Lunch and shopping

In the course of familiarizing himself with his new community, Lou discovered the senior citizens’ center and its two-buck lunches. Today’s menu: chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, a biscuit, peaches and an apple.

After enjoying some solid food I checked out the thrift shop where I discovered this excellent rayon camp shirt. Also two bucks. Thank you to whichever fashionable resident of the Mimbres Valley donated this fine garment.

Laundry is not for the meek

People, places or things

An odd thing happened when I was finally free to return to the road. You can see it in my blog posts the past couple of weeks. They’re less about the places I went or the scenery I saw and more about the people I met up with.

Damn, I’ve become sociable.

Maybe it’s because Nature, in its disinterested way, hadn’t shown concern for my wellbeing this summer. No mountains wished me luck in my treatment, no bodies of water offered encouragement, no sunsets shared kind thoughts. But people did.

My priority has been to see family and friends. Like a normal person. The landscapes will still be there afterward.

The Other Alan arrived yesterday at Rancho Lou. It was good to see him again. Yay! People!

Ring of fire

Stock butane burner

I like my butane stove. Easy to light, good temperature control. However, the thing the pots and pans sit on (someone give me the proper name for that) doesn’t work well with my tiny one-egg pan. The points are too far apart so the pan can’t sit level.

With the thingamabob added

So I got a filler/reducer thingamabob from Amazon. I had looked at several and thought I had ordered a cast iron one. What I got was stamped steel. Um, okay, my fault. The way it was stamped, though, made its prongs point slightly upward. That meant the pan was trying to sit on top of a pyramid. But I managed to bend the prongs downward to solve that problem. Time to cook.

Happy, stable little pan

Well, whatever the black coating is, it started smoking and fuming. Open the door, turn on the fan, wait for it to quit. Okay, there we go. Everything from there on went just fine. And the bacon & eggs were tasty.

Superclean

Shave and a haircut, $12, by Tom at Silver Clipper Barber Shop, Silver City, New Mexico. There was no bleeding.

The last time I was reclined and a guy was working on me with something sharp, I was having a tracheostomy. This was more pleasant.

Reunion

When Lou left me in the hospital in Tucson, he believed he might never see me again. We are both thrilled he was wrong.

I’m back at Lou’s place and my plan is to hang around until it gets too cold for me.

Bisceddi

I was hungry. I was approaching Socorro. I wanted something other than a burger or pizza (neither of which I was certain I could eat anyway). I wanted something local, not a chain. The parking lot of the El Camino Family Restaurant was full, which is a good indicator, but who could resist that Jetsons sign?

The “seniors and children” menu had spaghetti for six bucks, including garlic bread. It was pretty good, though it could’ve been a little wetter.

In real life

Four years ago I read this article about a guy boondocking with a Geo Metro. I wrote a blog post about it. A little later, the man in the article and in my post, Michel Herrmann, started commenting on this blog. So I started reading his blog.Then we started exchanging email.

One day, totally unplanned, our wanderings had us passing just feet from each other. I was camped at Buckeye Hills Regional Park (back when you could do that) and he was looking for a spot. (By then he had exchanged the Metro for a Tracker.) He didn’t stop because, I learned later, he was experiencing extreme intestinal distress and needed to, um, be alone.

He has been temporarily housed in Albuquerque while his rig undergoes repairs. When he learned I was in New Mexico, he invited me to visit and discuss weighty topics.

There are risks bringing people from the virtual world into one’s real world, but I had a good feeling about Michael. So I was there last night.

He took me to dinner at an Albuquerque institution, the Frontier Restaurant across from UNM. I had a carne adovada burrito (thumbs up) and he had a breakfast burrito, wet. And we talked.

This morning we talked some more, about life, death, cancer, aging, purpose, meaning, therapy, validation, opera, espionage, lies, love, sex, careers, contentment, heater cores and a lot of other stuff. It was fun and enlightening. I still have good feelings about Michael.

Three amigos

Linda May is the thread that winds through Jessica Bruder’s Nomadland. A well educated, multi-skilled woman, yet the work she was able to find paid poorly or didn’t last long, making survival difficult.

Francis McDormand bought the movie rights to Nomadland and chose Chloé Zhou to direct. Zhou likes to use the actual people in her reality-based films, and Linda May was asked to play herself. With the money she was paid, she bought some land near Taos, New Mexico, where she hopes to build an off-grid earth ship and grow much of her own food. There’s room on her acreage for her children and their families, plus nomadic friends who need a place to crash.

When Linda May learned I was back on the road after cancer treatment, and that I was heading to New Mexico, she invited me to visit. Of course!

When fellow nomad Debra Dickinson heard I was going to visit Linda May, she reversed course so she could join us. Debra was the victim of a vicious beating that left her with Traumatic Brain Injury. Despite various symptoms that make day-to-day living difficult, Debra has built an independent and rewarding life.

So there we were, three people overcoming adversity yet happy and feeling rich.

(Oh, and I worked as an extra in the movie. And the Rolling Steel Tent worked as a prop. The RST got paid more.)

Coat and hat of many colors

Sporting my chemotherapy happiness jacket again, with the addition of a cap I’ve had for decades. This photo reminds me of one from a few years back:

Changeover

Near Taos, New Mexico, at about 8,000 feet. An extra blanket last night, the heater turned on this morning, and a jacket until 11:00. Such are the signs of the beginning of autumn. Where did my summer go?

Oh. Yeah.

UPDATE: Clouded over, cold wind blowing in, jacket back on at 1:15.

Rough job

My friend Forrest is the caretaker for a 2,200 acre ranch in the San Juan mountains of southwest Colorado. The owners are in the East and rarely come here. He invited me to visit. This is the view from the house.

At dusk the elk come down to drink. There were about 30 of them this time.

What will you see?

We got an early start, when it was still chilly

This morning we hiked Grand Wash, from bottom to top. A gradual climb through a dramatic chasm. One of my favorite places.

A guy my age was hiking from the other end. He asked, “How much farther?”

“You’re about a third of the way through.”

“Is it all like this?”

“The Narrows start just around that bend.”

“What’s at the end? A view or something?”

I wanted to reply, “You’re in the view, man. Look around.” But instead I just gave him the facts. “It ends at the highway.”

He harrumphed and said, “Then I’ll just see the Narrows and turn around.”

Sometimes we get conditioned to expect the grand vista, the holy-cow view, as if that’s the whole point of visiting national parks. I’m as guilty as anyone. But I’ve learned the joys of going down into the view, of being swallowed up in it, of being part of it, not just an observer.

Connie becomes part of the view

Meet the kin

My sister Connie and brother-in-law Kent came down from Salt Lake City. We hiked the Hickman Bridge trail. Or part of it, until my body gave out. I’m not as recovered as I’d hoped. We’ll hike again tomorrow. On a flatter trail. Right, guys?

Resting my weary ass by the Fremont River

Afternoon stroll

Deep, narrow, rock-faced canyons are one of my favorite environments. This is Capitol Gorge in Capitol Reef National Park. An easy one for those of us recovering from cancer.