Thursday, June 30, 2016

Breaking the Reported Radio Silence...

Yeah I know. I've been mostly quiet for a long damn time. I have started several posts since the last one only they all started down the same lousy trail; Oil change morons overfilled the crankcase and I didn't catch it until I found the puddle under the truck... This broke, fixed it, that broke fixed that, this other thing is failing... can't afford to fix it yet...yadda yadda yadda.

They were all tedious and boring so the delete button got pushed every time. I'm weary of all that.

... I'm not in Missouri any longer and I didn't go north to the badlands like I'd planned. A few things came up that herded me back to Colorado to get taken care of. While here I got snared by the VA again, so though my other issues got took care of I've got to wait on multiple VA appointments. Mid July should see me rolling free...

Then I'm intending to move on up into Western Montana for the rest of the summer.

Just now I'm sitting back, doing my waiting and writing in a favorite camp a half hour or so east of Steamboat Springs. It's only fault, which I'm beginning to see as Not a fault at all is; there's little to no signal in there... so to even send this post I'm sitting in the cab of the truck a few miles up the road...

I actually came here when I first hauled out of Missouri...





I Frequently refer to Arlo as "Bat Shit Crazy" ... well... don't that face look a lot like a Bat??



Well... that there next one is... Bat Shit Crazy!!!


It was nice and nigh on to nobody around ... but had to fall back to the front range for that dinged fix this repair that dance. I'm back now and sequestered in the rig banging away on the next story.


Same beaver pond, maybe ten days apart, and a slightly different angle but... spring works fast in the mountains...




*Arlo Tasting the remains of one of the last drifts left*

Anyway...Working on that story and spending a lot of time sorting out and conjuring up what the devil I'm going to be doing when I wake up and the future has arrived.

I've always read that when you find you've wandered down a wrong fork go back to where you turned wrong and go the other way... I'm leaning that direction... just fairly indecisive about just where that wrong turn lays... and so the working to sort it out... It'll come... I'm grumpy ( I know because ever' damn soul tells me so) and stubborn enough that one way or t'other... I'll find a way.

I've come to realize that how I see me and how others see me is how it is and ain't ever gonna change... Trying to gain their approval is how you end up looking back and realizing you did way to many things to please their opinion and far too little to please your own. Making it all a muddy mess that nobody is happy with. I also have a bad habit of falling into the same traps I try and warn ever'body else about because I'm payin' attention to them and not my own feet... so yeah... I keep the stew boiling between my ears... which is what caused the overheating that burned off all the hair...

In the mean time...

Me and Arlo seem to have turned a corner. Getting his architecture modified while we were in Missouri seems to be helping tone down his Wild Eyed Bat Shit crazy episodes. He's even finally in the last week begun to respond much better to the discipline training I've always required of all my canine cohorts.

I've begun to get some control of him at a distance. All my other dogs I could drop on the ground even if they were three hundred yards away. They'd sit right there until I gave them the signal to do otherwise.

Crazy Arlo ain't near to that yet... but I can drop him, with so so reliability, at twenty or thirty yards now... which before all I could do was tie him to a rock or turn him loose to do his Ricochet Rabbit imitation...so we're gaining.

Part is the missing cajones I'm sure. Part is that for the past several months in Missouri and still here in this boondock camp in Colorado he's able to run and run and run a great deal... burning off the energy he carries in his Hyper active skull. Then on top of that is the fact that he has managed to survive to the point that he's on the edge of maturing... yup... I didn't just get driven fruit loops and shoot the crazy mutt!

So... I run my circles and keep finding myself starting over... again... with me it's more like a continuous spinning spiral than a circle! I think that's why I'm dizzy about half the time!

Time will tell where this latest convolution takes me... I'm hoping it is in the direction of more simplified minimalism (to climb out of those traps I mentioned I often blunder into)... but what the hell, I'm just along for the ride anyway!

Brian

6 comments:

Karin Corbin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Spotted Dog Ranch: said...

Good to hear from you - have been wondering how things are going!

Unknown said...

Howdy Mr. Gore;

Been wonderin' where you were and what's going on. Looks like you're in a nice camp and that you and Arlo are still tolerating each other. Is your camp near where we went elk hunting years ago? I still chuckle whenever I think of your reactions to my rig parking abilities, sense of direction, and wanting to introduce you to that moose... It was a fun trip with a good friend.

We now have place about a mile to the west of Buffalo, WY. It's about across the road from the WY Veteran's Home.

Trying to sell the bus now...and buy a pickup without all the emissions crap. Why is it that that when you want buy something with wheels under it they're all kinds of expensive but when you want to sell it a few years later it ain't worth squat?

Headed to Denver next week for more doctor appointments... Looks like another back surgery is in Cathy's future...

Adios!

FnEJP said...

Good to see you back. I always get a kick out of your writing style and wouldn't want you to change it a bit. Stay well.

Unknown said...

Help me! I think I am addicted to your yonderings. Glad to see you come up for air sir.

Brian said...

This camp is way south of that hunting camp Mike. That one is actually probably inaccessible right now due to the fire up there in the Big Creek Lake/Hog park area.

Same mountain though... the southern end though... that's the end that you find if you follow the grunt that can read a map and knows which way the shadows point in Late October! ;)