Coalescing, Healing, Abandoning in Why, Arizona

 Ready to hit the road! 

After our return from China, Steve and I had to sit in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, for about three weeks to recover from whatever nasty virus we caught on the way home.  We got out of there on Sunday, March 22nd, and headed over to spend some time in Why, Arizona, our home.  Steve has a big 5th wheel that he leaves here and there is plenty of room on our lot for my rig, too.  I hardly spent any time here this past winter because of being busy in New Mexico, and it's nice to be back.

We used to drive from TorC to Why in one day, but we're not getting any younger.  I've learned that for me, with lots of arthritis, I do better driving or even riding for just a few hours a day.  We are thinking of adopting the Rule of Twos on our West Coast meanderings this spring and summer--that is, never drive more than 200 miles in a day, arrive at your campsite by 2 pm, and stay at least two nights once you get someplace.  

 Steve at Karchner Caverns campground

On this two-day drive, we stopped at Kartchner Caverns State Park just south of Benson, Arizona, and stayed at the campground overnight and went on the Big Room tour the next morning.  It was delightful, and I was so appreciative of being able to walk this tour without a cane, in contrast to the time I was there about four years ago.  It made it much easier to concentrate on what the ranger tour guide was saying.  We also stopped in Tucson to have lunch with friends, so our second day on the road, while only driving about 160 miles, was very full.  It was good practice for when we really get moving.  

We've been slightly delayed here in Why, too, due to taking care of our annual checkups and such at the community health clinic in nearby Ajo.  I need a tooth pulled and we're going to Casa Grande on Monday to see an oral surgeon because the extraction might be complicated.  And it's been hot enough here that we're really feeling ready to get going!

 To-do list on a hot day in the desert

We'd originally thought we'd head pretty much due west from Why and go to Yuma and parts of southern California on our way to the West Coast.  However, these health-related delays mean it's going to be quite hot traveling that way.  So, after my appointment on Monday, we're going to head to northern Arizona and explore and cool off for a while, and we'll probably head west on I-40.  

So, in the meantime, we've been just biding our time here.  My cat, Sonja Begonia, has started a travel journal:

I'm working on an altered book.  Here are pictures of the cover and a page that I've altered:

After some contemplation, I have removed the word "eBay" from the title of my blog.  Since qualifying for Social Security Disability last summer, I no longer sell much on eBay.  I may sell a few fun vintage finds along the road as I travel, but the focus of my life has changed to art-and-travel more than eBay-and-travel. 

I do have a book nearly completed about selling on eBay while traveling in an RV, and I will probably publish that within the next month or two.  But what I really want to do on the road in upcoming months is art abandonment.  Making art and leaving it for the right "patron" to find, accept and enjoy. 

Abandoned in the travel section at the local public library

Surprisingly, some of the members the art abandonment group to which I belong seem kind of attached to their artwork and what response it receives from the people who find it.  To me, one of the major reasons to abandon artwork is the removal of ego from the process of making and distributing art.  To abandon means to let go of all concern for or interest in the outcome, and abandonment in this sense is my intention. But, yes, I must admit, I checked to see if my first abandonment had disappeared, and it was gratifying on some level that it had.

For years I have been practicing "letting go" of many things, but, as the saying goes, sometimes the things I let go of have claw marks all over them.  I think this is gonna be good for me.  I look forward to sharing this journey with you. 

On the Road Again

My traveling companion, Sly

"On the Road Again"...Willie Nelson comes to mind, but so do John Denver, Canned Heat, and a lot of other musicians who had their own road songs. Anyhow, I'm traveling for a few days with my son Sly, who is visiting from Seattle while his dad is on vacation.

Painting a tiny muskrat skull

I haven't blogged much in the past few months, in large part because of how tenuous Sly's health has been. It's been difficult to cheerfully talk about my winter in the Arizona desert when my kid is battling for his life...or sometimes not battling for it, which is even more disturbing. Ever since he was little, he's always had mild to middling mental health issues, but the past few months have been very scary. Sly's at the age where people with depression sometimes graduate to schizophrenia, and that may be what's happening. We don't know yet, for sure. But what we do know is that Sly, at age 19, needs to be with one or the other of his parents or with mental health caretakers rather than on his own. He can't manage his own meds and he can only use sharp objects when closely supervised.

A completed cow lower jawbone, now on display in our driveway at Why

Despite these challenges, we've been having a good time, overall. For the first few days of Sly's visit, we stayed close to home in Why, Arizona, visiting the nearby town of Ajo and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. We had a really nice picnic one day out on Darby Road, a beautiful stretch of BLM land just outside Ajo. We golfed at the "Why Country Club," which is a little 18-hole putting course at Coyote Howls Campground. Steve gave Sly free rein to paint some animal skulls, which Sly has enjoyed immensely. A neighbor, seeing the results, commissioned Sly to paint some antlers, too.

"Why Country Club"

Now Sly and I are on a multi-day camping trip in the Guppy. I've never traveled with another person in my little Toyota Dolphin, and it is cramped, but comfortable. There's room for both of us to sit at the dinette, and, since I had a nice big work counter custom made in my rig, we can each have some sort of project going at the same time. At night, we roll out a single futon down the aisle between the built-in furniture for Sly, and so far I've managed not to step on him if I needed to get up during the night.

Our first day out, we stayed overnight at Cochise Terrace, a commercial RV park near Benson. I thought it was half-price due to my Passport America membership, but I guess I forgot to read the fine print. It's only half-price in the summer when it's too hot to want to be in Benson, Arizona. Anyhow, it was a nice place and it was great to have warm showers and electric hookups so we could run my little electric heater. (We've had some warmer temps since my last post about the desert being surprisingly cool this winter, but it got cold again as soon as Sly and I left on our trip!)

Sly enjoying the warm weather before we started our camping trip

The next day, we went to Kartchner Caverns, about 10 miles south of Benson. This is a State Park that has several different tours of an amazing cavern that is still "alive"--which means it's still dripping wet in some places, so stalactites, stalagmites, and other cave formations continue to grow. The tours are expensive--over $20 apiece--but well worth it. Ever since we went on the tour, Sly has been busy writing a story about "The Creature of Kartchner Caverns," told in the first person and with creepy-cool illustrations.

Texas Canyon Rest Stop

Beautiful rock formations surround the rest stop

To save some money after our expensive night at Cochise Terrace, I looked for someplace we could camp free last night, and we ended up staying at a rest stop that's at the top of Texas Canyon, on I-10 between Benson and Willcox. It was a beautiful place, and we were well-situated for our visit this morning to the Amerind Foundation in Dragoon, but, boy, was it cold up there! We used a little Coleman propane catalytic heater (I believe these are known in some circles as "hippy killers"), but it ran out of fuel before we woke up.

Before heading to the museum, we had to go see "The Thing," which is advertised on billboards throughout this part of the Southwest. It's your basic gift shop/tourist trap with a gimmick. Be strong; resist it.

The Amerind Foundation is a museum that has a lot of nice artifacts in a beautiful building designed in the 1930s specifically as a museum. It does, however, have very live acoustics, so you can hear every comment made by every other visitor, which is a bit annoying. Sly and I are both soft-spoken and easily overwhelmed by loud sounds, and we were ready to get out of there sooner than we might've been if 22 RVers caravaning together hadn't shown up just before us.

Sly at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, before our camping trip

Today we backtracked to Benson where Sly got a piercing between his brows--haven't taken a picture of that one yet, but stay tuned! Then we headed north of Tucson, and we're spending the night at Catalina State Park. It's a beautiful flat stretch next to the Catalina Mountains, barely outside the city, and surprisingly quiet for how much use it gets. Almost every site is full tonight (it's a holiday weekend), but I have heard almost nothing but natural sounds here. Tomorrow morning we will head off to Biosphere 2, just a few miles further north.

Sonja stayed home with Steve. She prefers her cozy hideaways in the larger RV that stays in Why year-round.

Yay! Mom bought shoes!

You don't really need a linen closet in the bathroom, do you? How about a cat closet instead?

I'll write another blog post about the remainder of our trip and Sly's visit soon.