<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alright, amigos, it\u2019s time to saddle the\nhorse and prepare to head north. We\u2019ve got to leave the allure of Las Vegas,\nNew M\u00e9xico, while we still can. This place is getting ahold of me, but I gotta\ngo, get back to my mountain hideaway in the northern Rockies of Colorado,\nbefore it\u2019s too late\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe weather is finally gorgeous \u2013 warm and sunny with little or no wind. I\u2019ve been waiting months for this. Definitely going to take Rambeaux for a walk, do some photography of some historic buildings and maybe buy a license and go fishing, get back to an active lifestyle after these winter doldrums have made me lazy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The construction crews are working overtime and trying to catch up on getting the main residence and carriage house ready for the tenants, who\u2019ve been living in temporary digs, waiting to move in. It\u2019ll be housing for the owners and staff of the restaurant at the Casty [Castaneda Hotel] which is opening soon, after seventy years of vacancy and no small amount of decay, being resurrected by dreams, and vision, and money.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n –Journal entry: Wednesday; April 3rd, 2019; 10:48 am. Restless in my camper, Cochise<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bitter weather\nhas finally released its grip and green things begin to grow, and I\u2019m ready to\ngo, finish this first season as a rubber tramp, living out of my 19\u2019 vintage\ncamper with my dog, Rambeaux, and head north to that little piece of dirt in\nthe mountains of Colorado that I call my own, just south of the Wyoming border.\nBut the weather there won\u2019t let me return\u2026 not yet – still too much cold and\nblowing snow making the ground a horizontal barrier to passenger vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The word from my neighborhood newsletter there informs me a late-season storm has dumped more than two feet of wet snow that gale-force winds have formed into an impenetrable blockade, snapping the hydraulic cylinder mounts on the road grader and holding smaller vehicles with snowplows at a standstill. Locals have to rely on snowmobiles to get groceries and everyone is waiting for the weather to break, warm the air, melt the snow and allow the normalcy of summer to bring life back from the dormancy of winter. I wait from what should be safe distance, but often doesn\u2019t feel that way. We live by the choices we make, and mine are sometimes not the best. I think that\u2019s just part of being human. At least that\u2019s my excuse\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, the last month has slipped by quickly, slippery with wet memories and little to say in this journal\u2026trekking through snow melting slowly and hot soaks at Montezuma Hot Springs, often followed by a trip to the local watering hole, walking without caution and not watching out for the unseen crocodile waiting to dine on an unsuspecting visitor, like me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n –Journal\nentry: Saturday; May 4th, 2019; 9:06 am. Waiting for the weather to break and\nopen the way to my little slice of paradise in northern Colorado, nearly 500\nmiles north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n North\u2026north\u2026north I must go, back to the home I know and the sound comfort of familiar ground, as the sound on the ground of this place is disrupted by jackhammers breaking concrete and many busy feet hustling over the property as utilities are inspected and new conduit connected, sheetrock, tile and finish trim are put in place as the new owners bring furniture and boxes to store in finished rooms, pushing the workers to let them in, and out of their temporary stay and storage spaces so they can accelerate into the traffic of activity at the Casty, join the pace of frenzy there as the grand old hotel approaches its grand new opening \u2013 many decades in waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wait as well, for weather north to let me enter so I can go forth from here, where I no longer feel at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The worm turned when I woke to cold a few weeks ago and discovered that my freshly filled propane tanks had been stolen, the cover replaced but the space inside empty, fittings damaged as though undone in a hurry with tools instead of nice and easy by hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Who would steal my source of heat in the dead of winter? Why? Why tweakers, of course, and their junky cousins, \u2018cause they gotta get that high \u2013 and nothing else matters. Punks and thugs\u2026wasting space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I just left, and headed back to Storrie\nLake to wait for the green light from the weather beyond to put the horse and\ncart on the road and go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Summer hours are in effect which means the\nwater is turned on and the doors are unlocked to the showers and bathroom\nfacilities, so I find a spot as the campground begins to fill on Cinco de Mayo\nweekend. As the sounds of heavy engines shatter the atmosphere in town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis place is so peaceful, so contrary to the streets of Vegas, of pounding exhaust systems that drivers love to hear open up and get throaty, bouncing the sounds of dual pipes off buildings and people, beating the bellows of internal big-blocks with headers, glasspack mufflers and 3\u201d tailpipes aimed at you like the burping muzzles of anti-aircraft artillery guns.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And then there is the choir of sirens coming from cops, ambulances and firetrucks \u2013 in that order. Not a quiet town, Las Vegas, NM, and when the property I was watching became a full-on construction site I knew it was time to leave. I should have left sooner.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n –Journal\nentry: Tuesday; May 7th, 2019; 2:26 pm. Back again at Storrie Lake Campground,\nwaiting for clearance to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt has been one year since I\u2019ve taken up the rubber tramp life. Hard to believe. It\u2019s been interesting, though. That\u2019s Fo sho! <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n