May 18, 2009 - Moab Utah

Now I’m in Grants (yeah, still in New Mexico) doing my laundry (campsite washing in a plastic pail works only half-ass – the socks come out still stiff and the smoke smudges still show). I’m headed up towards Chaco Canyon. I’m getting to dislike even to come into town to shop (replenish my propane, buy food, fill up the gas tank) and in this part of New Mexico the towns are composed of stirp malls full of pawn shops and Indian trading posts (Indian turquoise jewelry wholesale – dealers welcome) and of course the bars (Gallup has the biggest DUI mobile van that I have ever seen). And I turn on my phone to see if I have any messages and I don’t (and that’s good – like they say no news is good news) and I hunt for a place to connect to the Internet.

In Grant! Untrue, I'm no loner in Grant – that was a couple of weeks back – now I’m in Moab Utah and it’s getting hot. Got bitten alive by the bugs and I am tried of the tent and I want a place to rest for several days.

I am of the order whose purpose is not to teach the world a lesson but to explain that school is over – Henry Miller

First the moon, just a sliver

Tonight, then Venus

Then the rest of the vault

Slowly at first then

Rapidly Busby’s beauties

Fill up the stage and

Descend the grand

Staircase

But what we have gained in depth and breath we may have lost in immediacy and intensity – Edward Abbey

There seems to be millions of stars up there but there are only about 2,800 that are visible to the naked eye (magnitude 5.5 or greater) and that would be in the entire heavens (both northern and southern hemispheres) and if there were no light pollution from cities – so about 1400 visible stars at any one spot and much much fewer than that near a city (which I am not). Gee, that don’t seem like very many. And while on the topic of natural phenomena, what causes wash boarding (you know those little speed bumps that form on dirt and gravel roads). It is the type of suspension systems used by automobiles – length of wheelbase and weight have little effect and wash boarding is inevitable on any lose surface byway? It has to do with the way the suspension system makes the vehicle and its axels travel vertically and with longitudinal travel this creates a harmonic wave of weigh distribution – it sort of like a big metal violin. And for all the miles of gravel and dirt road I have had to lately travel I have discovered that the faster you go the less rough the washboards are – again it has to do with harmonics ( but be cautious – speed does not eliminate the ruts, potholes and rocks sticking up and it may be a very inconvenient place to tear open the oil pan)

They say (they are always
      Saying something or other)
We are making it better –
A better place for every
      One. But they (there they

      Go again) also say people

Will not apply themselves
     Without misery as a motivation
Yet when shall we know
When we’ve stockpiled

Enough and don’t have

To be miserable anymore

Alas, occult visions seem to come to those who believe in them beforehand. First the faith, then the hairy little miracle. First the pill, the tab, the wafer, the space capsule, then comes the ruby-eyed six-legged alligators swimming through your psychedelic dome – Edward Abbey

I was in the Gila headwaters – the birthplace of Geronimo – visited the Gila cliff dwellings and did a thirteen mile hike with 1600 of elevation gain (half on the way back and I hate those step climbs when you are already exhausted). So it’s a new personal best. And Geronimo was born here in 1829 and he is another whose path I keep crossing (met him at Ft Sill Oklahoma and met him in Florida). This is a land where the native American will not be ignored – and when you marginalize someone they always have a way of returning and getting even. Now it’s the Anglo’s turn to bitch.

I have spent a lot of time among the ancients – Gila Cliff Houses, the Salinas Missions, the Acoma Peublo, Chaco Canyon, Canyons of the Ancients and Hovenweeep

I call nature all that isn’t are and I include in it the heart of man – Antonio Machado

Turning back
Without regrets
Such an in decidable
    Moment
How can you help
    But regret
Not going all the way
But you have to know
    Your limits
You have to cut
Your loses

The good ol boys from San Antonio pull out – put what they had (the grandkids' ten and the patio chairs) into the truck and headed west – Where are you headed? West! How far? Arizona, heard there was gold to be found there lying at your feet. Yeah, I heard them rumors before and every time I get there it has all been thoroughly picked over. Yeah, know what you mean. I went to Arkansas hearing there were diamonds to be found. Just Hope, I replied

Listening to repeating is often irritating, listening to repeating can be dulling, always repeating is all living, everything in a being is always repeating – Gertrude Stein

All the really good repartee happens in text – most of it in books but enough on cinema to make us think it the norm. The best is always in retrospect and we only communicate in the here and now. For a couch potato real time is so very tedious and boring. I have been told that there's a French word that means thinking up the perfect repartee after the fact.

This is not just talking, this all has real meaning – Gertrude Stein

Improvements rarely improve anything
Development do not make things better
Merely words for cash flow enhancements

If all the personnel of the US Border Patrol were lined up along the Mexican border there would be one every 500 feet which is about a fifth of the strength of the front line trenches in World War I but of course they were shorter.

And another reason for coming into town – I have almost run out of books to read and I am really having difficulty finding anything worth reading (of course I could always get a Harlequin Romance at Wal-Mart). This Laundromat is next to the only bookstore in town. I came by here last Sunday but it was closed (was that Mother’s Day?). They also will probably have mysteries and romances but I have to give it a try. I bought a history of the Spanish frontier (California, Arizona, New Mexico and Florida) at the National Park bookstore at El Morro but have almost finished it too as well as Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans. Then I shall have nothing to read and have to head towards the city. Well I just moved my laundry from the washer to the dryer. I have been to the grocery store and will stop at the gas station and bank on the way of town. I will also stop at the library and see if I can connect to the Internet (otherwise this will not get posted anytime soon).

Tell those who worry about their health that they are already dead – Henry David Thoreau

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