Cotopaxi

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The story I am about to tell involves the mountain above, Cotopaxi, a stratovolcano, also called a composite volcano, a tall, conical shape composed of many layers of hardened lava and volcanic ash. These kinds of volcanoes are characterized by a steep profile and periodic, explosive eruptions. The lava that flows from them cools and hardens before spreading very far. Cotopaxi has a summit elevation of 19,388 feet. It has erupted 50 times since 1738. The 1877 eruption melted snow and ice on the summit, which produced mudflows that traveled 60 miles from the volcano. The most recent eruption of Cotopaxi ended in 1904. Reports of an eruption in 1942 have not been confirmed. Loosely translated from the Quechua, Cotopaxi means "Smooth Neck of the Moon"

At the time, around 1970, we lived in the town of Latacunga, at the base of this volcano. You can locate it on the map above, some 50 miles south of Quito. The city had a population at the time of about 20,000, and we were the only English speaking family in the city. We were home-schooling our daughter, Debbie, through the Calvert System out of Maryland. We taught her at home in the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades. I am not sure which school year it was, but her geography book stated that the world’s highest, active volcano was one in Hawaii. We knew better, because we lived at the foot of the world’s highest, active volcano. We wrote the school and told them their text book was wrong. The school wrote back, after some research, and acknowledged that we were correct. They said, “I guess we will have to take the Parsons family as the authority on volcanoes.”

Anyway, this is not the story. The whole story involves the area directly around the base of the mountain. The fact that we are now “camping” full-time is nothing new. We have camped quite a lot in our time, but then it was “tent-camping,” the old fashion way. At this particular time we decided to go camping around the mountain with some friends who lived in Quito. We were to search out a good area for the purpose, since we lived near by. We knew we would need a “four-wheel-drive” vehicle to accomplish this feat because the conditions around the mountain were primitive at best. Although our friends had a four-wheel-drive, we only had a Ford station wagon. So we borrowed a four-wheel-drive vehicle from other friends.

Carolyn and I took off around the mountain to search out a camping spot. Why do you suppose that the song, “She’ll be comin’ around the mountain when she comes“….has just hit my mind? I guess it is appropriate. But, as I was saying, we started out bumping over rough ground, fording streams (we crossed 14 streams in all), coming upon herds of wild horses (you see a picture of some of them above), and generally enjoying ourselves. We finally found a spot between the streams (similar to the streams you see above with the horses) that we thought would be perfect. We made our way back out of the wilderness, and no, we didn’t get lost.

We informed our friends that we had found the “ideal” spot, and we planned the date and time to go. We met at the entrance to the mountain area. It had recently rained and we knew the terrain would be muddy and slick. We also knew that we would need the four-wheel-drive. In those days, converting from two-wheel-drive was a manual operation on each wheel, no central button to push or lever to pull.

We made the driving adjustments and started off to locate our “spot.” We slipped, slide, bounced and forded the same 14 steams. We arrived at our site, setup our tents and prepared for a three-day camp experience in a beautiful, wild setting. As we were ending our preparations, it began to rain again. We had experienced rain before. No big deal. We huddled in one tent, the six of us. Our friends had a son near the same age as our daughter. We talked, tried games, then decided that we would have to cook and eat inside our tents. The rain was coming down hard. Dark had come and there was not much to do except get some sleep and hope for a better day tomorrow. We separated and went to bed. Actually, we went to “ground.”

It rained all night. Our tents began to leak. We tried to adjust the best we could, but there was not much sleeping going on that night. We were more wet than anything. The next morning, it was still raining. We fixed some breakfast, and wondered what we should do. We noticed that the streams were rising fast and beginning to encroach on our camp site. We decided it was best to get out of there while we still could. If we could!

We packed our wet tents. Loaded our vehicles and approached the stream. The water was rushing rapidly and still rising. We were not sure that we could successfully ford the streams since the water was now much higher. We made the decision and our friends started across first. They got midway of the stream, and the engine died. They were sitting in the stream, water half-way up the doors, and the engine was stalled. We were still on the bank looking on.

The carburetor was most likely wet. It needed to be dried. To do this, one would have to crawl out the window, get on the hood, step down on the bumper, lift the hood and dry the carburetor with a rag…….provided that said person didn’t fall in the rushing water. Our friends, let’s call them Bill and Marilyn, simply because that is their names, chose Bill for the honors.

We decided that Bill would tie a rope around his waist, toss the other end to me on the bank, and I would hold tension on him to keep him from falling in the stream. He crawled out the window and onto the hood. As soon as he attempted to place a foot on the bumper….down he went, into the water. My efforts at holding tension was worth nothing. So much for that idea.

Bill stood in the rushing water up to his waist, lifted the hood and dried the carburetor. He indicated to Marilyn to try the engine. Varooooom! It started. Bill closed the hood, turned his back on the car and started wading across the stream and motioned for Marilyn to drive across behind him. She did, and we followed in our car without incident. That was one stream. There were 13 more to come.

The going was tough at times and we were not always sure we would make it. There were times when I thought that we were going to turn over on some of the slick, angled paths that we had to traverse. But we made it through all in one piece. We were grateful for four-wheel-drive! It was only when we had gotten back to the main highway that I discovered that there was something wrong with the wheels of my “borrowed” vehicle. The four-wheel-drive element had not been working. I had been driving with only two-wheel drive. If I had known this during the trip, I would have been very afraid. If something had happened to us, they would still be looking for us in that wilderness. There was no one else around, and no one knew where we were going.

The things we don’t do when we are young! Until next time.

Preparation

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Winter is winding down and we are getting ready to make a move. We will be leaving Gila Bend on April 4th. Our current plans are to head Northwest. First to Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, then across the top of the country, making our way back to Tennessee. Better than a covered wagon, but not much faster. The trip will take two or three months, depending on when we need to be back in Tennessee for medical service. All is not fully decided as yet. By the time we cross the demarcation line between the “West” and the “Mid-West,” we will have spent some eight months out West.

Before we pull out we will need to get the truck’s 30 thousand mile maintenance and make sure the fifth-wheel is in top shape. We will also need to get a chip in our windshield repaired before it creates a “spider-web“ effect. Some weeks back a large truck threw a rock at us just before we got back to the campground from a trip to Phoenix.

Today we went to the Gila Bend gift shop to pick up a little memento of our time here. You see pictures above of the outside and inside of the store. We picked up an arrangement of cacti in a hollowed-out puma stone, something we can put in our bay-window. It won’t need much care. It’s a good thing it doesn’t, because we are not going to give it much. Cactus can pretty much take care of itself.

The Winter has been good to us here. We have enjoyed the site and the friends we have made. As you no doubt know, Winters are mild here. The biggest change is a cold front coming through that drops the temperature from the mid-80s to the mid-70s. There is also no rain. We had only one day of rain since we have been here, and that was very light. But, even a little rain makes things start to grow. I showed you pictures of the “greening” of the desert a few blogs back. Now, it is much greener with wild flowers and ragweed all about.

We are glad the weather has been so nice, but rain doesn’t bother us much. It seems that many events in our married life has included rain. When Carolyn and I were dating, back in the dark ages of the 1950s, rain produced some strange happenings. I was stationed at an Air Force Base in the area and met her at a church in her small rural community. The church was having a Valentine get-to-gather for the young people (we were young then, I swear) and somehow I was in charge of the music for the event. At least, I was in charge of the sheet music. After a practice session (Carolyn was the pianist), I went back to her house. Of course, it was raining. “Cats and dogs,” as the saying goes.

By the time I left her house, late in the evening, it was difficult to see in the dark, heavy rain. There are no street lights in the country and it was difficult to see where the road began and ended. Well, as Parsons’ luck would have it, I ran off the road and got stuck in a ditch right in front of her driveway. I tried to get the car un-stuck by the tried-and-true method of rocking, back and forth. All I could do was spin the tires. I needed some traction, I reasoned. I looked around in the rain for something that I could put under the rear tire for traction. I found nothing.

Being soaked to the skin, and you know it was cold since it was around Valentine’s Day, I decided to use the only dry thing that I had at hand…….the sheet music. I stuck every sheet of music I had under the rear wheel and gave it a try. The only thing I accomplished was a new way to shred sheet music. Defeated, I trudged back to Carolyn’s door, knowing that now everyone had gone to bed, and knocked. By the time Carolyn got to the door, I was one “drowned rat.’’ There was nothing to do but wait until morning to get help with the car, my dark-blue, 1950, four-door sedan.

Keep that car in mind for this next event. Yes, it was again raining, and had been for days. On this particular Sunday afternoon, dressed in our Sunday best, Carolyn and I were driving to a friend’s house. The rain was coming down hard, all the windows, naturally, were up and fog was forming on the inside of the windows. You know how it is. To reach our destination it was necessary to go under an elevated railroad track.

We approached the downward sloping section under the railroad, when suddenly we stopped with an impact as if we had run into a wall. Water sprayed up over the windshield and the car. The underpass was flooded, and we were in water almost up to the car windows. The car was setting at about a 40 degree angle. Hood practically under water. Now water was beginning to seep into the car. Water was up to my ankles before I realized that I still had my foot on the brake.

The water kept rising. We put our feet in the seat. The water kept rising. By the time the water flooded the front seat, Carolyn had leaped into the back seat to escape the water. Vehicles began to form behind us. Someone suggested a rope to put on the rear bumper to pull us out. Someone had a rope. Someone tied it to the bumper. Someone else attached it to a truck bumper and backed us out of the water.

We opened the car doors and the water rushed out of the car. We tried the ignition. Believe it or not, the car started. We thanked everyone who had helped, and because we were young, we just continued on our journey (of course, by a different route) to our friend’s house. When we arrived, everyone saw Carolyn in the back seat and me in the front. They wondered if we had had a spat. The car told the story of that event, by a water mark half-way up the doors, until the day it was no longer mine.

So if it rains on our continuing trip, I think we can handle it. I may, however, need to buy some sheet-music and get our rope ready. So, the moral is, if you can’t keep dry, just enjoy the rain. Maybe next time I will tell you about a time in the rain and the mountains of South America.

On Through Africa

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There was nothing noteworthy about the flight to Nigeria. When I arrived in Lagos, the capital city, it was almost dark. We twisted our way through the streets of Lagos, past numerous poor housing, to the Federal Palace Hotel. It was now dark. I was tired and eager for some welcomed rest. It was January, but the weather in Africa was hot.

I approached the check-in desk and gave them my name and indicated that I had a reservation. The clerk found my information, told me the cost for the entire stay, which amounted to something close to three hundred dollars. I offered my American Express card.

“Oh, we don’t take that,” he said.
“What? When I made my reservation I was told that you accept the American Express.”
“We used to,” he said, “but we had trouble with the local office getting paid, and we no longer accept the card.”

Great, I thought. Now what are we going to do? I had no more than one hundred dollars on me. It was late at night and no banks were open. We worked out a deal so they would allow me to stay the night if I would go to the bank the next morning to get money. But, how was I going to get Nigerian currency with nothing to offer for it? I had no more money and no traveler’s checks.

I was taken to my room on an upper floor by the bellman. “Our air-conditioning is not working, but I will bring a fan to your room,” he told me. Terrific, what else can go wrong.

The room was very warm so I opened the large windows close to the bed to let in a breeze, such as it was. While I waited for the bellman to return with a fan, I made a phone call back to Ohio, where we were then living, to ask Carolyn to make contact with the President of the company to see if he could wire me some money the next day. The President called later in the evening. I explained the situation, gave him the name of a bank in Lagos, and asked to receive $500. He said it would be done as soon as the bank opened.

The bellman returned with a large floor fan on a tall pedestal. Perhaps this will work. I got ready for bed, left the windows open, turned the fan directly on me and tried to get some sleep. In the middle of the night, the fan went off. No electricity. I tossed for most of the night in the heat, but finally dozed off to sleep. I was awakened by a terribly loud noise that sounded like music. I opened my eyes and it was just getting light. I listened. It sounded like a band playing near by. I got out of bed and looked out the window in the dim light of early morning. What I saw, beyond the wall surrounding the hotel, was a military band marching and playing with all their might. They were having a full-dress parade. The hotel was next door to a military base.

No more sleep was possible. I decided to clean-up, get dressed, have breakfast and find the bank. I use an electric razor, but there was no electricity. It was the days before re-chargeable razors, but being the smart traveler that I was, I also carried a safety razor. I turned on the faucet in the bathroom sink in preparation for shaving. No water came out. I tried the other faucet. Nothing.

OK! No electricity, no water. Just what one would expect from a luxury hotel. So just how was I expected to shave. Where would you expect to find water in a bathroom, if not in the sink? In the commode. Right? No, not in the bowl! In the tank. I took the lid off the tank, stoppered the sink, and with a paper cup, filled it from the commode tank. This, I reasoned, should be safe enough for washing and shaving.

After cleaning up, as best I could under the circumstances, I made my way to the lobby. I talked to the finance clerk and told him I would go to the bank and see about the money I needed. When I got to the bank, no wire had arrived. I checked again toward the end of the day. Still nothing had arrived. After the days business, I returned to the hotel fully aware that I would have some explaining to do. I tried to sneak past the finance clerk, but he saw me. I explained the situation and said, “Tomorrow for sure.” Another day of reprieve.

Every time I passed the hotel desk the finance clerk would ask, “You got the money yet?”
“Not yet,” I would say, “I’ll go check at the bank.”

This scenario played out for several days, and still the money did not arrive. I flew from Lagos to the northern city of Kaduna (You can find it on the map above.) for a day. The airline did accept my credit card. When I returned, still no money and I was scheduled to leave Nigeria after one more day.

I had talked to the President of the Nigerian Bank numerous times trying to get the money problem solved. The day before I was to leave I was back at the bank. I felt like I had become friends with the President. I was sitting in his office asking what could be done. I had to leave the country.

The President said, “I will lend you the money.” He reached into his pocket, opened his wallet and handed me $500 worth of Nigerian currency. Just like that!

“I will get my money back when the wire arrives,” he said. “If it doesn’t come, then you can send it to me when you get home.”

I returned to the hotel, settled my bill and prepared to leave Nigeria the next day headed for Nairobi, Kenya. Finally, I thought, my money problems were behind me. I was wrong!

In order to leave Nigeria it was necessary to declare the amount and type of currency one was carrying. As I presented this declaration to the official at the gate, when I was getting ready to board the plane, I was informed that I could not leave the country with the amount of Nigerian currency that I had.

“What am I suppose to do about that,” I inquired.
“You will have to have it exchanged into dollars,” I was told.
“And where do I have that done?”
“Go to the bank on the lower floor,” he said.

I left the line and hurried to find the bank. The bank was a small unit with one window. I went up to the clerk, showed him my fist-full of currency and asked to have it exchanged into dollars. The clerk just laughed.

“I don’t have any dollars,” he said. “I only get one hundred dollars for the entire day and it doesn’t last an hour.”
“Then how am I supposed to get this money changed?”

The clerk just shrugged his shoulders. I hurried back to the gate, explained the problem to the official and he shrugged. I offered him money. He shook his head. I offered more money. Finally, after $75 worth of local currency was offered, he took it. I got on the plane still with a fist-full of Nigerian currency and no dollars. “Bribe” is not a dirty word in many countries of the world.

After arriving at my hotel in Nairobi and checking in, they did accept my card, I still needed dollars. I went to the cashier window and was able to get dollars on my card. I also asked to exchange the Nigerian currency for Kenyan.

“We don’t accept Nigerian currency,” I was told. “You will have to go to a bank.”

I later went to a bank and got the same story. Nigerian currency not accepted. They suggested that I go to the U.S. Embassy. The Embassy office told me that they were not a bank, they didn’t exchange currency. I talked to the person in charge of the office. He was reluctant to exchange the money, but would, for a $50 fee. To whom the fee went, I couldn’t say, but I was free of the currency nobody wanted.

I won’t try to tell you today about the rest of my trip. On to South Africa, then proceeding to Brazil where I was supposed to visit the schools in Rio and Sao Paulo. I say “suppose to“, because I didn’t. Someone forgot to tell me that the schools were on holiday during that time. I had to spend two days in Rio before I could connect for a return flight home. All I could do was enjoy the city. Touch duty, but somebody has to do it.

Continued Travels

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As I was saying……Ghana. I arrived in Accra, the capital city, and made my way to the luxury hotel (at least by Ghanaian standards). You may know that a visa is required to enter Ghana, that is pretty standard, but what you may not know is that in order to get a visa one has to purchase at least $300 worth of Ghanaian currency. I’m not sure what the exchange rate was at that time, but now it is on par with the US dollar. Then, it was much lower. One arrives in Ghana with a pocket full of Cedis (Ghanaian currency). You see a picture of the currency above. You also have here a map of Ghana so you can locate these strange places.

Here is where the currency comes in. When I attempted to hand the clerk the appropriate amount of Cedis for my room, the clerk said, “Sorry sir, we do not take those.”

“What,” I said, “you don’t accept your own currency?”
“No sir.”
“I’m required to buy all this Ghanaian currency and you don‘t use it?’
“Sorry sir,“ he says.
“What do you accept“, I asked.
“Only US dollars. No credit cards,” he tells me.

Now, my custom was to carry only a small amount of cash. $300 for an entire seven week trip. I used credit cards, specifically, one credit card, the American Express. This credit card was in my name only, and I used it so much in my world travels that the credit card company saw to it that because of my level of spending, I received catalogs for yachts and jet planes. I was a real big spender in their eyes. Don’t I wish!

In that time and that place hotel rooms were not that expensive. Not like today, but still, it took half the cash that I had to pay for the room. One is required to pay the whole bill in advance. I suppose they are afraid that one will slip away in the middle of the night. None of this made me too happy. Besides, I was suffering from a good case of diarrhea and feeling none to chipper.

I got my luggage to the room and decided that I needed some food to settle my queasy stomach. I went to the open-air restaurant in the hotel to get a bite. I chose a table next to a railing overlooking a courtyard below. I ordered a ham sandwich and a Coke. That seemed to be the only thing on the menu that might work on my sick stomach.

As I waited for my order, I watched some large lizards in the courtyard below scampering around doing their exercise. At least it looked to me like they were doing push-ups. They would run a few feet, stop, then raise and lower their bodies rapidly on their front legs, run a few more feet and repeat the exercise. Interesting! When I wasn’t watching the lizards, I watched the waiters going by with orders on trays. It seemed that on every tray was a big bottle of Coke.

After a while my waiter returned to my table, empty-handed. “I’m sorry sir,” he said, “we don’t have any Coke.”

“What do you mean you don’t have any Coke? Every waiter going by has a Coke on the tray.” Just then, another waiter passed my table with a Coke on his tray. “See,” I pointed to that tray, “there goes a Coke.”

“Yes sir, but those are only for guests.”
“I’m a guest, so you can bring me a Coke.”
“I’m sorry sir,” he says, “we don’t have that many Cokes and those are only for room service.”

What is going on here, I thought. First, Cokes are only for guests, then, only for room service. “Let me understand this,” I say to the waiter, “I can not be served a Coke at my table?”

“No sir, we only have a few Cokes and we must save them for room service. I can bring your sandwich and something else.” By this time I had had it, to my limit. This did not seem reasonable.

“Just forget it,” I told the waiter. I got up to leave.
“You don’t want your sandwich?’ he asked.
“No thank you!” I went to my room. But when I got there, I was determined to get my Coke.

I picked up the phone and dialed room service. “Yes sir,” the voice said, “how may I help you?”
“I would like a ham sandwich and a Coke please.”
“A Coke, sir?”
“Yes, a Coke.”
“Very good sir, it will be about 15 minutes.”
“Thank you.”

After about twenty minutes, there was a knock on the door, and a voice said, “Room Service.”
I opened the door and there stood a waiter holding a tray with a glass of ice and a bottle of Coke. At last! I looked again at the tray and said, “Where is my sandwich?’

“Oh, we were out of that, sir.”

I took the Coke. Tipped the waiter. Shut the door and had my Coke. I didn’t feel like eating anyway. I called it a day and went to bed. Maybe the night would be better than the day. In three days I was to leave Ghana and head to Nigeria. I was to discover that Ghana was just the tip of the iceberg. Nigeria is another story. Next time.

Another Place

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Ok friends, family, neighbors and all other blog-readers, sit back, get comfortable, get a finger on the down-arrow key or the mouse wheel-roller and get ready to scroll. It’s story time!! I suppose you already have a clue by the map above. This is another “distant place” story. The last such story I shared with you was set in South America. Now, we go to another continent, Africa. And, another decade, this time 1980.

This was the period in our life when I was working for the giant publisher Simon and Schuster. Actually, first it was Esquire Inc. (yes, the one with the magazine), then it became Gulf Western and then S & S. Now, it all belongs to CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), I think that is right, at least that is from whom I now receive my pension. At any rate, I was the International guy who directed five educational publishing companies handling kindergarten through college materials. Thus, I traveled the world. What I am about to relate was my first trip to Africa. My schedule called for me to be in Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa before going to Brazil, South America, then back home. All in all, a seven week trip.

It started this way. My plane first landed in Senegal, a former French Colony, on the northwestern coast of Africa. I had no business there, it was just the first stop in my trek. This was a place to change airlines, from a U.S. service to a smaller Ivory Coast (now known as Côte d'Ivoire) Airline. The passenger list included a mixed-bag of people with packages of all sorts to “stuff” around the plane. I was fortunate to have a window seat. There were no reserved seats. First come, first served. “Push and shove” seemed to be the motto to find a seat.

We took off from the Capital City of Dakar in gathering dark clouds that appeared to be a growing storm ahead. I noticed the gentleman sitting directly in front of me was wearing what I identified as typical Nigerian tribal dress, a colorful outer robe of varied design and a type of “pill-box” hat of the same design. The plane was to make a brief stop-over to disembark passengers in Conakry, Guinea. I’m sure you can find these places on the map. As we descended, the sky looked even darker and I thought it was going to begin raining at any moment.

When we landed it was announced that we could remain on the plane or get off for a brief fifteen minutes. I decided to stay in my seat. The gentleman in front of me (the one I thought to be Nigerian) decided to get off. I assumed he was just going to stretch his legs. Since I was on the side of the plane facing the terminal I watched the people descend to the tarmac below.

I noticed the Nigerian go off a ways from the other people, look around in the sky, take off his shoes and kneel on the tarmac putting his forehead on the asphalt, the normal position of a Muslim in prayer. After being in prayer for a couple minutes, the sun suddenly broke through the dark clouds. The gentleman looked up to the sky, got up, turned in the opposite direction, kneeled down again and proceeded with his pray. Funny, I thought, he was facing in the wrong direction for his prayers, which must be toward the east.

As the people were filing back on the plane, I noticed the Nigerian looking puzzled. He looked from seat to seat. He passed his own seat, and me, and continued on toward the back of the plane. Shortly, he returned and began opening various overhead compartments. He seemed to obviously be searching for his seat. I caught his attention and motioned to the seat directly in front of me. He returned to his row with a smile. He tapped his index finger on his temple and said to me, “Sometimes I forget.” The thought occurred to me, “No telling what can happen when your prayers go off in the wrong direction.” I just hoped he could find his house when he got home.

In due time I arrived at my first business stop in Monrovia, Liberia. As you may remember, if you paid attention in history class, Liberia was a settlement of freed slaves from the US which began in 1822. I won’t bore you with the details of my business in Liberia, but I noticed a nervous, unsettling atmosphere in the capital city. I left after a few days business on my way to Ghana. Just three days after I left the country, a military coup led by Samuel DOE ushered in what was to be a decade of authoritarian rule. The airports shut down, the roads were blockaded and no one could leave or enter the country for weeks. I missed it by just that much.

Ghana was no picnic either. I’ll tell you about that next time. My difficulties on this trip were just beginning.

Down Time

Here we are about to end another week. You know how the week started. It was Super Bowl Sunday, so you know what was going on in most households. We were pulling for the Giants, so I guess it was a good day. The temperature has finally gotten up to about what is considered normal in these parts, the 70’s and 80’s. We are glad that Arizona has overcome the “Parsons affect,” and is getting warmer weather. The flip-flop in the weather from east to west has not been good. We hate that our home county in Tennessee had more tornado disasters to contend with, but glad that family and friends are safe.

We are still doing our three mile walk everyday along with a little bike riding. We decided also this week to take a walk out into the desert, which we had not previously done. We slipped through the fence around the campground and started out into the desert, heading toward the mountains. Of course we didn’t intend to walk to the mountains, that would be a little far.

We were surprised somewhat by the look of the desert. The first picture above is a general view. The surprise was the small rocks strewn across the desert. It looked almost like someone had dumped out two-inch gravel, but it was natural. I suppose the rock was spewed out from the surrounding mountains. It had a black volcanic look to it. You may see it more clearly by enlarging the picture.

Another surprise was the tracks. As best we could determine, they were made by horses without shoes. We determined that they were horses also by the droppings we found about. Other tracks appeared to be made by cattle. This we could also tell by the “cow pies.” What either type animal was doing roaming in the desert, far from any ranch, we could not say. And of course, no desert would be complete without the ubiquitous cactus. They come in all sizes. The one Carolyn is standing beside above appears to be at least three or four times taller than she. You will also note the small, round hole near the top of the cactus. This was probably made by a Cactus Wren, the state bird of Arizona.

Mid-week we decided to take a little trip in a direction we had not been before. We went on a tangent (about a 45 degree angle) North-East from Gila Bend to a town called Maricopa. As a side note, Gila Bend is in Maricopa county, as is Phoenix, but Maricopa (the city) is in Penal County. We know that some of the inhabitants of the campground go that way on occasion, so we decided to see what was there. Our general opinion----- not much!

Oh, the town looked all right. It is much larger than Gila Bend, everything is, but we didn’t find much that we had interest in. We couldn’t even find a restaurant for lunch that was not “fast-food.” We roamed around awhile and found a Casino that is run by the Ak-Chin Indians. As you may know, there is an Indian Reservation almost everywhere one goes in Arizona, and every Reservation has a Casino. Since we couldn’t find a restaurant to our liking, we went to the Deli at Fry’s Supermarket (part of the Kroger family) and bought a sandwich. Then we shopped for a few grocery items and went home.

Now I ask you, was that not an exciting week? The greatest highlight was the books we read while sitting in the trailer. We are grateful that Gila Bend, for all it’s smallness, has a fairly decent Library. Since we have rented a P.O. Box, and are Winter residents, we could get a library card. This saves my cache of books for when we have no such opportunity. We will try to do something more exciting next week to tell you about, but don’t hold your breath. If we do nothing then, I still have a few stories of distant times I can share with you. After all, this is our Winter “down time.”

Month No. Nine

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)

I had indicated previously that we had made 40 moves through 13 states, however, I didn’t tell you which states. The picture of the U.S. map above is on our shower door, which is where we keep our record. Most RVers post their travels somewhere on the outside of their trailer or bus. We don’t feel the need to advertise our travels on the outside, open to the elements. As you can tell, we have stickers of each state to put on the map. The map is one of those removable, peel-off kind that adheres to glass. So now you have a visual to tell where we have been thus far. We only put stickers up for states where we stay for a time, not just those we simply pass through.

This pass Sunday, January 27th, we had an unusual event here in the Arizona desert------ rain. An all-day rain. We even developed puddles. The second picture above shows how the desert starts to “green” after a rain like that. The picture was taken pointing just across the fence of the RV Park, showing an old, abandoned, adobe house. The rain even caused flooding in parts of the Phoenix area. But the rain itself was not the only excitement for the day.

A great many RVers seem to have ATVs known as “quads,” “four-wheelers,” or a variety of other names I suppose. A near neighbor to us was no exception. There was a husband, wife and teenage son in a fifth-wheel. They also pulled a ten or fifteen foot trailer. I’m guessing here, since I didn’t take measurements. Inside the trailer they had two motorcycles and two quads. It had just started raining again, after a brief pause, when the father and son took off in their quads.

We had no idea where they went or why they would go anywhere in such weather. We knew nothing else about their adventure until it was approaching dark. The first thing we noticed was a sheriff’s patrol car, followed by a fire department emergency truck, then a wrecker with the two quads pulled up to the neighbor’s trailer. The son got slowly out of the cab of the wrecker and made his way into the trailer, followed by the sheriff’s deputy and a couple EMT’s. We saw nothing of the father. We could do nothing but wonder what was going on here. The owner of the campground showed up and began to talk to the sheriff’s deputy who had just come out of the trailer. The wrecker immediately took off with the quads, which appeared to be undamaged.

It was not long before we saw an ambulance coming into the campground with lights flashing. It too pulled up to the trailer. Attendants got out and carried a “stabilizing board,” like you would see used on the football field with a serious injury, into the trailer. Another attendant wheeled in a stretcher. Soon, the stretcher came out with the boy wearing a neck and head brace. The ambulance took off. Later, the others left and all was quiet.

We supposed that the father was already in the hospital with injuries. We also figured that the son had later-realized injuries. What happened? We didn’t know until later. They had been riding in the desert when both the father and son flipped their ATV. The father, a rather heavy-set gentleman, was knocked out cold. A hermit, who lived in the desert, happened by and called 911. Go figure, a hermit with a cell phone. The father was taken directly to the hospital. We don’t know the extent of his injuries, but the son returned with his mother about mid-week. He seemed to be OK. Fun sometimes turns into “less than” fun. We also found out that they have no health insurance. The most adventurous we get is bicycles.

Not much news for this week, so I will leave you with another story. Ray, an RVer from Omaha, travels in his motorhome with a talkative but foul-mouthed parrot. One day in a campground near Gila Bend, Ariz., the bird's swearing got to be too much. So Ray grabbed it by the throat and yelled "Stop it!" But only minutes later, the bird was swearing again.

The next day, the bird yelled so loudly that the couple in a big fifth wheel next door stopped by to demand its silence. Desperate, Ray locked the bird in a kitchen cabinet. But it didn't help: the bird kept right on swearing. The next day, the bird was even worse. So, as a last resort, Ray tossed the foul-mouthed fowl into his Dometic freezer. After five minutes, all was quiet. Worried that the bird might be freezing, Ray took it out. "I'm sorry," confessed the suddenly polite bird. "I promise to never swear again." Ray was astonished. He couldn't understand the change in attitude . .. until the bird spoke again. "By the way," it asked, "what did the chicken do?" (Note: A Dometic Freezer is a brand of RV Ice Box with ammonia cooling units.)