There's More Time to Stand Back and Consider

 ... and things that can get fuzzy in the confusion that often accompanies life on the road... can come clear again.

Every year we take off from our Winter Camp and go go go all summer...  Hiking, riding, more hiking, photographing day trips... goin' down the road, zig zagging all over the west... knocking the dust of a long slow winter off the truck.

Seems like there's little time to really think much about where we're going... we just go; and then we retreat back to the desert in front of the coming winter.

It's that long winter in the sunny south when things slow down. The silent solitude of the desert lets me stand back and "judge" the past season... and how I might want to adjust the one coming up.

I have plenty of time to stand, looking out at the mountains so many miles away... and weigh which way my future should travel... and sort through the "stuff" I continue to freight around.

Each season my "outfit" seems to get lighter. Fewer clothes, fewer tools, simplified gadgets... The benefit of the occasional "inventory" is that the lighter weight I've been ending up with seems to allow easier breathing. ;)

A lot of Gadgets and Misc property are nice bits, but Only if they DO something... Only if they serve ME. Sounds mighty selfish don't it? But plain and simple; if they don't serve Me... I'm serving them. In this case there's no such thing as balance. The scales tip one way or the other.

My computers (2), my Cameras (down to one for a lil' while), my air card are all electronic gadgets that on occasion... cause me a great hassle. Like now when the main laptop remains non operational due to some internal hardware or software glitch I've been unable to get solved...

Those things, as great as their hassle, still Serve. They are absolute necessities for me to produce a hefty part of our income... so... I endure their occasional gyrations... though I am always searching for simplified ways of doing what they do.

...then... Folks are always trying to get me to hook on to some new "social" fad... this forum, that game, some time-sucking gee gaw... and they do that without success. I have my blogs and my websites... there's e-mail and cell phone texts... and there's the ever present love/hate presence of Facebook...

That's plenty for this old buster, with his feet trying to balance in two worlds, to deal with. If folks that want to, can't maintain commo with me with one of those... sorry... it's all I'm dealing with.

... This past summer and fall I spent... as we wandered, too much time it turns out, pondering a change to another/ a new / a different rig... the threat of a rig failure got a foothold in my head and tarnished our travels here and there.

Now, sitting here sheltered under the shade screen, slung from the awning of our rig, on a quiet, sunny, morning in the Spirit Liberating space of the Arizona Desert...

 ... the whole view can come back into focus... and balance. Which brings on the realization that for me... swapping rigs, at least for now... is a fools errand..

I can take on the burden of a "New" rig... or Keep this one. I can buy the parts to keep our old Jayco Eagle on the road... IF ... they should fail... or pay the price of a "New" rig... every month... failure or not.

In the quiet of this camp it seems a pretty simple choice.

This old rig ~the mobile version of This Old House! ;) ~  keeps the wind off, it keeps the rain out... and in the next few months the debt that still burdens it (Due to the failure of the system we all live in) will be an unpleasant memory.

... in effect... making nearly a 20% pay raise for us! I can live with that! :)

One more time... the Arizona Dust cleared my Vision. Suh-Wheet!

I pack along no anticipation that the difficulties that repeatedly blow up will one day vanish... nirvana only exists in the minds of socialists... but with each passing day and month... their power to change the path I've chosen grow weaker and weaker.

One day, they will become nothing more than a short stop on the trail to pull a sticker out of my sock... and will occupy no more memory than that.

I have discovered that the Fable of The Healing Power of the Open Road...  is No Fable.

The future... belongs to those who Seize it.

Armored by the Power of the Open Road
Brian

It Don't Mean Nuthin'...

A Long ways back... in the Army... We had a sayin'; "It don't mean nuthin'."

It's what we looked at each other and said when some bozo with bars on his collar... or scrambled eggs on his brim spewed some nonsense that made us crosseyed with trying to understand what sort of logic got them to thinkin' that what they were tellin' us was gonna do anyone any good... or achieve anything.

In the end... all we had was each other; and the garbage that bit of Soh-sigh-uh-tee dumped on us was meaningless; So don't waste time and life tryin' to understand it.

In the 41 years or so since those days... this old world hasn't come much clearer to me... except for the realization that; It don't mean nuthin'... is as true today as it ever was.

I'm the sort that stews over all the injustices and cruelties in the world. Where some turn soft and pacifist, just "Lookin' for a soft place to land"... I tend toward; Hunt the thief down and dent a 2x4 on his head...

But... then you're layin' out in the desert all out of breath with the dust stickin' to the sweat you worked up... and Nuthin' has changed...

Best thing is to put your hands in your pockets... shake your head... Tell yourself; It don't mean nuthin'... and walk off from it.

It's a piece of work for this old bike ridin' buster to do that. I have never achieved the ability to do it on auto pilot. It's something I have to have a deliberate focus on, and crank up my will power and discipline to make happen.

I've never run off from anything in my life and it seems in a way like quittin'... even if those "Things" that get under a man's skin are those things which he never has and will never have any ability or power to change.

Ahhh... just put my hands in my pockets and take a walk. Find lil' guys like this...

Don't know where he's goin' and I'm pretty sure he don't give two hoots what foolishness "Other" orange butted critters like him are up to.

... he's pretty focused on his own lil' piece of this world and his personal needs in it...

He's got a simple life... Hunt up groceries... find a place to shelter for the night...

... rinse... repeat... and no other bugs tellin' him whether he's doin' it right or not...

If you'd asked me forty years ago if I'd be jealous of a bug I'd have thought ya'll was nuts... one of those mantra hummin' kooks in a bed sheet in the airport...

Today? I'm thinkin' there just might be quite a lil' bit we could learn from a bug... if we could understand his speech...

Might even be nice if we could ever even learn to learn from history...

Here's a bit of the shadows of time...

My shadow... layin' across the tracks of Patton's tanks... laid down nearly 70 years ago!!!

... and look around... the world ain't learned a damned thing has it...

So what do I do? What do any of us do?

Accept that old saying that carried us boys along; It don't mean nuthin'. 

There's only one thing any of us can do I expect... change the only thing we can... Our selves. That's all we have any control of...

... and walk off from the rest... 

*The Plomosa Mountains*

I know where I'm healthy and strong. Fulfilled and ridin' quiet...

... and what sticks in my craw and puts a lump in my saddle... I know what I've got to Walk Away from... and I keep on workin' at gettin' better at doin' just that.

Out here in the desert you see such as this quite a bit...

Not spectacular, stunning views. Just the quiet strength of a land that seeps into your soul and quiets the argufyin' that rattles around in your head. It's these places... seen from standing in it ... or rolling through on my bike... just quiet and watching, that puts everything into proper perspective for me... over and over again.

Every time the world kicks me out of balance, it's these simple quiet places that return that sense of balance to me.

I don't need to understand how this place was made. I don't need the spectacular... I need the space and the quiet... and the soft voice such places whisper to me with; it don't mean nuthin'...

... and maybe... just might could be... I need to sustain some sort of sense of mystery... of wonder... and yes... I adore the long views of Far Country... over and over and over again... They feed my soul.

Just Living Life
Brian

Wisdom or Bull Feces?

Damn... some people are so full of themselves... and... that's the nice way of saying; Loaded up with Bull Feces.

There is "A Blogger" who delights in darkening and trying to extinguish the Joys of people living in this creation the Boss has provided us. It continues to amaze me that the anemic nature and light weight of such a philosophy seems to escape that individual.

Listen... I got up this morning to a Joyous day. As I wrote many years back, the sun was just rising over the mountains back to the east...

*Sunrise over the Arizona Desert Near Quartzsite*

 ... and illuminating the ridges off across the desert to the west...

The sweet scent of the creosote bush, the paloverde and the mesquite filled my lungs on the soft morning breeze... so soft the branches of the trees didn't move... I could just feel its soft touch on my face...

That someone can't seem to grasp the spirit filling joy of such a small and precious gift is a sadness... but it is THEIR loss and their closed mind... Not Mine.

It is NOT a "Post Card" as it has been erroneously trivialized... it is the Joyous Spirit of this far land that feeds my Soul... and ANY soul that is kept open and receptive to its Power.

Sure it is easy to see the sheer power and Beauty of Zion... The Grand Canyon... Glacier... and all the other places we have journeyed...

But this desert where we rest now, that so many call barren and desolate... for me is filled with a Joyous power far beyond the comprehension of the small "scientific" minds that exclude such SPIRIT.

I see heart filling beauty in the simple, un-spectacular vistas... EVERY time I stand IN them...

Where others can only see what's happened 265 million years ago... I REVEL in the Vital and Vibrant LIFE that surrounds me TODAY.

I REFUSE to be so small minded that I belittle or defame the joys that give others fulfillment and value.

I Treasure the exquisitely serene beauty of the rocks... RED or otherwise... that pave the trails I follow... I come back to those favorite treasured spots over and over and over... because as they were beautiful the FIRST time I saw them... they are ever more Shining with each return to familiar and known places...

... where with each return I learn new facets of the personality of that place...

To look at a Glorious, Towering Mountain... with some sort of mindless "National Lampoon Vacation" perspective... and see something STATIC... is beyond my comprehension... for such people, I am sad.

*The Boss's Morning Light begins to shine on  Arizona Mountains*

Joy... that can be sustained is not contained in the Grand and the Spectacular... but in the every day bits and pieces of this life.

... It is beaten down and buried by the negative, belittling, bull feces spread by those who only seek ways to tear down the joy others have found; for reasons I can't fathom, and which are unworthy of study...

...if they can't learn and grow... walk away... exclude them from your life, as they exclude the joy that is there to fill your eyes and your very soul... if only you will allow it.

*Sunrise over my favorite Quartzsite Mountain :) *

And if you do that .... you will also find the joys of sharing your Sweet life with other travelers along your trail...

*Like Buck and Lily's new buddy... Cisco!*

... and you'll appreciate the exquisite serenity of the soft and un-spectacular sunsets that are the prelude... to your next Sunrise...

*Serenity of an Arizona Sunset*

Seek Out Joy... Not that "Other" Stuff Manure Salesmen Shovel
Brian