Other countries get some cool vehicles

Spotted at the Albertson's in Blythe, California. An all-wheel drive, turbocharged Mitsubishi something-or-other with right-hand drive and British Columbia plates. It's a little shorter than a minivan.

Cleverness

Christine from New Mexico, who travels in a first-generation Ford Transit Connect, uses an oil change catch tank for her gray water. Its low profile works well in her limited space.

She also has the option of popping a hose onto the sink drain and letting water run out on the ground.

Meandering in the desert

My saguaro and I

Not much shade, but plenty of atmosphere

Is it a sickness or a cure?

I’ve wandered around a lot in the four and a half years since I’ve become a full time nomad. A day here, a couple of days there, a day farther down the road, and so on. And on.

It’s not that I haven’t yet found the perfect spot to settle into. I’ve been to some great places, places my former self would’ve been thrilled to live the rest of my days. But that was then. Now I could have a free place on the beach, with perfect weather, and good friends, and I’d still be itching to take off after a week or so.

Is it like getting out of prison after serving a 61-year sentence? Is it a fear of commitment? Is it too much curiosity? Is it because I hear the big clock ticking and catch occasional glimpses of the Grim Reaper? Is that I’m one of those people who doesn’t form a lot of attachments? Is it that I just haven’t found contentment yet?

I don’t know. But I’m not going to spend much time wondering about it. Wandering works for me. At least at the moment.

Um, no

Indicator

You can tell I plan to stay a while when I bother to erect some shade and put out the chair.

Amenities

A new feature at RTR. Enough to satisfy BLM regulations,

 but not nearly enough to satisfy the crowd

More people

Today's the start of the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous and the tribe has pretty much gathered. Compare today's photos you yesterday's.

I don't think folks are packed any tighter than last year's record breaking crowd, but they're spread over more area to both the north and south.

Apparently Bob has some staff this year to help keep him from being overwhelmed. Perhaps he could also enlist some large, intimidating people to handle any rule breakers.

"Dude, those using generators must camp over there."

"Hey you! Clean up after your dog. Now!"

And so on.

But things have been mellow so far. Maybe it'll hold for the next ten days.

We homeless scum have started to gather

The annual Rubber Tramp Rendezvous starts later this week but people are already arriving. Fifty, sixty, seventy rigs so far? There were several hundred last year and there's talk of maybe a thousand this year. We'll see how that works out.

To infinity and beyond

My new unlimited data plan started a couple of days ago. The primary motivation was to be able to do what I normally do, and maybe a little more, without worrying about overages toward the end of the billing cycle. But then I realized, duh, I could do anything online. Just like when I lived in my house. So, after four and a half years of feeling all sanctimonious because I no longer watched TV...

Stream, baby, stream

My kind of winter

Mild and dry. And the weather ain't bad either.

I hope I was helpful

I was at the rest stop on I-8, next to the Imperial Dunes, carrying a sack of trash to the dumpsters. A blue Ford pickup rolled my way, the driver waving at me. Was it someone I was supposed to know? He pulled to a stop next to me. The driver was a white-haired Mexican man, skin like saddle leather, with a walker stuffed in the passenger seat.

“¿Los Algodones?” he asked. Did he mean he remembered me from one of my visits there? I must have looked confused. He repeated himself, this time pointing in random directions.

“Ah! How do you get there?” I replied.

“Si. Yes.”

I wish I had been able to answer, “Ve por allí, dieciséis kilómetros, al lado del casino.” Instead, I pointed east and said, “That way, about ten miles, by the casino.”

He smiled and nodded as if he understood, then drove away in the correct direction. The casino is a very obvious landmark, and there’s a sign at the off ramp pointing to Mexico, so I assume he got to Los Algodones okay. I just wish I knew more Spanish.

The early bird gets the photo

Sunrise over the Cargo Muchacho Mountains, California

Hide and seek

Frustrating things can happen when you don’t drive for several days. And you’ve been moving things around in your van. And you’re an easily confused old fart. Frustrating things, like misplacing the van key.

I had been parked in the desert since Friday, chilling, reading, avoiding holiday traffic. But I was getting antsy and wanted to go into Yuma and maybe have a meal cooked by someone else.

The key almost always gets tossed on the counter along with my wallet. Sometimes it stays in my pocket. But it was neither place today. It also wasn’t on the floor, the bed, between the mattress and the wall, under the bed, in the laundry bag, in the pockets of the pants in the laundry bag, in the cupboard, in the cabinet, in the storage boxes, on the ground outside the van, under the driver’s seat, in the wastebasket… I even checked in the poo bucket. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I had resigned myself to getting the spare from its hiding place under the van and having another key made when a small idea made its way into conscious thought. “Check the mailboxes.”

I have a row of mailboxes along the wall where I store underwear, socks, odds and ends, and medication. I can usually grab the pills I need by touch, but the other night I emptied that mailbox while trying to find the aspirin. Then I scooped everything from the counter and dumped it back into the box. I hadn’t noticed “everything” included the key.

The upside of this, besides finding the key, is knowing it hadn’t been a case of intentionally putting the key somewhere that made perfect sense at the time and then forgetting where.