The campground Woolly Meadows State Park in Arkansas is deserted in October. No tennis courts. I think it's part of the Ozarks. Orion was up and bright at 4:30 AM. At 4:30 in Woolly Meadows, one has time to gather wool.
The central star in Orion's belt is Alnilam.
Alnilam is the title of a novel by James Dickey, who also wrote Deliverance. I bought all his old books and poetry on E-bay. The novel is about a blind man and his seeing-eye dog who visit a WWII training centre to learn about his son who was killed in a flying training accident. The son has so much charisma that he has established a military conspiracy that... but wait... I'm spoiling the plot...
There is a passage in the book about seeing the cannons on a German fighter wink at a flight instructor head-on and it becomes his insight like a diamond to the brain... later this 'diamond to the brain' insight concept was stolen and put in the mouth of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.
Now it's later in the day and I'm parked in a heavily wooded clearing in Mountain Home, Arkansas in the backyard of a very old friend. We met just after we both got back from Viet Nam... He likes to make wine too... I'm anxious to share my Sauvignon Blanc with him and see what he's brewed up. When he moved here five years ago from Tampa, I drove a diesel truck with some of his household goods 1,040 miles to help him move his family.
Mountain Home is ethnically very homogeneous. There are no black families at all and no synagogues. There is a Mexican restaurant 20 miles away in Flippin, but that's about it. This is the home of President Clinton's Whitewater land development scandal. They have a law here in Arkansas that if a couple gets divorced they can still be brother and sister. Everyone waves at us as they drive past.
This morning, Tom and Maggie, balloonists from Gallup, New Mexico, asked me to serve as a crew member on their balloon. I assisted with assembling the gondola and unfurling and inflating their balloon. Apparently, their crew failed to show. I followed them into the cold desert, helped them out and then left after his lift-off. The sky is filled with colorful balloons.
Later we drive to Zion National Park three hours northwest of Lake Powell. The shuttle service is closed down for the winter season and they opened the scenic roads to private vehicles so we take the motorbike up to the scenic road to the head of Zion Canyon.
It's a spectacular park, formed from Navaho sandstone. The fall foliage makes it even more wonderful. This is a good time to visit the Southwest. The elevation in the park runs from 3,600 to 8,700 feet. One mountain has a pine tree growing on its shoulder.
Night sky viewing conditions are excellent. Venus is up in the evening. It comes around every six years. By spring it will be a morning star again. A huge shooting star leaves a 4 AM fiery trail.
Zion Canyon was named by the Mormon settlers. It means place of safety or refuge. We hear on the radio in the evening that a Mormon judge is in danger of being disbarred for polygamy. The commentator is upset that he is being prosecuted for practicing his religion. There is a municipal tennis court just outside the park. Mrs. Phred won again, 6-2, 6-0. The cold weather is making my shoulder act up again.
Disaster Crews in the Roosevelt State Park, Central Mississippi
These pictures were taken on the bayous 100 miles south of New Orleans.
We continue our journey from our stop in north Florida. We take gently rolling wooded secondary roads between nowhere and no place. When we arrive, the Mississippi lake campground is nearly empty except for the disaster relief crews.
The crews commute from the Mississippi Gulf coast which has been demolished for the first quarter mile inland. There are many uprooted trees here 100 nearly miles north.
Firewood is plentiful since so many trees have fallen.
The disaster crews pull in around 7 PM. The soft southern American voices make me expect drunken fishermen, but their heavy trucks help us understand the nature of their business here and their lights go out almost immediately. They fall quiet quickly and are gone before 5 AM to work again on the clean-up.
This place has free tennis courts and a large lake for fishing and swimming surrounded by tall hardwood and pines. Like Nero, a little ashamed of our good fortune, we burn some branches and cook halibut in the darkness to serve with the chilled home-made Sauvignon Blanc from our wine cellar.
Tennis this morning and then back on the road looking for Bigfoot, the Skunk Ape, or maybe just a WWII Japanese Imperial Army straggler. Scores are 6-0, 6-1 in favour of Mrs Phred.
Falling Waters State Park, Florida, 9 Oct 2005
3 AM
Retirement? So Soon? Birth, elementary school, middle school, high school, university, marriage, Viet Nam, children, graduate school, work, grandchildren and retirement. It all goes by in an eye blink.
The little Yamaha 250 CC motorcycle has been serviced (chain tightened, new plugs and an expensive replacement rear-view mirror) and I'm bolting it on the back of my retirement recreational vehicle (RV) and heading out with my faithful companion of 40 years to the southwest corner of the United States for the months of October and November.
Along the way we will meet many strange characters: a snake-breeder, hurricane disaster recovery workers, Navaho Indians, museum curators, ugly bikers, Arizona balloonists, antelopes, a blue-eyed Mormon, black ravens, artists and mystics.
There are many amazing national parks in Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. We've seen a few, but this is an exciting chance see more while I'm still perhaps competent to drive. The Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Roswell, Page/Lake Powell, Antelope Canyon, Lincoln and Billy the Kid, Ruidoso, Mescalaro Apaches, Zion, Bryce, Canyonlands, Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, Bandilier National Monument, Santa Fe and other places and people of the southwest high plains.
I have a wireless cellular modem for my laptop and plan to write daily journals. Who knows... I may be inspired to write an blog two from a mountaintop in the West. I have a digital camera and hope to upload a few pictures as we go.
Mrs Phred is responsible for packing food, spices, games, camping equipment, books, clothing, recreational items, first aid supplies, maps, cooking utensils and toiletries. I'm in charge of maintenance supplies.
Tools brought along include:
A copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A large, adjustable open-end wrench. A packet of 50 pairs of disposable latex gloves for use while dumping the waste tanks. A carpenter's hammer. Electric drill and drill bits. Fuse tester. Jumper cables. Multi-meter. Chisels. Carpenter's level. Sets of both metric and standard wrenches (socket, box and open-end). Two spray cans of WD-40. Chain lube (The chain should be cleaned, tightened and lubricated every two tanks of gas. Cleaning a motorcycle chain with WD-40 is a little controversial but it's easier than packing a gallon of diesel fuel). Electric air pump. Battery charger. A tube-patching kit. Feeler gauge. Test lamp. Allen wrench set. Oil-filter wrench. Hacksaw. Assorted screwdivers. Inverter. Flashlights. Spare AA and C batteries, plumber's snake and plunger. A small aircraft mechanic's mirror on a stick-and-swivel for looking into awkward places. Standard and truck-size air pressure gauges. A 100-foot extension cord. Cleaning rags, bucket and a scrub brush on a pole. Electrical and duct tape. Jumper cables. Superglue. All this takes two large tool kits and weighs about 150 pounds.
Spare parts:
Wood screws. Motorcycle sparkplugs. Metal screws. RV taillight bulbs. Bailing wire. Oil and oil filters for the RV. Light bulbs for the RV interior. Extra air filter, oil and sparkplugs for the RV generator. Replacement engine serpentine belts. Spare 12-volt deep-cycle marine battery. Bicycle tubes. Tube patching kit. Tire puncture repair tools. Brake and transmission fluids. Chrome polish and automotive wax.
After the obligatory and very touching retirement ceremony, we depart at 4.00am on 8 October. In the ceremony, I get a walking cane with an attached rear-view mirror and a squeeze-bulb bicycle horn, some gasoline debit cards and a dive trip for two to La Paguera, Puerto Rico.
It's 3 AM. I'm in Falling Waters. My laptop celluar modem has three bars this morning. A good omen. I can blog until the sun comes up.
Falling Waters is a place in Florida off Interstate 10 between Pensacola and Tallahassee. A small park but very beautiful.
Falling Waters contains the tallest waterfall in Florida. A stream plunges 73 feet down a sinkhole into the mouth of a cave and disappears into the cave to return to the aquifer. It's just a trickle at this time of year, but the lake is still warm.
Florida is mainly limestone, honey-combed with underground caves carved by water. Sometimes these collapse and swallow a house or a highway or drink a lake.
Last night, the park ranger showed us some strange insects and many snakes... he has over 300 snakes in his house and is breeding corn snakes for special colours. He reminded me of Gregor Mendel gone mad. He claims he can sell his specially-bred albino corn snakes for $1,500 each. On eBay?
Rose early, hoping to see the Navigator's Triangle overhead and the Milky Way cutting through it. No light pollution, clear air and the moon-set early in the PM. Perfect conditions... except that the clouds blew in overnight. This is a nice place. We will stay an extra day and try out the motorcycle on the North Florida back country roads.
There's always tomorrow... Deneb, Vega and Altair will wait.
The pastels of the vast Painted Desert are breath-taking. The huge black raven owns the Painted Desert. It sits quietly, waiting for my arrival. I throw three pieces of bread and it picks these up one by one, places them in a single pile, then gathers all three and flies off into the desert. It is a bird of great intelligence and courage. The raven found light and brought it to the people, according to an ancient Alaskan Inuit legend. It is the center of many Native American legends.
I know the impossible sea
when the dogs bark
I am a death bird
Naughty night bird
-Jim Morrison
The Petrified Forest National Monument is just south of the Painted Desert on Route 66. 225 million year-old Triassic trees and tree fragments litter the desert floor for miles. There are hundreds of letters in the visitor center attesting to the bad luck that befalls anyone who removes a piece of rock. The rock trees contain lovely varieties of minerals, colors and patterns. It takes ten time longer to polish these than it takes to polish granite according to the exhibits in the center. They must be hard.
A ranger at the exit asks if we have collected anything... we tell her only memories and digital photographs. I write a letter later:
Park Superintendent
Petrified Forest National Monument
October 28, 2005
Dear Sir,
Enclosed is a piece of petrified tree that I removed from the forest.
Since stealing this accursed rock I have had nothing but bad luck. The Internal Revenue Service is auditing my taxes for the last five years. My wife discovered my affair with her sister and left me. My daughter has begun dating an ex-convict.
The front porch collapsed and killed four of my hunting dogs. On the way to buy the winning lottery ticket, my pickup truck threw a rod and I missed the deadline by an hour. My youngest son has become a gel-head. Hurricane Wilma blew half the shingles off and I shot myself in the foot with my nail gun, nailing myself to the roof. I'm really very sorry about stealing this rock, please put it back.
