Close to home

10.1.23

Back from the long drive. Some lovely stops along the way–before and after braving the thick smoke blowing west from the Anvil Fire–visible on the horizon over Floras Lake. Near Scotia I found a funky, sweet little campground in a stump forest. Definitely a change of season, chilly mornings and lovely nights for sleeping.

The trip to Oregon was spectacular, no further vehicular foibles, save the struggle to keep sufficient air in my tires. My neighbor loaned me a charger/compressor/inverter thing, and it took me a couple of tries (couldn’t figure out where I put the owner’s manual) to figure out how the digital air compressor worked. It had to cycle and check the pressure, then the button either needed to or did not need to be pushed again for the tires to fill. Very cool feature, the digital meter you set to the psi you need (65#), and it stores it, and shuts off automatically. Neat.

On the edge of October I have some local hangouts I have been/will be occupying. I went back to Varmint’s Garage and spent three nights and three days. Late Sunday for a 4 AM wakeup and drive to the surgery, then back–several delays had us home by about 3 on Monday. I’ll be spending a weekend about an hour up north for Open Studios and Margaritas; plus more thrifting, I suppose. Then a few days at home before I go to Duck-sit and catch some true solitude, and ponder where my next trip will take us.

As predicted I cut loose two extraneous sleeping bags, a duvet cover, a life vest, some cd’s. Snatched up a faux rattlesnake motorcycle jacket, a hat, two handblown red drinking glasses. I also picked up a couple of Sheffield pewter drinking flagons, inscribed in Gaelic, in case I find myself at another brew-friendly campout someday. I cut an inch more off my hair, too. It was driving me nutty how it stuck to the back of my neck. Someone said you can tell how bad a breakup was by how short you cut your hair. Not as bad as 1979 when I cut it to the thickness of my fingers against my scalp. But I was a drummer then, those were different times, as was the world I stepped into.