1-4-08

New Year

I went into the local Safeway store to pick up some groceries and came upon this display of peppers and canned Mexican specialty stuff like menundo (cow guts) and hominy. There is a large Spanish community here and I think the Apache’s eat the stuff too. It is plenty cheap. The red bags are the hot ones and the green bags the mild peppers. One of the store clerks saw me take the photo and I could see they watched me for a time after that wondering what I was doing in their store taking pictures. I was wearing my big yellow Aerostich riding coat with a handy pocket for my camera. People will often ask what I do when I wear that coat because it looks like I must be Fire Department or Search and Rescue or something official. I sometimes tell them I am an Inspector General…… then they don’t know WTF…

I brought back some of the hair barrettes (Tova, Anna, Lisa) that had the clips worn out and broken over the years. This is one of the first ones that I made many years ago that Tova had in her collection. She got out her collection of clips while I was there and it was just so cool to get this one back in my hands. When I started making these clips I bought some clips locally that turned out to be really low quality and the girls said that those kind would ‘cut hair’ because they had sharp edges. I grabbed this one back and changed out the clip to one of the high quality French made ones that don’t cut hair.

I decided to move my camp over to Quartzite for a while and was pleased to find my old campsite I like to stay in ready for me when I got there. The Canadians were back camped down the way as they were last year, they had strung out Christmas lights on the trees and cactus as well as looped between the motor homes. Oh, yuck. These folks live next to each other up in Canada and come camp together all the way down here. They are a quiet bunch and don’t bother me other than the frigging lights at night. I think one must have a generator but it must be a high quality one and doesn’t make noise or if it does, I cant hear it. I park at the far end of this campground and it doesn’t get any traffic to speak of. I have good southern exposure and nice country to take a walk in. I got my bench out and work part of the day and maybe take a ride into town in the afternoon to see what was going on (very little before new years) and pick up some grub from the store. There are some nice rides here too and sometimes I just get on the bike and take a quick ride out on the dirt roads. There are lots of quads that the old retired folk bring with them now and they go out for tours around the area. They sure are tearing up the roads and I notice that they really stir up the dust when they go by too. Those big wide knobby tires may have good traction but they sure do tear up the ground. When the kids get on them they often try to see what damage they can do to the desert pavement. I suppose it wont be too long before they outlaw them other than in desiginated areas which will become really thrashed.

I had baked a loaf of bread before I left and had forgotten to bring my bread pans along so I used a big round tile that is used for pizza baking. I just plopped the dough on the tile and baked it that way. It came out wonderful.

This was a pretty neat outfit that one of the vendors showed up in. I guess this must be “Pink Floyd”

I prepared a nice meal for Christmas dinner. Last year when Sheila was visiting me up in Montana camp I dropped my favorite platter and broke it in several pieces. Boo hoo….. Well when I opened my Christmas present from Sheila I found four of these super cool platters so I used one for my Christmas supper of smoked pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy with a side of organic baby carrots. Yumm, yumm and especially cool to eat off of this plate. Thank you Sheila……..

The weather over in Quartzite was fantastic and I was surprised to see this little lace wing show up on my bench one day. Spring time here in the desert.

I have been meaning to take a photo and tell about my ‘new’ riding dark glasses that Dr. Toast ( Mark Dill the eye doctor that rides a Toaster Tank BMW R75) made for me. I had a pair of Rayban frames and had him make bifocal glasses (real glass) photo gray lenses for them. I had him make them 2x power as I wanted to use the reading part for looking at my tank bag map while riding my motorcycle. They are just the most wonderful glasses!! I have had to stop and take off my dark glasses and put on my readers to read my map. With these glasses I can easily see the fine detail of the map and not have to do the dark/reading glasses exchange. I put tape over the center of the glasses to keep the wind from making my eyes water when I have my face shield up. Getting old can be a real test but when you have friends like Dr Toast, it makes this old-timers life not so bad. Actually I am very happy. I was listening to the radio program where they were saying that only 30% of Americans consider themselves happy. I thought it was interesting that those in colder climates were often as happy or more so than folks in warmer climates. Some of the happiest folks are the Icelanders where it is cold and dark most of the winter. When I visited Iceland a few years ago I thought that the city people didn’t look happy but I found the country/farmer folks really happy go lucky. Man, they can  sure drink too………..

A view of the workbench in Quartzite. That little radio from Radio Shack is really a wonderful little radio. I took this radio down to South America and would listen to short wave at night with headphones.  I have a little extra speaker hooked up to it here, which makes a better/louder sound while I listen to the classic rock station. All the old favorite rock and roll songs go really well while working on the bench. When I am in camp over near Windspirit community I usually listen to NPR radio and find that a good listen other than all the political bull sh*t this time of year. I get the Phoenix station KJZZ and it has good programming all day long. One of my favorite programs is the Diane Reem show that is on for two hours where she interviews the most interesting people. She is tough on politicians and if they don’t answer her question she will ask it again and again until they answer.

I have been developing some of my designs and it is fun to see the progression from a simple beginnings. As I ride down from my camp to the Windspirit I go through a small ranch operation. The rancher has quite a collection of peafowl that is often along the road where he waters his stock. They roost in the trees and when going through there in the evening, they often scream as those birds do. This design is in recognition of the pea cocks and has been transformed from my ‘fancy bird’ clip.

I finally got crowded out over in the Quartzite camp. I pretty much had my space protected by parking my bloodhound over into the next spot to keep people from moving in on me there. Last year a huge motor home pulled in there and blocked my morning sun, which really pissed me off so I left. This year the neighbor on the other side of that had two other motor homes pull in and set up next to him which spilled over into where I had my motorcycle parked. Heck, they almost hit it when they were getting parked. Damn…. That was New Years eve so I just loaded up in the morning and headed on over back to camp on the ridge above Dripping Springs wash. Aahh, it is nice to be back.

It is truly an interesting experience being over in the Quartzite area being exposed to a major community of older and mostly retired people. I remember last year that Geoff commented at how depressing it is to see all these people camped out in the desert because they couldn’t afford to live in a house someplace. I certainly had never looked at it like that. I see people out in the desert enjoying the winter sun in a mild temperate climate that is probably much different than where they live in the summer. I guess what I find most disturbing is that they seem mostly to just sit around and ‘do’ nothing. Once in a while they will go for a little walk on the road in the campground but rarely out in the desert cross country. Most everybody is over weight and the women are particularly bulbous. They will often have a little nasty yipping doggy on a string leash. A couple of those motor homes that crowed in on me had those little bastards that would start yelling at me any time I moved around in my camp. Even when they are inside the motor home they seem to perch in the window so they can bark at anything that moves. I think it is going to be interesting to see what happens if/when the economy collapses how well those big quarter million dollar motor homes fare. They had huge lots full of them in Quartzite for sale, some new and some used as well as thousands of them parked in the trailer parks and out in the desert. One of the vendors I was talking with said his got somewhere between 5 and 7 miles per gallon depending on wind and speed. If gas doubles it is going to cost him over a dollar a mile.

I am sitting here this morning listening to the radio the day after the Iowa caucus. There must not have been anything that has happened anyplace in the world yesterday other than in Iowa. It makes me wonder what dirty tricks (Cheney/Bush) are taking place when the cameras and microphones are all directed away from them.

I made a run down to the Windspirit a couple of days ago and made some bread. I had run out of ‘good’ bread and was needy for some bread to eat. I am sure getting spoiled about good homemade bread now.

Here is the method I use for polishing my silver jewelry. That is 12v~120v inverter that the grinder/polisher is plugged into. I usually start the truck to keep from drawing the battery down unless I am just going to just do a small polish job.

When I came back to the ridge where I camp I found a couple in ‘my’ spot so I just pulled into another campsite just down the road from there. I actually like this spot as well as the other one. In some respects it is a better place in that I have the trailer situated better so I can sit in my seat in the trailer and enjoy the morning sun that rises about in the middle of this photo. I am not sure exactly how far that far mountain range is but must be at least 75 miles. The radio is saying that a storm that is hitting California really hard now, will move over into this area, but the forecast is for maybe 50% chance of rain but cooler temps.