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First things being first... WOW! What a mess that last RoadNotes was! I stopped counting typos after 10 and I even managed to leave the ending to the "Dumped Doxie" story off completely... Anyone who knows me knows I searched far and wide for a good home and found an older Ozona couple who already had a Chihuahua and took my rescues off my hands before I departed.
Since the day I first started selling this photography stuff as a customer recently referred to it, one of the most oftenly offered ideas was "why don't you do a book?" It's a suggestion that obviously has it's merits, but for reasons I won't go into, the "kind" of book most people have in mind, is not one I want to undertake quite yet...what I have settled upon (especially around the holidays), is...well...a cook book featuring my images... I know, I know...and as one person I ran this by said, "what do you know about cooking, you microwave everything!" Well I know more than you think I might, but certainly not enough to write a book and certainly not enough to convince you all to buy it after reading RoadNotes for any length of time, but my brother, John, happens to be an amazing Chef... So with that in mind, "The Comfortable Cowboy: New Twists on Rare Recipes from the Old West, (or something to that effect) SHOULD be available in time for the holidays and I promise, EVERYTHING in it will be great!. Ok...with the sales out of the way...let the adventures begin... September 12th - Alright, my dates could be off, so shoot me...I think I arrived here two days ago and things were ugly as they are two days later and I am growing sick of Ozona, Texas and the Circle Bar Corral truck stop. Sadly, many Texans have never even heard of the place and those that have, like my friend Mark Stuart of "The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash" fame said, "Hell, that's way out in the badlands!". And bad they are...worse yet, hurricane Ike is bearing down on Texas and while Ozona now seems out of the tracking path, it has already beaten me. Why? Because I said so, that's why...wait...that's my surly side rearing its ugly head but of late I feel like I have two of them, so I'll continue with the other...anyway, Ike, or the threat of, has caused my Cowboy Roundup & Gathering in Seguin to be cancelled and given that it was a hospital benefit, all of the volunteers are hospital workers who have been ordered by FEMA to be on standby...I say it has beaten me as I am afraid I have blinked...by blinked, I mean life has thrown all that it can at me of late and I fear it may be winning. The RV campground where I had reservations would not allow me to travel there as evacuees were scheduled to move in and they were concererned that the park itself would become flooded...so here I sit....
September 13th - Today and tonight, it's been a real Frog Strangler as they say. The rain has just been nonstop but the hell of it is, it has nothing to do with the hurricane which is still off the coast. September 14th - Day break has arrived and while the weather is still gray and ugly, it can't compete with my mood... I spent a good hour last night walking the adjacent ranch fenceline searching for a crying calf...it sounded like it must be caught in the fence, or had lost it's mom. I could hear crying in the dark..but I couldnt find the little guy... what I didn't know at the time was my frog reference is far more appropriate than I could have known and my "little guy" was really several REALLY little guys... You see when water pools in this area, frogs that sound like calves caught in fence lines invade the area to plant their eggs...by morning I could see they were everywhere, which of course explains my inability to get a bead on the calf "stuck" last night...geez am I tired. Hurricane Ike has come ashore...and while it's beautiful here (Ozona is never beautiful, but the sun is.) hell is breaking loose down Galveston way...the calves are laying their eggs again tonight and...dang, an RV just went up in flames on the news...that could have been my mine! Hmmm...I'm still in Ozona...Ike has passed and until today, I was wondering what I did to deserve this, but now I why I was here... as I was eating more bad but cheap food and wondering where I had gone wrong, two Dacshund pupies went racing across the truck stop parking lot like a couple of inmates hitting the fence. My intial reaction was which trucker's ass do I put my boot up, but after 20 minutes of watching them racing between incoming big rigs, I realized whoever owned them was unaware of their antics...so, with nothing but time on my hands, I ventured out into the gloom of Ike that did make it's way this far west and called them in...the submissive one turned out to be what looked like a Doxie/Chihuahua mix, while the "little shit" was all Doxie. Well it took a bit to get him, but once in my arms I proceeded to make my way around the truck stop, into the diner and beyond...as I did , I kept asking myself "why was I the only one to notice these two?"...all the while knowing the answer was, "I was the only one who cared"...so I continued...as I entered the hotel/motel (still not sure what the difference is these days) I asked the night clerk if anyone had lost them...she immediately knew and said "it's those evacuees! But they left yesterday." Dang I thought, "now I have five dogs."
September 16th - Alright, Ike is moving north east and I've arrived in Seguin to pick up my supplies intended for the show here that cancelled...I'm really sorry things didn't work out...it's a beautiful little shaded RV campground right on the banks of the Guadalupe river and it was all cowboy folk who were going to be in attendance Red Steagall was to be the host...
For a moment I thought at least I had good company in being rained out, but since it didn't rain here either and Red no doubt had a contract that paid him either way, I relaized I was alone again and thought , "Ah, screw Red...geez...I'd even been invited by the organizer to be here guest at the benefit "ball" (do they still have those?...)oh well...this is a "spilt milk" situation if there ever was one...so I'll quit whining. Random Thought I hope Welfare, Tx has a good economy. Not At All a Random Thought I don't know how to say this any more clearly, the BLM is looking to euthanize over 30,000 horse and over 5,000 burros.. You can go to their site or read about it here, More Animal Updates You may recall last month I told you about my brother's feeding of a wide variety of furry woodland creatures in his Virginia back yard, but I'm afraid I must be the bearer of more bad news as neither the injured Gray Fox or White Tail buck have returned. On the other hand, a new Gray fox eveidently filling the void has arrived and is in perfect health.
Geez..another Random Thought I given up on my dream of climbing all of the Great Mountains of the world (actually never had it) so I will now concentrate on Willow swimming all of the great rivers of the American West: To Date, the Mississippi, Missouri, Guadalupe, Colorado, Little Colorado..and maybe one or two others...your suggestions are welcome. Plese ignore the picture..there's not a lot of water in Midland, Texas, so I let her dip in the "lake" at a local Budweiser distributership. Redemption or is it salvation? You decide... I saved a mean spirited Rattler from the road in Catalina State park the other night to reedeem myself for the one that was run ove in front of me as noted in a recent RoadNotes...I stopped traffic in both directions this time, and those stopped seemed to be interested if not amused at my antics...the rattler on the other hand was not, and tried to strike me several times before I carted him off to the river's (dry at the time) edge...some snakes, like people just don't know what's good for them.
More Redemption I pulled into a truckstop in Sidney, Nebraska about midnight and took the dogs for their usual "get acquainted" walk as they had been in the truck all day when we down into a canyon they almost instantly went into the bushes hard...I guessed more baby rabbits, (Willow has now acquired a nose for Horned Toads too) but it turns out it was a Hav-a-Heart trap..not sure what the trapper was trying to catch, but he got a cat that night but not for long...she hissed at me and went down the canyon without even a slowdown to thank me...some cats, like people just don't know what's good for them. Trailer Alert!!!! Heartland has agreed to fix the bedroom walls of the trailer...I now have to decide whether I have the energy to wage war over the $500 in diagnostic fees they said they won't cover even though their people have failed to diagnose it correctly for almost two years now...hmmmm....if not, I talked a professional Moto-Cross racer out of buying one the other day at a truck stop north of Tucson...take that Heartland! Of course they won't be covering the two tires that blew out in Kansas and tore out all of the electrical wiring under the trailer... stll haven't figured out what won't work because of it...of course I don't drive behind me at night either.
Random Thought II I just bit into a pice of fish that tasted like it had been on the dock since the last time I fished. I'd go to the bathroom, but it's worse in there..ladies, if you want a look at the darker side of men, look no further than this contraption found in the men's room of this saloon. And I'll tell you, if there's one thing I don't want to walk out into a saloon full of cowboys smellin' like, it's the scent of pleasure Yet More Proof We're a Nation in Decline! Uh...you mean the economic bailout, Russian warships in Venezuela, cell phones causing cancer, contminated food supplies and Joe Biden telling us we're guaranteed to get a "major crisis" delivered to us if Obama is elected (not to mention he says the American public won't like the way they respond) aren't enough?
Ok then, how about the fact that ANY American has to be warned by a sign like this as they take a leisurely stroll with man's best friend? No wonder Willow feels the need to protect me. Random Thought Several issues back I recieved more than one email asking why I thought El Paso, Tx was no longer part of the United States.... further evidence...sorry, not too politically correct...just the facts. Things I've Learned: Agood thumpin’ will tell you how good both a man and a melon are. I get all warm and fuzzy watching trailers burn or otherwise be destroyed. Other than more breaths, love is only thing you’ll want more of before you take your last. The coyotes of Catalina Stat park in Tucson are getting too much fiber in their diet. Much to my satisfaction I learned about and met a man (at a truck stop in Wyoming and can't remember where) who was crazier than I! I introduce you to Lee... When people insult you they're not quite sure what to make of it when you agree with them... for some reason, a woman in Custer, South Dakota looked at me with disdain when I told her I was on the road full time and decided to bite back and tell me it was "impossible to find a good woman when you're on the road full time" I offered that while I understood that, I had learned that it was equally impossible to hold on to one, so the finding didn't really matter. She offered MORE disdain and walked away leaving us both unhappy, but I was happier than if she had stayed...not sure about her. There is no more an unpleasant person to deal with than a a female bartender who gets hit on all night long. Ordering a simple take-out meal is painful as she makes those who don't hit on her pay for those who do...at the end, the only tip you want to leave her is "Why not quit this miserable place." ...I doubt the male 'tenders who suffer a similar onslaught are quite as surly. I'll never understand a guy getting weak in the knees over a car, but then he'll never understand me doing the same over a horse...I'll still take horse flesh over chrome & steel any day which only proves that what an old cowboy told me once was right...more than one way to walk through life. Nothing lasts forever...the sales record has come to an end...the picture of "Jackie" or Jackpot as she is formally named ended in Oro Valley, AZ on 10/19/08...R.I.P I loved competition as a an athlete..I hate it as an artist. They say at art shows it is best to be a big fish in a small pond, or a small fish in a big pond.... I've found I prefer to be the only fish in the pond. Every time I win "Best of Show" at a festival, I have trouble paying my bills the next week...I won "Best of Show" in Patagonia... "brother can you spare a dime?" The customers I have who are facing the biggest challenges in life, respond to the most spiritual images I have... this before they know the story behind them...neither of us ever know why...sometimes a picture can be worth more than a 1000 words... Some people have never carved a pumkpin before. If the economy keeps heading the way it is, I may get a chance to live that life of a Mountain Man I always felt I was meant to live... Custer State park in South Dakota would be a perfect place to start. Just When You Think You Know Someone My ex and I agreed the one thing we would never do was deprive the other of our pets...and since I left behnd my oldest dog, Cassidy, this was especially important to me. After a year and a half of honoring that commitment, her new "MAN" of less than 3 months thinks we should all make a clean break... grrrr....while I'm not allowed to meet this genius, at least now I know who Einstein came back as. Just ran across this... 
They say the following are ways to maintain your sanity in your later years...hmmm...but what about now? Connect - Developing relationships with family, friends, colleagues and neighbours will enrich your life and bring you support Be active...Sports, hobbies such as gardening or dancing, or just a daily stroll will make you feel good and maintain mobility and fitness. Be curious...Noting the beauty of everyday moments as well as the unusual and reflecting on them helps you to appreciate what matters to you. Learn...Fixing a bike, learning an instrument, cooking the challenge and satisfaction brings fun and confidence. Give...Helping friends and strangers links your happiness to a wider community and is very rewarding. Until next time....be well and as always, please excuse
any typos (and you know who you are) and most importantly, "Save a
Horse, Ride a Mustang." |
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