Trippin the Light Fantastic and Assorted Stories

Yeah , Yeah, I know I'm a little tardy in doing the post thing ! I've been busy ! It's not like this is a JOB , and I sure as hell ain't on the clock ! Lots of things going on , making and smoking sausage , pickling peppers , (harvest just started ) running around Arizona and New Mexico looking for cemeteries , and generally trying to keep my head on straight . So many damn distractions , I discovered Facebook and lo andf behold here are a mess of my old friends ! Chit chatting and emailing each other and sending photos to be admired etc. etc. I guess this new technology isn't all bad , just wears thin after 30 or 40 hours continuosly ... So today was a grocery day and the trip to Douglas . A trip I always enjoy right up to the city limits of Douglas and then the traffic starts ! Now Douglas isn't exactly what you would call a metropolitan area , but anything more than two or three cars starts to piss me off and then add the school buses , I get pretty testy ! Thankfully I hit the stores at a slack time and even got through Walmart without thoughts of murder and mayhem , a quick dodge across the street to see Oscar the butcher at Safeway brought me a real score of 3 very large chuck roasts at 99 cents a pound . Yes , we will eat very well for the next few days ! A pot roast and one for the smoker and see how the third one goes for canning or sausage . Back on the road to Carl's JR and a 49 cent cup of coffee , across to the border gas station an some cheap (by Arizona standards ) fuel .
I should say at this point I left Rodeo under the first completely overcast / cloudy sky I've experienced since last November . While in Safeway the heavans opened up and blessed us with a real frog strangler, the parking lot quickly disappeared and there was standing water deep enough to wet your ankles . This was not the exciting part of the day .
Leaving Douglas and heading towards  Rodeo via the valley and prairie lowlands you must drive though a fairly serious set of mountain passes , where I received a lesson in sex . You DO NOT screw with mother nature ! A summer thunderstorm doesn't arrive on cats paws . It RAGES , lightning crashes from peak to peak with a violence that shakes any kind of vehicle you are in . The thunder is like howitzers going off inches from your ears and visibility if any is about 3 feet in front of the hood of your car . But wait , that perfectly smooth and level road you had driven over just a short time ago is now running in torrents of water , stong enough to lift the tires from the pavement and give you the feeling you just joined the Ice Capades ! Well , just pull over and wait it out , the question is where ? Where there was a beautiful hard packed caliche desert just a short time ago is now something that resembles a beer soaked horse shoe pit on a drunken Sunday afternoon !  A short exploration onto the side of the road to check it out ... NO NO NO , the heavy desert tires sink like the goddamn Titanic and if you are lucky you skid back up on the pavement and continue on at a GREATLY reduced speed ! Hold ON ! We are not done with the excitement yet , lets throw in a few animals to make the day complete ! Oh hell yes , a few stray head of livestock , steers as big as pickup trucks some snakes and rabbits , maybe a gila monster or two , turtles , road runners all escaping the flood of water that blasts down into their homes . An education in driving the desert in a thunderstorm !The bonus ... cresting a hill and looking out over fifty or sixty miles of the valley , a light mist changing the landscape into an Alice in Wonderland vista of changing colors and shapes with rays of light highlighting the same view you've seen twenty times before , now it's all different , small dips and canyons , peaks and hillsides that have a new character and the clean smell of the desert washed devoid of dust . I suppose there are worse ways to spend a Thursday afternoon , hell I could have been in a city choking on smog and fighting the rat race ...yeah right ..
Some photos from the porch ..
Stay tuned ...