator operator and manager from Minnesota. He's a member of the Moose  where he's held a number of top positions. He's a guy who's seen 75, but not yet 80. Louie took one of these Teddy Bears to a sick friend of his, also a Midwestern man's man.

This man's man wept. Over the outpouring of love from Jesus Christ. He felt that love through this Teddy Bear and Louie's compassion for gifting it to him.

 

So today I sit in this church, called Island in the Son, on the Corpus Christi coast Texas, next to these Teddy Bears, who have notes of love and ribbons around their necks. And I honor their mission, embrace their intent.

And also enjoy their undeniable cuteness.

Can't Never Did Anything

We know Louie and Carolyn are here because of the sign taped inside the windshield of their Pursuit motor home:  "For handmade cards, see Carolyn." They were here last year when we visited; and we're thrilled to see them again.

"Here" is Padre Island National Seashore, the land the sun forgot about. And their Pursuit is my escape from the cold, rain and wind outside. It's the kind of weather that shoves sand in your ears and reaches inside to rattle your bones and steal your breath.

But inside the Pursuit, it's warm and dry. No wind. And it's big. There's a couch. My motor home (a Navion) has everything I  need, but a couch. So I sit on Carolyn's couch while she sits at the dinette. We talk. Then she invites me to the dinette to make cards.

Me.

Cards.

Not exactly an obvious match. I don't do crafts. I can't. Then I hear my mother's voice in my head: "Can't never did anything."  I acquiesce. And, anyway. Carolyn's a friend and so eager to share her passion with me. I move to the dinette.

In a flurry, she pulls out papers, bling, stamps, presses, glue pens, glue sticks, ribbons, bows. Knives, scissors, magazines, die cuts, stamp pads (in various colors.) Overwhelming.

Carolyn's a pro and talks me through all of my decisions. I make two cards (shown above) and am spent. Exhausted. Neither card looks professional: smeared ink, skewed paper, missing bling, etc.

But I Made Them.

And I Am So Proud.

You have to laugh.

We're on Padre Island in Southeastern Texas, and, now, follow me on this:

It's 40 degrees, and windy. Gusts up to 50 mpg rock the motor home. A cold rain spits and spats, then pours. Is that hail? Thunder?

There's been a red tide, so dead fish litter the beach and the dogs can't be off leash because the fish are poisonous.

Each day, at 7:30 a.m., a payloader gets to work (beep, beep, beep) moving sand around on the beach, I don't know why. And a work crew is rebuilding the showers. Slowly.

At least we have a campfire to warm our hands (see pic).

Hello Muddah. Hellow Faddah, here I am at Camp Granada ....

A Test of Virtue

When my new friend Jerry tells me about the wooden head, I giggle. He says it's on a reclining statue of Saint Francis Xavier at the San Xavier Mission on the Tohono O'otham Nation in Tucson.

The statue looks like the long-dead Jesuit is lying in state, like his death occurred yesterday and we're here today to pay our respects. A blue cloth drapes over his  "body" and that wooden head sticks out from one end.  Jerry warns me to watch for the men who walk right up to that statue, slide a hand under that wooden head, then heft it three times. Smile. Turn and walk away.

Legend has it that only a virtuous man, a man of high moral standing, can lift that head. If a cheating man tries, the head turns to solid lead.

Jerry, laughing so his chests hops up and down, tells me to watch for the women who drag in their men to lift that head.

So I'm at the mission, and inside I find the sanctuary shaped like a cross and adorned with more than 300 painted or sculpted angels, 100 images of saints and a dozen portrayals of Mary, Christ's mother.

Straight ahead is the altar. To the left,  I spy my saint, stretched out just as Jerry described.

I walk over and notice a number of people in prayer. Candle shadows flicker across their faces.  Some nod as they pray, others stare. Men hold their hats in their hands.  When it's my turn to stand next to the saint, I see pictures pinned to that blue cloth, pictures of children, an ultrasound, families. There are a lot of Jesus-shaped charms pinned to the cloth, too. 

I'm not a Roman Catholic, but I understand faith.  My own, my faith in Jesus, is quite deep. So even though I don't know what these tokens mean, I know those who placed them here did so out of great faith.

So when a man slips past me, slides his hand under that wooden head, I smile, but I do not giggle. I smile because I know what he's here for. But I do not giggle. Because he's a man of faith, a man who believes.

And I'd like to think he's a virtuous man, because he lifts that head, once. Twice. Three times. Never does it turn to lead.

Scraps For The Poor

I'm standing at the cash register at the Community Health Foundation's thrift store in Truth or Consequences, NM.

Today's find is my "new" toaster, a white Sunbeam, tremendously clean inside and, yes, it works. I plugged it in to test it out. 

While waiting for the clerk I notice a sign on her cash register: "We're looking for people to drive bags to Mexico and to the reservation."

"Bags of what?" I ask the clerk.

"Clothes," she says, while counting my change. "We send all of the clothes that are ripped or stained to Mexico. Anything we can't sell, we send down there."

So, I think to myself, we toss them our scraps.

And she continues: "They, well the men especially, don't seem to mind wearing stained clothing."

I think I'm staring, wide-eyed at her. Then I just walk away. Ashamed.

First, that someone in my thrift store community (I LOVE thrift stores) gives unfit clothes  to the poor and considers it generous.

And second, for my  silence, which endorses the discrimination.

Chloride: A Gem of a Ghost Town

Chloride, a long-dead silver mining town in New Mexico, might strike it rich again, as a ghost town.

Its mother lode is no precious ore; it's the people preserving it.

They live there. They roll up their sleeves and get dirty to preserve, protect it and show it off.

And so far, there are only three of them: Don and Donna Edmund (in their 70s) and their daughter, Linda (40s, maybe 50s). The trio's standing in the middle of the main road when we drive up. They welcome us with laughter (for blocking the main road of a ghost town) and we fold right into their conversation, as if they were expecting us.

And, basically, they were. They say they get about 10 visitors a day (we are numbers seven and eight), and oh, about 250 a month. How?

It's amazing anyone finds this place. It's tucked inside the New Mexico mountains off desolate Route 52, a beautiful drive with stunning vistas, a funny little town called Cuchilla, where a speed trap is manned by a police car with a cardboard cop and a mannequin inside,  and where multiple ranchers raise cattle, which crisscross right in front of you. So, slow down.

We're visiting today because I read about Chloride on a travel blog.

"So how do 250 people find out about Chloride?" I ask Donna, a patient, slight woman, who tames her bits of gray hair with a baseball cap.

Oh, she says, "Word of mouth. The Internet. Ghost Town enthusiasts."

So this is my word of mouth, on the Internet: Check out these few pictures, then visit Chloride. And soon.

It's when we catch up with Donna later that I learn she's as much a treasure as Chloride is.

She's giving the tour of the Pioneer Store museum (mostly a 1923 general store) that she and her husband restored in the 1990s. And she smiles, caresses things and lovingly cups them in her hands as shares her stories with us.  She has intimate knowledge of every item in the store, every tin of food, every piece of clothing. She knows how and why they were used.

Not because she studied the stuff somewhere.

But because she spent three years scrubbing decay and rot away from yesterday so we can enjoy it today. And because she learned from the now-dead old-timers in town who grew up with this stuff.

And now, she turns around daily and tells us what they said, for free.

In brief, when she and her husband bought the boarded-up general store in 1989, they found the 1920s general store inside. Intact. But, covered with bat guano, rat droppings and animal damage. They cleaned it up so it shines.

Their accomplishments exceed amateur status. Everything's professionally installed. Don and Donna and Linda did this. Not a hired team of Merry Maids or guys from "This Old House" or historians from the Smithsonian. They did it. Don and Donna and Linda. A couple of retired 70-somethings and their daughter.

And they give the tours. So I'm standing next to and listening to one of the very people who scrubbed and cleaned and identified each item in this store.

My head swirls. What happens with Don and Donna are gone? Their daughter plans to carry on, but then what? Can she achieve her parent's dreams?

Most of the charm of this place is with Donna. Would the tour be as  rewarding with a paid guide? Or a volunteer?

I hope so. What a treasure this is and what a loss it would be if it fails.

So before I leave, I dig into my pockets and find $9 to leave behind as a donation. It's a paltry sum in light of what needs to be done to rebuild this place. But I leave it behind anyway, as a good investment. Because the people in charge are dreamers, who roll up their sleeves. And I want to see them succeed.

So, why the fence?

My past meets my present today.

We head east across southern Arizona on I-10 when the desert landscape changes, dramatically.

Everywhere we look are boulders, huge, round boulders defying gravity, balancing on mountaintops, on other rocks, on ledges, just ready to roll. But they don't. They just hang in there.

Up ahead, a rest stop. Great! It makes it easy for us to grab a few pictures, read a bit of history, soak in the views. And find out where we are: Texas Canyon, AZ.

We walk around the gravel and sandy undulating landscape dotted with these boulders, very aware of the warning signs concerning scorpions and poisonous snakes.

What we aren't prepared for is the fence.

The rest stop is surrounded by a fortified metal chain-link fence reinforced with barbed wire, many rows of it, along the top.

Why, I wonder? To keep me out or keep me in?

We head back up the hill and find a weathered metal memorial to the Chiricahua Apache Chief Cochise and his surrender at Council Rock, just four miles up the road.

Council Rock. Here's my past. I did a report on Council Rock in elementary school, probably fourth grade. And, finally, here I am, more than 45 years later.

I remember lots of sadness about Council Rock. It was here in 1872 that Cochise signed the Broken Arrow Peace Treaty with the U.S. Government, which gave the Apaches the right to live on their own land. Four years later (two years after Cochise died), the government broke the treaty and kicked the Apaches out.

Shameful.

So back to the barbed wire. I think I'm being kept out.

Art in the Mule Mountains

We're riding higher and higher into the mile-high Mule Mountains, heading to Bisbee, a dried-up old copper mine town, I'm told, where old miners' shacks now house artists. Quaint, I think. A curiosity. Art in all this dust (it's still desert here.)

The drive from Tombsonte, AZ, goes southeast toward Mexico and take about 45 minutes. All uphill.

And in that 45 minutes, WOW! We enter a different world, but is it Italy? France? Maybe Mexico? I don't know, but I now know the meaning of Old World Charm.

This is not quaint. It's spectacular. It's no curiosity. It's serious living by creative artists, playwrights, singers, musicians. They've morphed this dried-up old copper mine town into a must-see gem of Southern Arizona.

To see it, we hold our breaths as we navigate up and down and around narrow lanes that meander over, around and through these mountains.

Homes, many of them small and dating back a century or so,  stepladder up and down steep mountainsides. How do they not fall down?  Most of the homes display some form of architectural or artistic creativity. It is, after all, an artist colony, not just a place where artists live.

I see tiles decorating lampposts, walking bridges, door frames. Hand railings of polished curved wood. Bells and birdhouses dangling from trees. Welded sculptures hanging out on rooftops, in side yards, atop fences and at front doors.

And the colors! Purples. Greens. Reds. Visually superb.

There are numerous fine art galleries in town and an excellent historical museum about the town's copper mining past (well worthy of its affiliation with the Smithsonian).

But to consume art, to absorb it, to savor its rewards, there's no need to park.

Bisbee is art.

(Go here to see the picture above by Elizabeth R. Mitchell and other photographs from Bisbee.)

The Most Famous Boothill

What a hoot.

I'm in Booothill Graveyard (link to more pics), Tombstone, AZ, and all hail cuts lose. Literally. Hail a little bit smaller than pea gravel shoots down on us, scattershot. It's like God's picking us off with shotguns.

How appropriate. Most of the 250 to 300 people buried in Boothill died because of a gun, or knife or some kind of  weapon or trauma.

I duck (how do you duck hail?) then run for the wooden structure that separates this historical treasure from the rest of the wild West town.

And it is a treasure. Not just a tourist trap. But it exists because of tourists. 

Nature reclaimed most of the original cemetery after its closing in 1884. In the 1920s, a group of locals spiffed it up in hopes of attracting tourists.  That "spiffing" continues  nearly a century later, but the people involved no longer aim to please tourists.

Their passion is history. And it shows.

Remember the hailstorm? Well, after a ceasefire, the clouds depart and I return outside and visit my first grave.

The freshly painted marker says "Unknown." (All original markers were pinched or disentigrated.) I check my Directory to Graves and learn that this unknown fellow was found in 1882 at the bottom of an abandoned  mine shaft. And, because he was well-dressed, it's assumed he was no miner. 

Cool.

Then there's Chas. Helm  shot in 1882 in an argument over how best to drive cattle, slow or fast. Kansas Kid was a cowboy killed in a stampede. Geo. Johnson was hanged by mistake (he innocently bought a stolen horse and suffered the consequences.) Delia William, an African American proprietor of a lodging house on Toughnuts Street, killed herself by taking arsenic in 1881.

The stories go on and on.

Each grave is numbered and the numbers refer to a listing in the directory that's handed out to all visitors. In compiling the list, the historians interviewed family members, old town residents and Arizona Historical Society records. 

All of the graves listed are documented as Tombstone residents, as the outlaws and their victims, infants, housewives, painted ladies, people who killed themselves, people who were hanged, legal or otherwise. The three men who died in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral are buried here, side by side. Some people even died of natural causes.

Morbid? Not at all. The graveyard is neat, tidy. Almost Disney-like. Each grave is dressed in a cairn, those piles of rocks that make it hard for coyotes and other predators to scavenge the remains.  Some graves are landscaped with cacti. All have markers, either simple crosses or more elaborate epitaphs, such as this well-known verse:

Here lies Lester Moore

Four slugs from a .44

No Les, no more.

Tombstone: Tired, Dated or What?

Maybe it's the chill in the air, or the sideways wind carrying grit and gravel. Or the rain. I don't know. I'm just not loving my time in Tombstone, AZ.

How could I NOT love Tombstone? Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Johnny Ringo, Bat Masterson (I was in LOVE with Gene Barry in the '60s when he played Bat Masterson on TV.)

The O.K. Corral. Cowboys. Indians. Stagecoaches. It's all here. And original. Not a recreation.

While more than 40 movies feature Tombstone, it's not a Hollywood town. It's an original. It's not a re-creation of the Wild West, it IS the Wild West,  renovated, with an acceptable amount of  modern-day thrown in for comfort.

But I'm not loving it.

I take the dogs for a walk and a REAL stagecoach passes by. How cool! The driver's a cowboy toting a sidearm, talking into a mic inside his vest (out of the wind) giving a history lesson to the only rider inside. The cowboy looks, well, bored. (Maybe he's just cold.)

We walk into town on dirt roads, down wooden sidewalks, passing by real saloons. Men in 10-gallon hats and leather chaps pass us by. They ignore us. (Maybe they're hurrying to work.)

An elderly cowboy, his face deeply creased by the southwestern sun, sells trolley tickets, but he's tired. So he sits and stares. At what? (Maybe he's just trying to remember the answer to a question a tourist just asked.)

I'm not loving Tombstone because it's tired today. Its  people weary. That's my guess, anyway.

We push on, touch adobe structures built back in the day, when a Chinese woman named China Mary was queen of the laundries and bordellos. We tour the original newspaper presses and see pictures of Geronimo taken by the famed Camillus S. Fry.

We dine in an honest-to-goodness saloon,  named after  Doc Holliday's woman, Big Nose Kate (surely Doc didn't call her that!).

Two of the saloon waitresses, in period garb,  dance around to entertain us.  One smiles and laughs.  The other, our waitress, looks, well,  bored. (She could be just embarrassed, you know, a little stage fright.)

We attend an amateur theatrical reenactment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral ALMOST at the site of the real O.K. Corral. The actors compete with screaming winds winds and rattling roofs.

The actual site of the famed fight is fenced off. Inside the fence, very tired looking, life-sized mannequins in period garb face off in a slightly animated version of the fray. Press a button and a commentator discusses the fight. And the animatronics begin. A little bit. Not a lot. A head turns, an arm raises, gun in hand.

It's so old. All of their shoes bend upwards, so they look like magic slippers. The mannequins appear tired of dying all the time.

Next door, at the "Historama," Vincent Price narrates a 50-year-old story about the town in a 50-year-old way. Very tired. (The ticket-taker is a bright spot. He's funny, engaging,  informed. And, not tired at all.)

But I'm still not loving Tombstone

Maybe I'm the one's who's tired. Or maybe I'm spoiled, looking for the cowboys and waitresses to entertain, to dance or sing or at least say "Howdy" enthusiastically. Like Disneyland.

Or maybe I'm ignorant.

A girlfriend wrote to me of her love for Tombstone, of how she grew up watching the movies and when SHE got here, she felt those movies come to life.

I never watched those movies. When I got here, I knew nothing about Tombstone.

So maybe I'm not loving it because I didn't do my homework. So I don't know where to look for all the fun.

It's like going to Dealey Plaza and knowing only that Kennedy was shot there.

How bored would you be if you didn't know about the grassy knoll, or the Book Depository window where the gun was fired from, or the spot where Jackie climbed onto the back of the convertible ... well, you'd be very bored.

Kinda like I am in Tombstone.

But now I know more. I've toured the town. Watched the reenactment. Listened to Vincent Price. Had saloon girls dance for me. So today I'll give it another shot, and go to the famous Boot Hill Cemetery and try have a GREAT time.

Exposing An Ignorant Foodie

I'm at the Sistine Chapel of the New World, the White Dove of the Desert. And all I can think about is food.

It's not that I'm hungry. It's that I love to explore a new place through its food, its people and its history.

And some of its people already told me that THE PLACE to get GREAT fry bread was at the Mission San Xavier del Bac, a place steeped in 300 years of histories of many peoples, of Americans, Native Americans, Mexicans, Spaniards, Jesuits and Franciscans.

I'll absorb the history later, I think to myself. Show me the food!

Now, I really don't know what fry bread is, except it's a food found in Native American culture. And I imagine it's bread, maybe a whole grain or multi-grain bread, that's been fried. I don't know. I just want to eat some.

So I go in search of this food. I visually scout out the grounds of this impressive  working Catholic mission near Tucson, AZ, where people still pray and children go to school. To my left, I hear Mexican cantina music from a loud speaker. Ahead of me is the church itself, an impressive white beacon of faith, a source of comfort to thousands of Catholic pilgrims.

And then, to my right, there she is. A Tohono O'odham grandmother working under a hut with a thatched cactus roof, selling fresh fry bread. I'm so close, I'm giddy.

"Hi," I say, nearly breathless after hurrying up to see her. And I'm sure my grin looks stupid. "One fry bread with, um," I quick read the handwritten menu nailed to the hut support, "beans and cheese, please."

She nods, then turns away from me and washes her hands. She then picks up a ball of fresh dough and slaps it back and forth in her hands, working it like a small pizza crust. She then drops it into a vat of sizzling vegetable oil.

While the dough sizzles, I laugh to myself.  How naive I can be! It's just Fried Dough, the decadent State Fair dessert. Fry bread. Fried dough. Fry bread. Fried dough. Same, same. Only the State Fair delicacy NEVER wears beans and cheese, right? Only yummy sugars (which, by the way, is also on the menu here).

After the dough fries crispy, grandma puts in on a paper plate, ladles a generous helping of pinto beans on top, and sprinkles it with cheese. She then folds it over like a taco, only a huge taco.

That's my prize. My fry bread.

I savor the dish, then head to the church to feed on the history inside.

When You Walk Through a Storm

We limp out of Quartzsite, AZ. Our shoulders slumped. Our heads low. The wind kicking us twice as we leave.

We spent the past day and a half  looking for needles in a haystack (our friends in the desert) and too many hours driving blindly (also in the desert, in Bouse, maybe Parker?) looking for a store to buy a new one. 

 You see, our motor home's not charging its batteries so we need a fix. A fix a friend can manage even in the middle of the desert. If we can find him. But we can't.

And we can't call him because our phone's broken. So we depend on the Internet. Which we  use only sparingly because our batteries are weak because the motor home's not doing its job of charging them.

We finally find a  phone store up the road in Blythe, CA., where we also find a  couple who live in the Quartzsite desert. Their knowledge combined with e-mails from our friends lead us to the right desert door. But our friends have moved on because there's a storm brewing and everyone knows you don't stick around in the desert when a storm comes to town.

We drive away, too, with a new phone but the same sick battery problem. So we head to Yuma, down on the Mexico/Arizona/California border for a repair shop, where they've left the gate open for us to pull in and park for the night.

We get there. We sleep. In the morning, we go, in our car, away for the day while the repairmen tend to the motor home.

We walk along the Colorado River, enjoy lunch and grocery shop, all the while we watch the sky darken, feel the wind pick up speed. Another storm. In the desert.

We're told to expect flash floods with those high winds.

Time to get out of this town, too.

We pick up the motor home and leave, aiming for Tucson. The wind and rain follow. A sprinkle at first, then a deluge. Blinding rain. Belting wind. It looks foggy.  But it's not fog. It's dust and sand and pebbles. Whacking us. Smacking us.

The night turns black black black, The wind pushes and shoves and jostles us. Kicks us again and again. We're hurled left and right. Relentless. Overpowering. Lightening. Rain. Wind. Immense sustainable power.

Now we know why naming a war operation Desert Storm was a fierce move. A line in the sand, A powerful message.

Now we know.

Cell Phone Culture

I wake up this morning to find our cell phone drowned. Yes, drowned.

We left it overnight on the counter in our motor home near the sink
faucet. Which sprung a leak. And drowned our phone.

Now that I don't have a cell (for what, all of five hours?), I think
about how cell-phone culture offends me. About how some people live
on their cells and miss the world around them. About how teens text
instead of talk. About how you don't know if people are talking to
you or their cells.

And about how my cell-phone arrogance that came back to smack me a few
weeks ago.

Here's the story.

I'm in Fresno, CA., eating lunch at a Cheesecake Factory. I know, it's
a chain, and we should seek out a local eatery to support the local
marketplace. But we've never eaten at a Cheesecake Factory and I want
the experience (OK, I really want cheesecake, too.).

We're escorted to our seats by a smiling young woman with white white
teeth. She introduces us to our server, another young woman with
those teeth. Everyone is smiling.

All around us people smile, talk and enjoy themselves as they dine on
sumptuous, freshly prepared fare (I savor my veggie dish in a spicy
peanut sauce.)

And then there's the fellow in the booth next to us. I'll call him
Fred, because he looks like Fred Flintstone. He's not smiling; he's on
his cell, repeatedly. It rings (like an old-fashioned wall phone) and
he answers "Royers Hauling Service. (I made up the name, but it was a
hauling service). And he does business between bites. Between my
bites, too.

The man's business is booming and ruining my lunch. Because it annoys
me. Geesh!

And then there's his 5-year-old son, who has nothing to do because his
dad's on the phone so much, so he's standing up in the booth, playing
peek-a-boo with me.

But I love it. Now I'm having a great time because I love kids. I'm
thinking, though, that any minute, this man, who's rude enough to
invade my lunch-time space with his work-place phone calls, is going
to tell his son to "SIT DOWN AND DON'T BOTHER THE LADY." HA! I think
to myself. What a dichotomy. He's the one being rude, not his son.
But it doesn't happen.

The man, still on the phone, makes eye contact with me and raises
his eyebrows and nods his head, as if to say, "Hey, lady, it is OK
for my son to play with you?" HOW KIND!

I nod YES! And the kid and I giggle.

And here's the rest of the story. As we pack up to leave, we learn
it's winter break for the kids (even kindergardeners) and this dad
has to take care of his son all week.

This was their lunch break.

So what's a working dad to do? Well, I think, I guess you just keep
your cell phone turned on to do business when you can, even during
lunch.

Get Out and Hike!

When in Death Valley, you have to hike.

Even when you are miserably out of shape, you have to hike.

So we turn left just past Stovepipe Wells and start our long journey
UP to the mouth of Mosaic Canyon, where our two-mile hike is to begin.

Inside this canyon, I'm told, we can touch 800 million-year-old
dolomite that's been pushed up out of the ground by perennial seismic
activity. Give dolomite long enough and it turns into marble.

So up we go (still in the motor home), driving on a pathway dug into
an alluvial fan (lots of gravel and silt washed out of the mountains
by ancient rivers). Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.

The man-made road is a washboard and rattles my jaw for what I thought
was a few hundred yards. It turns out to be maybe two miles before we
reach the parking lot at the canyon's mouth.

Distance is deceptive when everything's so big, and in Death Valley,
everything is big.  (Pictures.)

As we begin our hike I realize we're still heading UP. We're walking
UP the canyon into the mountains. There is no DOWN until we head back
down. Did I mention I was out of shape?

We're walking UP for about 20 minutes when I realize I'm no loner
struggling against myself to enjoy this hike. I'm more limber, my
muscles settle in for the ride and I can enjoy the scenery. I pause to
see the different kinds of rocks under foot and inspect the thorny
plant life clinging to the sides of the canyon walls.

And then we come to the first of what turns out to be many places we
can no longer walk; we have to climb. On dolomite. That's the stuff
that turns into marble. And it's smooth already, just like marble.

Did I tell you it's smooth? Which means no toeholds. Allen leaps from
side to side, using his feet to somehow suction onto the smooth
dolomite and lift himself upward. Effortlessly.

I stand and stare. Dumbfounded. How can I, a very out-of-shape woman,
CLIMB up this pass? I can't LEAP like Allen just did.

I stare at this geological structure that looks like a vanilla caramel
sundae. Can you visualize that? THAT'S what I'm supposed to climb up.
An ice cream sundae.

What inspires me to at least try is not my adventuresome nature. It's
my pride. I cannot let the other people hiking behind me see this out-
of-shape woman fail.

And fail, I do not. I take a hundred baby steps and climb this way and
that and get to the top. Ta Da!

Allen beckons me on (what? We're not done?). And we walk some more,
then climb some more.

I scale other dolomite sundaes along the way with ease, even the ones
demanding I step waist high to clear them. After all, I'm experienced
now.

At the big clearing, we rest, catch out breaths, and consume the
beauty of the mountain's canyon. We're tired. And why not? We must
have climbed a mile or more up into the sky to reach this breathtaking
spot.

But remember I said distance is deceptive when everything's so big? A
fellow hiker ambles by and mentions, casually, that's we've climbed .6
of a mile. Not 1.6 miles. Just six-tenths of a mile.

There's still nearly half a mile to go. UP. We hesitate briefly,
smile, then turn and head back DOWN.

Remember all those 800 million-year-old sundaes I climbed to get UP, I
now slide DOWN to get down. What fun.

And we still stop along the way to marvel at God's handiwork. Stuff
we would never have seen if we hadn't gotten out of the car to hike.

An Unexpected Visitor

After being away from home for nearly a month, we're finally camping:
10 days (or so) in Death valley.

The thermometer this Jan. 10 day reads 75. In the shade. I keep moving my reading chair around to find that shade, because in the sun it's pretty hot.

Allen and the boys (our two Standard Poodles) go back inside the motor home for a nap. A lunch-time nap, leaving me with my book, cup of cold coffee and, hot, dry air.

I'm alone. Reading.

A flitting off to my left catches my eye. Oh, look. I think this to myself because there's no one here but me. A bird, drinking out of the dog's water bowl. I watch, casually, as she drinks. Oh, isn't that cute. She's bathing in the water!

THEN WOW! LOOK! About 20 birds come in for a landing, all arguing over who gets to drink next. I settle the score a little by (shame on me) tossing out some crushed graham crackers. They scittle around, grabbing the crumbs farthest away from me, first, then gain courage to
steel closer.

They are all pretty familiar birds to me. I don't know what they are, but I see them a lot at the coast. Big, black birds with yellow rings around their eyes. Others are multi-tan colored birds. They are big, about the height of a parrot, but slender, with long tails. A few morning doves visit as do a dozen or so little black birds (robin-sized) with yellow eyes.

Something else then catches my eye. Coming straight-arrow at me from
across the desert. Speedy. Is it kicking up puffs of dust? What is it?

It arrives, about three feet in front of me and halts, nearly
wobbling itself in its sudden stop.

Oh, My Goodness! A Road Runner! And she's looking up at me with puppy-dog eyes. She's come running over to say, "Hey, I see your serving lunch!"

Look are her! She walks with her neck outstretched, her head feathers
erect, her tail feathers parallel to the ground, pecking at the crumbs
right under my chair. When she stops, her feathers retreat, her tail
turns upwards and her neck goes perpendicular. Walk, she outstretched.
Stop, she's a touch rounded.

But she's never stopped for long. She's in constant motion, eating (shame on me) bits of graham cracker.

 I notice her arrival scatters the other birds, who I see hiding up in the mesquite trees (yes, there are trees in the desert, near an oasis, which I am, I guess).

When Speedy leaves, I feel like Wile E. Coyote, dumfounded by her speed. And those sweet eyes. And her whirlwind feet and legs, that, when stopped, look like chicken legs. When in motion, a blur.

She follows a straight-arrow path, back into the desert. In a puff, she's gone. The other birds return and resume.

When in Portland, Soak It Up

We're back in Portland, OR, to continue needed (and planned) repairs to our motor home.

And, of course, it's raining.

We've been in the Pacific Northwest since Dec. 22 and so has the rain. I suspect the rain lives here. We're just visiting. And, apparently, I announced our visitor status when I popped open my umbrella. Or so I've been told.

Here's what happened.

While our motor home was in the shop for repairs, we spring a leak, then a flat on our toad. A toad is a car that's TOWED behind a motor home.

Anyway, our toad (in real life our Kia Soul), has a flat tire, so we stop in at Goodyear for a fix. Goodyear, while very friendly, is not pet friendly, so we unload our dogs and walk them around and around the block, in the rain that never stops.

The rain doesn't pour here. It spits and spittles, drips and fizzes. Sometimes, it drizzles. A lot of times, it comes sideways. It lets up for a few minutes, then starts again.

During one of these drizzles, I pull out my TOURIST BULLHORN (um, the umbrella). Within minutes, the drizzle fizzles to a spit and a pop and I drop my umbrella.

 Well, shoot. The rain picks up and I open my umbrella again, then the rain spits into drips. Close umbrella.

Oops. Here's the rain again. Open. Oh. Rain ends. Close. Repeat ad infinitum. So frustrating.

I end up pumping my umbrella like a bellows before a dying fire.

That's when I notice no other umbrellas. I see lots of people -- walkers, shoppers and delivery people, but no umbrellas.

Later, at the dog park, I also see NO UMBRELLAS. Amazingly, to me anyway, lots of doggies and people prance and play around the dog park IN the rain with no worry ABOUT the rain as it continues to spit and spittle, drip and fizzle.

I give up and stash the tourist symbol in the back of the car. Later, when we pick up the motor home, I mention this interesting absence to the storekeeper. She's not surprised. Portland people use two things against the rain, she says: their fortitude and their hoodies.

Only tourists, she winks, use umbrellas.