When we got back I got the scooter loaded up... and Wednesday morning we bailed out of our Little Ash Creek camp and moved North.
Took care of the "Facilities" and fresh water in Camp Verde and then, in spite of their whiny ways when it comes to RVers... we stopped at a Walmart in Flagstaff to refill the pantry. We'd worn it down so empty it almost echoed when you picked something up out of it.
So... I'm sitting in the truck reading, waitin' on herself to do the shoppin' and up rolls a guy in a grey pickup... The latest of the oddest of wierdness!
Here's that deal. I was sitting in the rig last November out on Plomosa road near Quartzsite. An email rolls in; "Hey Brian. I'm parked 'bout 300 yards east of you. Stop by and I'll buy you a beer."
Free beer? I'm in! So... I ride over and meet retired Pilot and reader of my gas, Jerry.
Well... I leave and go to Phoenix and Denver, get back... haul back out to Plomosa... and who do we bump in to at the County Park Dump Station? Yup... Jerry. Twice! Well, he went to Havasu... We went to Cholla, PIR, and Tucson etc...
So now, a couple months and a few hundred miles later... Everything is timed for that couple of minutes when we're passing through the Wally world parking lot headed north and Jerry is just makin' a quick run from near Williams for supplies... and our paths can cross once more... What's the odds, In all the random thousands of miles of road... for that "convergence" that many times?
And it's happened more than once... Charley, another reader was on a trip from South Carolina to Glacier and back, when we were just pullin' out of Colorado two years ago. He was staying for a short near Boulder... and we were running down from Fort Collins to Denver...
Only had a sliver of time, on a very few miles of road we shared, for the accidental connection to occur... and shazam! There he is hollerin' at me from truck to truck as two diesels rumbled down the interstate... :)
There was Thom, also out on Plomosa road... reading my blog as I pulled past his windshield to park... :) and several others along this journey... Just a funny and odd sort of thing to me...
Well... we made it out of Flagstaff as the winds of the approaching weather started picking up... luckily they were pushing at our backs... so I shut the engine off, threw the doors open and Sailed our Rig North! :)
We just pulled into where I figured to make night camp at Lee's Ferry... Leveled up for the night and I was going back out to do something or other... When the wind came a whippin' in worse than ever... sand pelting my head stung like a mother in law whippin' me with a yardstick!
The dang wind ripped the door out of my hand, dang near jerked me out the trailer... Slammed the door open so hard it caved in the latch carrier and punched a quarter size hole in the door... Arrrrrrrrrggggghhhhh!
uh... the neighbors heard a lil' bit different sort of storm!
Took three tries to get the thing closed... Kept jerkin' me right back outside...
Nasty lil' dust storm.... until but Ten Minutes later...
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| *After the storm passes* |
Remind me the next time the winds blowin' up a bone rattler; "Pop a soda and wait a bit before you do something!" ;)
So we took a walk down toward the river...
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| *Arizona Cactus Flower* |
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| *Prickly Pear... as beautiful as any Rose* |
... Most folks don't think of Prickly Pear Cactus as being a pretty thing... but... they sure know how to make flowers... Don't you think?
Then... as we're climbing back up the hill, these folks pulled in and parked... from Germany I believe...
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| *World Travelers for Sure* |
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| *A VW for an Adventure Traveler* |
An old guy and his wife... look to have as many miles on 'em as I do... ... I was pretty proud I rode the scooter to Alaska... I'm thinkin' these folks have put a few more miles on that VW... in a lil' rougher lands too!
Makes a guy like me feel a lil' impotent by comparison. They make a guy stop and think... ;)
Though the Winds Blow and the Dust Flies... The Day can Still Shine
Brian
5 comments:
It's a big small world with the internet.
I'll be visiting a friend and the current Artist in Residence at Lee's Ferry next Thursday, after a couple nights in Flagstaff, and on the way back to work at the North Rim.
We had winds like that once when I was going in the motorhome. Ripped the door outta my hands and the keys were still in the lock. Put a big big crease in the metal and jammed in the door stop. ARGGHHHH Yup, I *stormed* out loud too.
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Karen and Steve
(Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com
Gaelyn... no knowledge which way we're gonna be hookin' back to the east... Clockwise through Brice... or counter clock to catch monument and valley of the Gods... Time can only tell ;)
Karenin... and then... AND THEN! as soon as I jacked the rig to turn it enough so the tail would cut the wind and shelter the door... AFTER... the door got skewered... The Wind Quit!!! How Rude! ;)
A really good chuckle filled blog post today! I love some of your old sayin's you use. Never heard the 'mother in law' one before but now its in my arsenal!! Pretty pictures! I've heard about Lee's Ferry recently from another RVer's blog. Beautiful!! We are taking off for a cross country jaunt in our truck camper (with dog and cat) to granddaughter's graduation in North Carolina for the month of June. Yay, gonna see some of this beautiful country that you are living free in. Maybe we'll run into you also. Its eerie how the convergance works; but its nice when you see many familiar faces out of the blue. Its happened to us before, too.
Did you really shut the engine off and open the doors with the tail wind? Man, I gotta try that!!
Mick
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