–Journal entry: Sunday; March 17th, 2019 (St.\nPatty\u2019s Day); 11:19 am. Settled in on a side yard in New Town, Las Vegas.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n That brings us a bit up to speed, dear reader, and I\u2019d like to take a pause from the journal entries to introduce the newest character to our story: The Beast <\/em>\u2013 a 2002 Ford Super Duty F-250 4×4 SuperCab with the Triton 5.4 L V-8 gas engine developing 260 HP on a \u00be ton frame with a robust cluster of leaf springs that\u2019ll hold the road when you\u2019re towing a load, bro. Boo-Yaa!!<\/em> I took it to a mechanic I knew to look it over before I bought it, and he just nodded his head and said, \u201cYeah. This is what you need.\u201d He was right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Triton engine is known for lasting forever \u2013 over 500,000 miles if you maintain it properly \u2013 and the only rap I\u2019ve heard against it is that it\u2019ll start spitting out spark plugs if you don\u2019t get them retightened on a regular basis, which would be before they start getting spat out, I guess. No big deal. It\u2019s a Ford. Built Ford Tough<\/em>. Who needs all those spark plugs anyway? <\/p>\n\n\n\n The mechanic also told me that the (automatic) transmission was \u2018bulletproof\u2019, so I won\u2019t have to worry about smoking it as I did (worry) with that weak link in BroBo<\/em>\u2019s drive train. And the rear suspension on a pickup truck is hella more stable than those puny little coil springs on SUVs. No more sea-legs after a day of pulling Cochise<\/em> on the interstate. No more dry-heaving at rest stops. No more heart palpitations and prayers going over Raton Pass between Colorado and New Mexico. No mas!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n To be honest, and I wouldn\u2019t lie to you dear\nreader, I thought I was a Chevy man, because my first pickup was a 1976 Scottsdale\n\u00bd ton 2WD that my newlywed wife and I bought for $2,500 in 1985 using all the\nmoney we received for our wedding. And we asked for only money so we could buy\na used pickup truck (with an insulated topper shell) and head up to Alaska with\nour Doberman, Hector. He was a great dog, and that was a good truck \u2013 except\nthe 305 cubic inch V-8 was a little wimpy when we decided to pull a 1959 16\u2019\ncamper-trailer (which I don\u2019t believe we named) back down the Alcan highway,\nbecause it was cheaper than renting a 4\u2019x 8\u2019 U-Haul trailer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019d top some of the big hills at 15 mph and losing speed with the pedal to the floor, but we always made it down the other side and up and over the next one. We called the truck Sweetness<\/em> in honor of Walter Payton (the Chicago Bears running back who never gave up on a run by going out of bounds but rather took on tacklers and made them pay), because it was a black truck with a white topper, which matched the colors of the Bears uniforms. As a Packer fan, it pains me to speak well of Da Bears<\/em>, but the \u201985 Bears were one of the best all-around teams to ever take the field, and Payton was my favorite player, among the many memorable standouts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember waking early to watch the Super\nBowl they won when they beat the Patriots the year we were in Alaska. It came\non at 8 am because of the time-zone difference, and I watched it on a little\nblack and white tv in an unheated backroom of our cabin (so as not to disturb\nmy wife), huddled under multiple blankets, drinking beer and watching the mice\nscamper around. But I digress\u2026let\u2019s get back to the story, shall we?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAlright, it\u2019s dark. At least I\u2019m home in the camper and everything is good in the neighborhood, but it gets rowdy out there at night when the loud, muscular trucks and cars rap up the RPMs as they throttle through three gears in a block on a street posted at 20 mph. What da fock are they thinking – or not, no? They must be the ones I read about in the newspaper. Under \u2018Jail Log\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
–Journal entry: Friday; March 22nd, 2019; 11:08 pm. Safe at home from a walkabout to the watering hole \u2013 Dick\u2019s Pub and Restaurant. In search of a little social interaction in the Land of Enchantment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the first things I noticed after moving into town was that in Vegas it seemed as though badass status was measured by the sound of your exhaust \u2013 on your big-ass truck with 21\u201d rims, or your ape-handled Harley, or your chainsaw-sounding, wanna-be racecar with the BS spoiler and window tints belching bass-boost gangsta rap. Rap up the RPMs, rap up the sonic bump, bounce your head and look through people. Don\u2019t smile. You\u2019re Bad Ass, Homeboy. Bad. Ass.<\/em> I got to liking it a little more each day\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAPRIL FOOLS\nDAY! Be careful. I will\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had to run up to Loveland [Colorado] last week to get the Beast<\/em> VIN inspected for the title transfer and registration. It had to be done visually and in Colorado, so Rambeaux and I took a road trip \u2013 about 375 miles one way. The truck ran like a champ and I made it to the County Clerk\u2019s office just in time (driving through Denver took over 2 freaking hours \u2013 crazy). I booked a motel room at Johnson\u2019s Corner famous truck-stop diner plaza and had a great night\u2019s sleep on a queen size bed with crisp, clean sheets, a shower (I took two!) and cable. I watched \u2018The Perfect Storm\u2019, \u2018Swamp People\u2019, and \u2018Caddyshack.\u2019 What a treat! Slept past sunup, choked down some bad coffee from the lobby and blasted back as soon as the night\u2019s light snow began to melt off the roads. Denver was better on the return and I made it to the camper a little after dark. Long day, but a good trip. Nice to be home in the hood.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n –Journal entry: Monday; April 1st, 2019; 11:44 am. Back in East Vegas, settled at my nook in Cochise.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHome in the hood.<\/em> Yeah. This is an area unlike anywhere I\u2019ve ever lived before: more alive, raucous, loud, proud and socially outlawed compared to the politically correct parameters descending upon Colorado as the influx of craft beer drinking hipsters and legal weed aficionados have brought an urban nouveau<\/em> chic to the bubble popping population on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Down here it\u2019s different. Old school. These MOFOs been here for centuries, bro, and they don\u2019t give a rattlesnake\u2019s ass about what\u2019s trending on social media, and why should they? They\u2019ve got childhood friends, extended family and amazing food, with traditions going back to the Spaniards and the \u201ccivilized\u201d European culture they brought to the savage Athabaskan inhabitants, who tolerated the invasion with measured skepticism – but laid down the law when the time came – and what remains is a sunbaked, stone-ground mix of modern life over ancient: fused silica from melted sand on atomic test sites over Clovis points from Mammoth Hunters, Santa Fe Territorial Revival architectural building codes juxtaposed with ancestral adobe Pueblos that predate the Conquistadors by untold centuries, gangsta rap rollin off the Rez, lowrider Cholo whips wrapped in Chicano bling, every thing that sounds good, looks bad<\/em> and tastes like your abuela\u2019s kitchen smells on Christmas Day. Orale, bro! Or-a-le! <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is the Land of Enchantment. Just don\u2019t act like you belong there if you\u2019re not from there. Give it time, a couple cervezas and you\u2019ll melt right in like cheese on a quesadilla\u2026manana\u2026manana<\/em>\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n I melted in, once I moved into town and started\nwalking around, absorbing all the haunting ghost vibes from the historic buildings\ntying Wild West antiquity to the post-digital present, the Old Town with the\nNew, wagon trains on the Santa Fe Trail to the steam locomotives of the Atchison,\nTopeka & Santa Fe Railway, converging on the separate banks of the Gallinas\nRiver, where the mountains come down to ground, and vigilante justice often\nhung from the impartial end of a rope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I melted in, when I fell back onto my roots and small-town Midwest upbringing to know when to shut up and listen, and not act like a gringo missionary in the next round of random invaders and conquerors searching for the Lost Cities of Gold, or peyote-laced enlightenment seekers tripping in a cerebral sweat lodge, tipi, hogan or wickiup based on \u201cexperiences\u201d I had reading a book in college by someone with a Spanish or Native sounding last name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I melted in, but began to melt away like suds settling to bubbles. The phantom ghosts summoned old demons out of the apocalyptic crypt, and I knew I would have to go north again, to the sanctuary of my secluded woodland hideaway, nine-thousand feet above sea level and a dozen miles south of the Wyoming border, listening to the breeze blow through the canopy of ponderosa and lodgepole pine trees, in the belly of the jetstream\u2026 quiet, quiet, quiet<\/em> that you can hear, below the din of screaming exhaust pipes and sirens and camper-rattling wind gusts wanting to lift you off your mount and send you out onto the barren, unforgiving plains\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019ll have to happen in a subsequent post, dear reader, cuz we ain\u2019t there yet.<\/em> This is a tough place to break free from and get the release to no longer be what happens in Vegas, and stays. So, I ask you to stay with me and we\u2019ll finish this trip one of these days\u2026it\u2019s the ride and not the destination that matters. And I\u2019ve got a fresh horse, bro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n