The Dog Ate My Homework

Wild burros just over the fence from our place in Why, Arizona

Okay, I don't actually have a dog, and blogging isn't homework. But I feel a little adrift when time passes and I haven't been using my blog to sum up what's been happening in my life. Not only are there several people who actually care about what I'm up to, but writing this blog also helps me hone in on where I stand with my goals and issues.


I've been busy. For most of the month of March, eBay offered free listings for eBay store owners. So I've been working hard, getting lots of scarves ironed, photographed, listed and sold. I've also made some progress on my book on successful eBay selling strategies for full-time RVers, and I've been asked to write some articles for the collectibles page on About.com.

What?! We have to travel...again?!!!

The weather has warmed up a lot in recent weeks. We often have afternoon temps in the 90s. Soon it's going to get uncomfortably hot, and with solar power, we can't run an air conditioner. Steve and I are planning to go back to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, in mid-April. So I'm working on a mental list of things I'd like to get done before we go. I had a full physical a few days ago, and I'm going to get my taxes filed this week. I'm trying to use up food, and make decisions about what clothing, art supplies, and such to take with me and what to leave here.

Tailgating at Darby Wells

Life has been routine lately, but one highlight was a picnic out on Darby Wells Road one warm Sunday afternoon. This is an area that several travelers I know have talked about in their blogs, and for good reason. It's one of the most beautiful parts of the Senoran Desert I've seen so far, and it's BLM land where you can camp for two weeks (although I heard recently that, practically speaking, the two weeks starts when an official stops by to check on you--and that rarely happens on Darby Road, where there are far more Border Patrols than BLM rangers).


We also took a nice trip to Tucson last week to spend time with one of Steve's cousins who was visiting from Oregon. Going to Tucson usually means eating too much and spending more money than we do out here where there is hardly anything to buy. I visited the Tucson Mall and found some really practical, comfortable chinos and walking shoes at reasonable prices. Score!


Our six months in Why is almost over and I never produced the artwork I'd planned. I had anticipated going back to TorC with a gallery show ready to hang. I had an idea and most of the materials I needed to do it, but I did not have the creative energy. This was largely due to my concerns over my kid, who has had lots of ups and downs with mental illness since last fall. I guess my biggest accomplishments this winter have been to sustain a happy, loving relationship with my new partner, to live in a new place where I am always meeting new people and have no old friends, and to come to peace, albeit sometimes a fragile one, with my son's life situation.

These curtains are lovely silk scarves that didn't sell on eBay

These things are enough. The art will happen when it's supposed to. In the meantime, I have made a daily habit of drawing mandalas while taking an afternoon coffee break, and that has rekindled some of my creative energy. I've also gotten some more redecorating done around Steve's 5th wheel. There are colorful curtains on all of the windows, some made from my scarf inventory and others from vintage fabrics I'd collected. It is definitely more enjoyable being in Steve's place now that not everything is brown!


I'm looking forward to getting back home to Truth or Consequences, where I have more friends and there is a good coffee shop/bookstore, a movie theater, and lots of 12-Step meetings. I understand there is also now really good bakery bread to be had from the Bountiful Kitchen--I'm looking forward to trying it and seeing what else has happened in my absence. With that, I'm off to do some packing.

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.