Round and Round I Go...

 

Round and round and round I go, where I will stop, no one, not even I, do know…

        Many adventures have happened since my last writings over a month ago.  Let me get you caught up.
        I left off with Christmas coming up around the bend, with me picking my beloved friend up at the Denver airport in the freezing cold weather that overtook the city, which I accomplished despite the frozen roads and my white knuckles, while driving sixty miles round trip.
         We arrived at the small purple house with green trim, opening the pink door to the wonderful smell of the turkey I had cooked earlier in the day, with the rest of the meal to be cooked and eaten soon after our arrival.
My friend gifted me three small writing booklets with mole skin covers while I indulged him with my fine culinary arts. We shared wine and laughter and made an early evening of my first Christmas away from Seattle. 
       The following day we went to the city of Denver and checked out the art museum that had a western/Native American theme throughout the huge venue and then a stroll through one of the oldest buildings in Denver which now holds a wonderful book store.
       Two days later our mutual friends returned to their home and the four of us learned how to live in the 400 square foot house with one huge puppy dog.  Minus the loud snoring that occurred the space was evenly used and not too crowded for the time spent together in such small confines.
      We took a trip to Golden, Colorado where we toured the Coor’s Brewery, the largest brewery in the world, and explored various parts of the small and quaint township, much like the day we also wandered into Boulder and did the river trail and farmers market.
      We climbed atop a small mountain and felt the freezing cold at its finest as most days averaged 20 to 25 before falling to10 degrees at night.  I do not think I ever warmed up the entire time I spent in Denver.
      New Year’s Eve came and three of us went to the String Cheese Incident show outside of Denver where I danced until my feet ached and my heart soared at the freedom of the movement and the music. 
      At one point though, I had to just stop, while everyone else was just dancing hard and all the people in the entire venue (20,000 people?) were dancing and moving everywhere, I just stopped.
      I stopped all movement and looked around at all of the people who were engaged in their own worlds and marveled at how connected we all were at that moment in time, yet still in our own worlds, so far apart.  It was such an awesome moment that as I stood there, it caught the attention of a couple of other dancers, who just stopped and watched with me.  I felt a true time warp in life as I became the observer out of context to my surroundings.  And it was fun.
      A few days later my beloved friend left for Seattle and I followed suit by leaving Denver but to my destination of Phoenix.  I arrived on a Saturday evening and my Sister-in-Law and her friend came and picked me up at the airport and took me back to Arizona City and a sixty degree sunny evening. (Ah, warmth!)  Once back at their place we left for a house down the block where there was a football party going on and lots of food and people greeted me upon our arrival.
       The following day I spent packing up my van and getting it as ready as possible for the following morning when I was to leave Arizona City.  When I did leave my Brother’s place, it was with him taking my picture as I left, so he could have proof I finally did get out of his house.
      I drove northeast through Apache Junction and climbed up and over the Superstition Mountains past the Top of the World and Globe, AZ to the Apache Gold Casino and RV Resort.
      I found a wonderfully warm pool and Jacuzzi, electrical, Wi-Fi, and warm bathrooms with free hot showers where I checked in for a single night.  I just should have checked in for a whole month as the next month became a circle of confusion and frustration on my journey.
      I left Apache Gold Casino for San Carlos, the town that drew me towards the Hopi Indians so many months before.  I found the small town and saw that it was a very low income Native Indian township with very little services.  I also found no ‘yellow stucco’ house so I continued on my way out of town when I saw a sign for the Coolidge Dam and thought that being I was in the area I should stop and take a look. I drove the thirteen miles in the desert before finding the old Dam that looked to be closed for the dry season and I took a couple of pictures with my phone camera before I began driving back the same way I came. 

     As I rounded a bend in the road, there it was; the yellow stucco house.
      It was the very same color but it was slightly different than the one in my vision.  This one had a different type of tree in front of the door and the screen on the door seemed wrong as it hung from the hinges.  The curtains in the front windows seemed all wrong also, but it was a yellow stucco house that was the same color yellow of my vision, something I had yet to see amongst the millions of stucco homes that are in the southwest.
      I pulled off the road and stared at the house from across a ravine, my mind asking over and over again if this was the place I had been looking for and found the disappointing answer of no.  I willed someone to come to the screen door and look out so I would know that this was the house I so desperately wanted to see, something to make this long Journey of mine, valid.
      I waited ten minutes before I gave up and drove past the no trespassing signs of the property and tried to justify turning my vehicle around, marching up to the front porch to see if there was an Elderly Native America inside looking for me.  I found none such reason other insanity, so my wheels continued turning forward and my mind began whirling, as I drove southward toward Tucson.
       Along the way I spent about an hour looking for Indian Hot Springs and was unsuccessful as I followed along dirt roads for about twenty miles before I finally gave up on that too, going into the city of Tucson where I turned onto I-10 westbound following the interstate until the sun went down and I became tired, hungry, and needing a bathroom.  I found myself exiting the same exit my Brother lived on.
      I pulled into the local restaurant and had a bowl of spaghetti with garlic bread and then found myself wandering over to the local hotel and booking a night for $35 at the Travelodge where I spent a peaceful and relaxing evening on the internet and watching television.
       The following day I took Matilda, Herbette and myself onto Interstate 8 towards San Diego where I thought I was heading, westbound towards Seattle and my old life, when suddenly I asked myself “Self, is this what you want to do?” and before I could answer out loud, I had flipped on my turn signal and pulled off onto the next exit.
      I found myself heading north on some small road that wound me back towards Phoenix and before I knew it I was on the same Highway back towards Apache Junction and the yellow stucco house before reminding myself that if I had needed to be at the place, I would have stayed the first time around, so instead of retracing those footsteps, I headed north towards Prescott where on Craig’s List there seemed to be a plethora of jobs and cheap rentals.
      I drove the miles with a lump in my throat wondering what I should really do…go back to Seattle or try and make it alone in Arizona where the sunshine called my name daily.
       I arrived in Prescott Valley early enough in the daytime to see why there were so many jobs with so many low rent vacancies throughout the area; it was nothing but a consumer’s haven five thousand feet up in the high desert.  Every imaginable store and restaurant was packed into a three or four mile area surrounded by apartment complexes and stucco homes, most of them for rent and available.
       I continued driving past all of the shopping centers as I reminded myself I could go to a million places that are packed with these types of business and I continued on past it into the old town of Prescott, where the original western saloons and cowboys roamed back in the late 1800’s realizing I did not want to live in Prescott, AZ either.
       I drove down off of the high mountain desert and down to the valley floor where I jumped back on I-10 westbound and found myself leaving Arizona and crossing over into California where the state border patrol were friendly and uninterested in the likes of me.
        I arrived in Blythe, California and found a cheap Motel 6 and checked in for the night, using the internet and the phone service to call loved ones and to catch up on emails and my Facebook page.
       The following morning I called my sister in Everett asking her about her trip to Norway she had coming up in the middle of January and to find out if I really needed to get back in time to take care of Mom or not.
       My sister blew off on me about how she would ‘allow’ me in her house to take care of Mom but I was to be ‘gone’ by the time she returned from Norway, each word filled full of venom and hate.  I confronted her anger but she informed me that it went back many years and then she refused to go into it further, but she did inform me that I did not ‘need’ to return as she had already set it up that Mom would be taken care of in my sisters absence. 
       Confused by her anger and with Mom agreeing with my sister that I did not ‘need’ to return just yet, I sat in the crappy Motel 6 room (handicap unit with very little amenities) contemplating what I should do next if I was not rushing off to Washington State to care for my Mom.
        I ended up calling my ‘Childhood’ friend who I had camped with in Idyllwild on the way to Arizona, telling her where I was and saying I wanted to catch up with her again, while I also mentioned that being I was so close to Slab City and the Salton Sea I wanted to see it first before I would be heading up to her place.
        I left that morning from Blythe and drove south into a huge windstorm that obliterated the road with blowing sand and dust to the point I had no idea where the yellow and white lines were as I continued to wind my way through a barren sandy mountainous area called the Elgodones Mountains. 

        I drove past Glamis (sand dunes) and Brawley into a place called Niland and found my way to Slab City and Salvation Mountain while fighting the 45 mile an hour winds, I did manage to grab a few pictures with my phone before having to take my contacts out of my eyes and shedding a dozen sand filled tears onto a Kleenex. 
I drove away from the winded desert to the Salton Sea where I stopped at the Sonny Bono Salton Sea Wildlife Refuge and took a far off picture of the Sea before I aimed Matilda for the safety and warmth of Yuma, AZ.

       I checked into the local Motel 6 and spent a restful night getting the sand and dirt out of my hair and my eyes while trying to decide what the hell I was going to do. 
        Here I was, back on Interstate 8 and on my way towards Arizona City once again, just like some kind of sick homing pigeon. Headed back towards a place that did not want me back and where I had no reason to go back to, except maybe to Apache Gold Casino, where I kept picturing me swimming around the wonderful pool and being able to finally settle in and write for a while.
       I spent two more nights in the wind filled valley avoiding the freezing cold weather that dropped itself down upon the southwestern states, with temperatures dropping down into the twenties at night and the local weather newscasters warning farmers of the impending cold and to cover crops and plants if possible.
      It was then that I found out that Southern California and around the area of Yuma is the ‘Winter Vegetable” capital of the United States….hmmm.  Anyways, I did spend three more nights (4 all total) in the city of Yuma waiting for warmer weather before deciding I would return to the Apache Gold Casino and hang out for a cheap month of rent and a warm swimming pool.
      I drove onto Interstate 8 heading east when I arrived in Gila Bend deciding I should stop for gas where I then discovered I had a water pump leak.  I called my roadside service that sent a tow truck to tow my Matilda exactly ¾ of a mile to a service station that ran the tow truck company. 
      The tow truck driver took Herbette and me to the local Best Western and dropped us off only to find out the hotel was full (mid-week, in Gila Bend, population 100, out of rooms???) and I needed to walk down the highway to another hotel about ½ of a mile away, where I stayed two nights at the Yucca Inn Hotel, where they had mustard colored walls and a plug in heater.
      I had to wait two days for the part for my van to arrive from Phoenix and it would go to Buckeye, AZ where I found a mechanic who could work on my VW van being none of the service station in Gila Bend worked on foreign cars.
       I left the mustard yellow walled room of the hotel with my arms full; three bags of misc. and Herbette in her cage, walking down the sidewalk of the highway to the tow truck place, a mile and a half away when a woman in a white pick- up truck pulled over and offered me a ride which I gratefully took.  I cannot thank the Great Elders enough for sending the Native American woman named Jacqueline, when I so very much needed a ride.
      My roadside service (GMAC) would not use the same tow truck company to move my van the 32 miles from Gila Bend to Buckeye so they instead sent me a wonderful driver in a pink tow truck (Pinky Tow) to take me and my traveling group (Matilda, Herbette, and my worldly possessions) to the larger township of Buckeye, AZ.
     The repair shop was owned by a Hispanic man named Javier who had his American mechanic work on my German engine with its China made water pump part that turned out to be the wrong part. 
     This forced me to once again walk a few blocks away from the auto shop and find another hotel to stay in.  The owner of the hotel (another East Indian couple, like the one in Gila Bend) had to ask his wife if I could bring Herbette into the room with me as they did not accept any pets on the property.
     After being granted the ability to take Herbette into a room, I was sure that the rust-colored stucco motel would offer me a similar room as I had found at the Yucca Inn in Gila Bend, but I was completely surprised by the wonderful space I was charged another $60 a night for. 
     The room reminded me of the Hampton Inn Suites I stayed in Lake Havasu City, the bed made up in soft, cotton linens while the huge television only highlighted the refrigerator and microwave and the plush towels in the bathroom.  I was pleased that somewhere in my moments of being broke down, some things were turning out somewhat pleasant.
      I wandered out of my room to go across the street for some Mexican food and the owner of the hotel was standing outside of the office having a cigarette when I asked him about the food at the restaurant, upon which he replied he had never eaten there.
      I spent the next half an hour talking with the owner of the motel, learning about his life and his world he found so pleasant and peaceful.  “Small towns…that is where there is heart and community.  It is what makes a man feel proud in the daytime, safe in the nighttime.”
      As I ate the mediocre Mexican food I thought about what he had said about small towns and had to agree with him…some of my fondest memories are of living in Anacortes and how safe and proud I was to live there and put that into my future plans manifestations; I want to settle into a small town.

      The following day proved me patient as I had to wait another six hours (three hours the first day until the part was discovered to be not the right year model) while the mechanic finished off the water pump install.  I paid Javier three one hundred dollar bills, he gave me three one dollar bills back and I drove away, hoping that the mechanic had done a good job, as VW can be a tricky motor to work on sometimes, even with something as simple as a water pump. (picture is of statue across from repair shop titled, "Hobo Sam")
      Pulling out of the repair shop and getting on a main highway into the town of Buckeye, I found that I was butted up against Interstate 10 again…yes, back to ground one.  How many times had I been on that Interstate in the last week and a half?
       I pulled out onto the freeway westbound and drove into the sunset of the Arizona border where I took a picture right before Quartzsite and dipped down into California and back to Blythe where I checked into a different hotel (didn’t like the Motel 6 in Blythe last time and they upped the price $30 since I was in town a week and a half earlier) and settled into the room for a night of decision making.
       While I had been broken down with my van, my ‘childhood’ friend left for Seattle with her husband and would be gone for two weeks, leaving me hanging out in the desert wondering what I should do.  It was little over two weeks since leaving my Brother’s place and all I had done was drive a thousand useless miles and was back in a circle at Blythe, California. 
      Taking a friends advice about when life keeps making you repeat your steps, is to look around at what I am missing the first time, I tried to figure out what I was missing.  What could Blythe possibly hold for me?
      I picked up the phone and called my Denver friend to get the phone number of his dad, who travels around California on a low budget, mostly hanging out at hot springs.
     After being asked my intentions for his dad, my Denver friend gave me the number and I called it expecting a voice mail I would give my name and phone number to, but stammered when he answered the phone put me at a loss for real words.
     “Hi.  You may not remember me, but I traveled with your Son a couple of years back and we met up with you in the Redwoods.” I hesitantly began.
      “Are you the woman with the tan VW?” He responded.
      Our conversation lasted about fifteen minutes and it was decided that I was really not all that far from him (less than 100 miles) and sure he said, come on over and hang out, which is what I did.
        Back onto I-10 westbound I took Highway 86 out of Indio and drove south towards the west side of the Salton Sea and turned off onto Borrego Springs road, driving another 22 miles where I found my ‘desert’ friend and another couple from Oroville who were camping with him. I pulled up next to the two other rigs, where we made a triangle of vehicles parked in the desert of the Anza-Borrego State Park where all the camping is free.  Yes, free.
        My new friends were old desert campers who had been doing this for many years, traveling around with the weather and staying as close to the 70 degree mark as possible.  Most of the places they camp at are free and somewhat close to small towns where water and supplies could be replenished, with showers and laundries are never more than 10 miles away.
       I arrived on Thursday afternoon and on that Saturday I celebrated my 51st birthday with a shower, clean clothes, homemade split pea soup and a margarita, parked out underneath the huge desert sky with wonderfully hearted people and lots of laughter.

          My ‘desert’ friend was going to be going to El Godones, Mexico outside of Yuma to get his teeth fixed and a new pair of glasses, and he offered me the opportunity to travel along with him, which I did.

     We left on a Monday and drove through the desert to a place called Agua Caliente where we paid three dollars to soak in an enclosed hot spring run by the county of San Diego.  After a three hour soak we drove a couple of miles away and camped in the desert, again for free.
        The following day we drove south to a place called Holtville where he took me another hot springs, this one free, where we soaked for about an hour in the very hot pool before we got back in our vehicles and drove to the exit for El Godones.
       The day was still young and we parked our cars on the American side of the border in a pay lot ($5) and walked over the line into Mexico where instantly I was taken aback by all that my eyes could see.
       El Godones is a small town approximately ten blocks by ten blocks that is nothing but dentist, optometrists, and pharmacies, mixed into the vendor wares that the Native citizens sell to the thousands of senior citizens of the United States who cross the border for reasonably priced medical needs.
       There are hundreds of shops offering eye glasses for cheap, dentures and extractions for even cheaper, and all of the medications that cost so much in the United States are pennies on the dollar in the shops of El Godones. 
       My ‘desert’ friend had his eyes examined and his dental work started while I wandered around watching the goings on in the small Mexican community that caters to the elderly white Americans that come there to save hundreds on medical, the locals hoping to catch some of their wealth in the wares that they offer. 
       Leather purses, wallets, belts, and clothing along with baskets, jewelry of silver and gold, pottery, rugs, and artwork, all for sale for cheap or near cheap.  Food venders selling dollar tacos and caramel covered pecans and walnuts, while children carry cases of bracelets and hair ornaments trying to get you to buy, buy, buy.
        I spent five dollars on a bracelet that young man made out of thread that spells my name in it, along with a bag of the caramel pecans.  I purchased a margarita at a bar, that I later learned by observation, it was a place that hookers take the Americans upstairs for a ‘private’ drink.
       My ‘desert’ friend found me in the main square and we went and had lamb and goat tacos before we wandered back across the border to the United States and our vehicles, which we drove a couple of miles down the road and again, camped for free.
       I need to insert here that I spent lots of money, time and effort to get my passport so that my adventures might include going to foreign countries and hopefully getting lots of colorful stamps in my hard to get book.  Having said that, as we crossed over the Mexican border, there are no border patrols stopping and checking you as you enter the country and there is no way to get your passport stamped.  On the way back to the United States, they can’t stamp your book, as you are already a citizen and you live in the U.S. and you don’t need a stamp.  So, to date, I still have no marks in my lonely passport book.
       My ‘desert’ friend needed to return the next day for teeth extractions and a partial dental plate put in (all for under $500) but I decided to stay at the free camping space and organize my van for long term travel.  Spending many hours alone and organizing felt good and was something that needed doing, as traveling in such a small space means that everything is more like a ‘Tetris’ game as most things must be moved to access other things.
      It was mid-day when my ‘desert’ friend returned and we drove back to the Holtville hot springs where we soaked for about an hour before he took us a couple of miles into the desert where there is more free camping.  We passed a sign on the way down a long desert road that followed a huge canal of water that said we could camp for up to 14 days for free, per the county of San Diego.
        We stayed three days and two nights while rain covered the desert in huge sandy puddles that made getting to the hot springs a big chore, but well worth it as the hot springs took the chill out of the wet, cloudy days.
       On the morning of the third day after soaking up the hot, hot springs, we drove to El Central and did major grocery shopping at the Wal-Mart and Costco before heading northwest to Agua Caliente once again.
      We stayed overnight at the free desert parking area and paid to soak on our arrival and on our departure the following morning, before we headed back to Borrego Springs and the free camping with his friends from Oroville. 
      During the next week, the people from Oroville (an older couple) who had a Jeep 4X4 took me and my ‘desert’ friend out amongst the ‘Badlands of California’ and gave me the full tour of a place they consider to be one of the most beautiful on the planet, which considering they have lived in many places in the world, they could say that with experience.

     We climbed up over giant hills and down into low canyons, we rode past huge metal animals depicting the pre-historic creatures of the area, while I learned about the flora and the fauna of the desert and all of the creatures that call it home.  They were basically the most wonderful tour guides I could possibly have had as they shared their love, knowledge, and experience of the many years of traveling in the area.

          I was so enjoying myself out in the desert, the warm sun, good people, and lots of laughter, but as all things do end, so did our time together. 

      The Oroville couple were heading back to their home as one of them was experiencing much pain in her hip and was unable to continue on their journey, while my ‘desert’ friend said he too was heading back towards his favorite place, Tecopa hot springs, now that he had finished his medical trip to Mexico, the main reason I had been able to catch up with him outside of Borrego Springs.

          I called my ‘childhood’ friend and found out she was back in the state of California and would love a visit from me, so I said my good byes to my new found friends and drove 55 miles from Borrego Springs to Aguanga to the property with the three ponds and the Native American fertility grounds were. As we caught up on the last five months it was then it was decided that the following weekend I would be joining her husband and all of their friends in Glamis to go sand dunning over the Presidential weekend.  We shopped and packed her newest motor home (a semi-truck with complete motorhome and a toy hauler behind) and I followed behind them as we drove 130 miles south, past Brawley and onward to Glamis, a mere 22 miles north of Holtville, to go camping for a week in the sand dunes.  Yes, back in circles again. 

     We spent the first part of the week getting our large camp established that eventually would hold eleven huge RV’s (none under $30K most of them in the $60K-$100K) and as many toy haulers (generally about $5 to 10K each) along with my little tan van (approx. $3K), the smallest of all the rigs.  Everyone had at least one dune buggy (average cost: $100,000 each) and some had one or two additional quad’s ($3-20K each) and all I could wish for was all the moneys that was sitting at Keyhole campground.  Of course, to be really financially rich, I would love to have had ALL the money of the rigs and toys over the entire area that they call Glamis. 

        Thousands of rigs and toys filled the high sand dune area over the Presidential weekend, the roadways and campgrounds packed to capacity as the ‘dunners’ came out to play.  As I left on Sunday morning, before the crowds broke up and traffic would become impossible on Monday, Presidents day, there were too many rigs to count, too many dune buggy’s and quad’s and motorcycles to even begin to fathom how many were really there, but I still wished I could have the money sitting around me.
     I drove south the twenty-two miles to Holtville and did a big long soak before aiming myself north towards Palm Springs where I currently sit trying to get everyone, including myself, caught up on all the wild circles I have been traveling since I left Arizona City on January 7^th.
      Parts of this journey feel like these circles or wheels I am going over and over again might be the medicine wheels of life, trying to shift into the proper socket, before grabbing hold and creating a bridge that I can somehow cross over from one to the other of the one I need to be on.  But which wheel that is I still have no idea.
     To say that it has been a ‘long strange trip’ is an understatement.  The things I am learning are priceless (or very reasonably priced) and the people I am meeting are unique and interesting as I continue to Travel Thru The Tonda Zone!

          ~Peace~