I'll be here a while

Amassing materials

What does it take to build a 12' by 16' one room cabin? This is some of it.

It's all my fault

Me and my meteorological optimism. I had put away most of my long-sleeved shirts, gotten out the shorts, packed away the down quilt and swapped in a lighter blanket.

So it’s no wonder Nature smacked me down when I brought my Spring-at-last attitude up from the lower desert to 6,000-foot Silver City and Mimbres. “Fool,” Nature muttered. “Take some of this gloomy, drizzly days with sub-freezing nights. Bundle up, kid.”

Of course, in order to make it uncomfortable for me, Nature had to bomb the Rockies and Midwest with more show and ice. My sincerest apologies.

Man cave

Unlike me, Lou didn’t get rid of everything when he became a nomad. He kept all his tools and shop equipment stored in Oregon. When he leased a space at Coyote Howls in Arizona he got a shed and moved some of the tools there.

All the tools are reunited now that Lou has ten acres of land—land that included an insulated forty-foot shipping container. The shop makes him a very happy man.

Medicate and wait

I don’t want to turn this into a blog about my health, but here’s the latest.

I’m in New Mexico now and will be for a while as I help Lou build his home. I went to the clinic in Silver City to see what a different medical professional had to say. I gave him the story so far, he did some peeking and poking and agreed with me it was an infection. Not a goiter. Not GERD. He said the amoxicillin I was prescribed before is a rather weak antibiotic, and prescribed ten days of clindamycin (which I should take with yogurt because it sometimes causes diarrhea) and five days of the steroid prednisone.

So now I do that and see what happens.

When I picked up the meds, the clerk had a concerned look on her face. “Do you have coverage for this.”

“No, just Medicare parts A and B.”

She paused, looking at the paperwork stapled to the envelope. “Do you want me to see if there’s a coupon?”

“Um, sure.”

Before I could ask how much it was she went to fiddle with a different computer, and I’m wondering if the clindamycin is one of those outrageously expensive drugs. Did I see something like $575 on the upside down paperwork? Well, the day before was my Social Security payday so I’m “rich” at the moment, and I won’t be burning much gas while I’m at Lou’s place, so I guess I could swing it.

She returned, looking happier, and I asked, “How much?”

“It was $19.00 before, but I got it down to $15.00.”

New Mexico is one of the poorest states, so I guess everyone is cost conscious. Hey, four bucks’ll get me a Lotaburger at Blake’s. Or five yogurts at Walmart to go with the clindamycin.

That orange stuff in the sky again

Fame, no fortune

Marianne Edwards is the author of the Frugal Shunpiker series of boondocking guidebooks. I bought most of them back when I was a greenhorn nomad. They were very helpful then, but I haven’t thought about them for years.

Monday, my friend Michel emailed me.

Did u see Marianne Edwards commends your blog in her note announcing the Calif boondocking guide update?
Congrats!!

Oh? Well that’s cool. I was one of four listed as “inspiring people.” The question is whether I’m inspiring them in a good way.

Less warmth, please

You might recall I replaced my great old down quilt this winter. The new down quilt has been serving me well. But now that the weather is heating up, the down quilt keeps me too warm.

So I found this thin quilt today. About twenty-five bucks. One of the big selling points was its lack of a floral pattern. Hurray for a simple solid color! (Yes, gray is a color.)

It’s supposed to be in the low fifties tonight. That should be good for a Goldilocks test. Will the blanket keep me too cold, too warm, or just right? (No porridge, thank you.)

UPDATE: It was just right.

No dumping

This abandoned service station on I-8 not only has some interesting colors, it evidently has a problem with people trying to use it as a restroom. Ug. People.

Look closer next time

So, I would be heading east on I-8 again. Yuma to Gila Bend, to the junction with I-10 and on through Tucson. I wondered if there was a way to change up that well-traveled route, to see a new place.

I checked the map. Hmmmm, the Sonoran Desert National Monument. State route 238. Is there something more interesting that way than along I-8? Something worth the extra miles at a slower speed? I won’t know if I don’t go.

And there are a couple of towns along the way. Shawmut. Mobile. Maricopa. Probably just wide spots in the road. Maricopa is a junction, so maybe there’s a gas station, cafe, farm equipment repair shop, a boarded up business. A tiny village hanging on by its fingernails. I mean, it’s out in the middle of nowhere. Farmland surrounded by desert. And its name on the map is small.

I was wrong. Turns out Maricopa is a modern, sprawling upper-middle class suburb with a golf course and all that. If I had thought to zoom in on the satellite view I would’ve known. Oh well. It just meant the expected brief roll through an impending ghost town would actually be a crawl from frustratingly timed traffic light to frustratingly timed traffic light down the main Lexus-choked boulevard, past Starbucks and all that.

Las Cienegas

I checked and learned I had been here about the same time last year. That was a surprise. I thought it had been longer. The difference, though, was last year I was nearly alone, and this year I got the last available spot. Maybe that’s because it’s the weekend. Maybe it’s because the weather has finally warmed up and dried out. Maybe it’s just that there are a lot more nomads.

Yum

Punctuation is important

Good news, in a way

I got the thyroid test results today. The levels of whatever it was they tested are within the normal range. The ultrasound showed a couple of small nodules about one centimeter in diameter on the thyroid. They said to follow up in a year. So, no goiter, no messed up thyroid, no need to panic.

But that doesn’t solve my problem.

Since I’m on my way to spend most of the spring and summer helping Lou build shelter, I'll find a clinic there and see if they can do a better job of diagnosing me. And curing me, too, of course.

UPDATE: I'm near Silver City, New Mexico, now and went to a clinic there for another opinion. They agree it’s an infection and not GERD. They prescribed a stronger antibiotic.

Next services 32 miles

I’ve passed this place a dozen times or more and each time I swore I’d stop the next time. When I’m driving long stretches of Interstate I get some of that highway hypnosis and, doh, I passed the exit again. But not today.

Pain in the neck

You may recall I went to an urgent care facility in February to see about an infection raging in my throat, sinuses and ears. I took the prescribed antibiotics and waited for an improvement. It never really came.

So I returned today to see if there was something else that could be done. A different nurse practitioner checked me over this time. She thought the problem might be my thyroid. Specifically, a goiter. Hmmm, okay, that area of my neck is tender. So she set me up for lab work and an ultrasound on Wednesday. I went to the Mayo Clinic website to read up on thyroid problems.

At one end of the spectrum is a minor issue that can be corrected with medication. At the other is cancer, with surgery, maybe chemotherapy, maybe radiation. I, of course, am hoping it’s something on the easy side of the scale.

So, instead of just a quick stop in Yuma before heading elsewhere, I’m stuck here until Wednesday afternoon.

It’s 88°F/31°C in the van right now. The doors and windows are open. It’s tolerable, but it’ll make the wait less pleasant.

And thank you, Medicare. Everyone should have it.