Movin’ South

November 1, 2009

After what seems like months of sitting and looking at my lap, I can feel depression starting to lift. Given to assessing how I feel, I’m surprised every day that I don’t feel relief, or more sad, or some kind of grief. I just feel hollowness. Where for years I felt worry or irritation or tenderness toward my mother, that part is now just empty. It is very uncomfortable.

We buried Mother’s ashes in a little cemetery on a hill outside Monroe, Oregon. She’s next to my Dad and his parents; Mother’s folks are nearby. The tributes were few, but heartfelt. At 94, Mother outlived most of her tributes. Katie Swan, age 9, offered a memorable tribute. On hearing that Honey-Ma had died, she wiped her tears and said. “Well. I’m going to be especially nice to everyone today.”

We’re back on the road, back to work. The day after we left Monroe we pulled into a station for fuel and the bus wouldn’t start when we were ready to go. Damn! Same switch symptoms that left us dead in the park in Georgia in March. We got a tow down the road to Guaranty RV and got it fixed, hopefully for good. Five hundred plus and we were back on the road.

We worked a park in LaPine, Oregon and did very well. We didn’t see any of our friends in Bend, our only excuse being that after a Friday trip to the dermatologist I couldn’t wear a bra or my glasses.

It has been a beautiful fall. We’ve seen the trees turn gummy bear colors of root beer, watermelon, lemon and lime. The Aspen have quaked with a shimmering giddiness that left them bare and stickery. I was about to compare the beauty of Vermont but I remember a roadside sign we passed: “Beetle Cleaned Skulls.” It’s definitively LaPine.

We got a shot of adrenaline on Hwy 20 east of Bend that could last us all the way to New Mexico. Heading east, approaching a corner atop a little hill, a car coming up the other side didn’t make the corner and came at us totally in our lane. He did not have time to get back in his lane and didn’t seem inclined to run off the road. Fortunately we had room to swing all 55 feet of us into the westbound lane and the guy stayed where he was. Our serpentine maneuver at 55 mph must have startled the traffic behind both of us. We hate this highway.

…About that switch …. We stopped in downtown Vale yesterday to fix lunch, and the bus wouldn’t start. Dead. Dave diddled with the circuit checker and for some reason, the engine started. It died a few miles down the road, though, so we limped into Fruitland and are trying not to worry while we wait for Monday to get some help. We can drive the bus, once it starts; even when the engine quits we can get it off the road. The worry is to break down out in the hinterland where we would need a long tow, and have to detach the drive line … not good.

Stay tuned,

Sam