Flat as panqueque

We’re in Kansas. Just about 30 or so miles into Kansas, but it is very flat, has no snow, no ice and is easy on the driver. I may be complaining about being bored out of my skull with the flatness in the future, but I doubt it. All day today I was reliving the evening on the mountain and I keep getting flashes of what DIDN’T happen, but almost happened and what COULD have happened but didn’t happen. I should be able to be thankful for the positive, but I keep reliving the negative. Jamie has prescribed “stress relief” that crafty devil and we’ll see if that helps. If not, I’ll just keep getting drunk.
We’re at a “lake” by Kansas standards and when we find it I’ll let you know. Suffice to say it is flat, but there are bathrooms and electricity (!!) for five dollars a night. Yet another reason to love non-snowy, flat, non-icy, flat as a board Kansas.

We will stay here two nights, waiting out the weather which is projecting tornados on our expected route.  If someone is holding onto the locusts, please just release them.  I’d like to just get it all over with already.  :0

No more snow, pretty much EVER for me, thank you!

I sure hope that what we found today was that which the Westy was warning us about. The tourist office in Chama told us that the passes were very dangerous; people were turning around, there was ice and snowpack (but strangely enough, the pass was open with no warnings). They said that La Veda was open, dry and snowfree. We could get there by going back some 70 miles, just before Espanola and take 285 around the mountains. That would eliminate La Manga and Cumbres passes but add about 140 miles to our day. The forecast was for sun tomorrow, but the forecasts had been terribly wrong so far, and the heavy snowfall on top of Cumbres today was forecast as “sun” yesterday. We checked again in Antonito, after taking 285 all the way back to Colorado and after they checked 5 different numbers, agreed with Chama tourist information that La Veda was dry, clear and snow-free. We knew we were chasing time; it was 4pm when we left Antonito and the other side of La Veda (under 10K ft) was about 100 miles away. We didn’t want to cross La Veda in the dark or at night just in the event that snowfall could be possible. Just outside the pass, at Ft. Gardner, we tuned into the tourist information radio station which was very quiet. The pass was light and we could see the peaks of surrounding mountains. We never imagined it could be as awful as it turned out.

We headed up the pass with dry roads but watching the windshields of approaching cars, I noticed some had snow. I hoped that they had come from roads off the pass as the majority of cars were dry and didn’t even have dirt around the tire wells. Just before the summit, the road turned slushy. At the summit the road was pure ice. Everyone had dropped their speed to 5mph or less. Enormous trucks were inching down the pass. A fifth wheel pulling an additional trailer pulled off at the pass (into deep snow) and joined two other 5th wheels waiting there. I figured they’d all head down together but we never saw them again. I assume they are still up there, surrounded by white. After beginning down the pass, I saw a sign indicating the grade would last 4 miles and was hopeful but the icy road too soon turned to thick pure ice and I had no control over the vehicle. I had the Ford in 1st gear and was going less than 5mph but I almost lost all control when I saw the trailer inching into a jacknife. I had already hyperventilated by then and tried deep breathing and telling myself to “relax, calm down, breath deep” to keep from falling apart. We actually jacknifed but it was so slow that I was able to get straight again. I headed the the middle of the road where the slush was thicker and the ice seemed to be less. A sherrif’s car drove by and berated me, telling me I should pull off the road (WHERE?? and I had little to no control of the van+trailer) before zipping off to presumably berate someone else. I literally inched down the mountain. I’d let off the brakes; the wheel cranked to the right and move a tiny bit, then hit the brakes to eventually skid to a stop, inch again to the right or out of whatever skid I was in at the time, and slowly, quite literally inches at a time, made out way down. Jamie jumped out of the Westy and stood at the driver’s window with me, encouraging me on and getting splashed by oncoming snow spray. I took the middle of the road and eyed the oncoming lane, so wishing I could use it; it was dry and plowed and had neither ice nor snow nor slush. Finally, I got to the point where the oncoming uphill traffic had 2 snow, slush and ice free lanes (and our sole downhill lane was thick ice) and I took over one oncoming lane. It was terribly dangerous, but the oncoming traffic was slow. We hit a wall of fog and a Sherrif’s car drove by to berate me once again. I was in the oncoming lane but the downhill lane was thick ice. He told me I was holding up traffic (there was none behind me, but perhaps they had stopped it somewhere, waiting for me to crash) and to get off the road (again, WHERE?? no pullouts…). Finally, after what seemed like hours (we headed up the pass at 5:15 and got down at 8:30), I got to slush. Then the snow began to disappear. Then the hail turned to rain. I had control of the van and trailer but I was still to scared to trust it to more than 25mph. It was a leap of faith to go to 10mph, then 15, then 20, then 25. I kept testing my brakes and when I stopped skidding I increased my speed. Then I lost my trailer brakes. Luckilly, I was only on wet highway and the trailer brakes held all through the ice and snow.

I used the gearing as brakes and really didn’t even use the van brakes and here we are in Walsenburg, Co; it can snow and rain all we care; we’re off the damn mountain. Tomorrow we need to figure out why the trailer brakes kept going off and on; perhaps it is a rain or snow or ice issue, but for now, we’re eating, relaxing and enjoying the fact that we did not end up pulled down the moutain by the trailer; jacknifed and completely out of control. And send some warm thoughts for the poor bastards spending the night in their trailers at the top of the pass. There is bad weather coming from Chama and they might be there a while (another reason I wanted to get down).

Now I am going to get quite drunk and fall asleep. And it will be a VERY long time before I have any desire to see snow, slush or ice.

SNOW!!! Otra vez!

So, i get an email from my good friend John in Pueblo CO (we are so close to CO that we drove there today) who tells me it was 80F there today. They are at 6000 feet. Chama is in the 7000’s. The signal strength on my satellite connection had been slowly dropping all evening (as I answered the 45 emails sitting in my inbox, and no, I didn’t have merely 45 but 45 that needed a response) and finally in dropped below 30 and I lost my connection. I wondered if Germantown (the NOC; don’t worry, if you don’t “do” satellite internet, just go “la la la” when you read this gibberish) was having weather trouble as I had noticed the sound of rain had stopped. I waited and played a few games of Spider Solitaire and finally, when the numbers kept to the single digits, figured the tipod had settled in the rain and was no longer plumb. I found my jeans (.50 at the recent yard sale in El Dorado and they fit like a DREAM) and pulled them on, couldn’t find my shoes so I stole Jamie’s (I better hurry as the signal strength is dropping again) and headed outside, my trusty laptop relaying the modem’s signal. As I stepped down, I crunched. Got a flashlight and saw frost? snow? Walked further, crunching, and found the dish was completely covered with SNOW! It is snowing here in Chama and we are tucked in tight! I wiped the snow from the dish and immediately the signal strength climbed 55 points! It has dropped 2 points since I started typing so I’d better hurry.

The boys are so jazzed about the snow and hope it will stay for the morning. I just want to try to get a picture, so I’ll post and then see what I can get. Can you believe? Snow in mid September?

Snow!!

We will most likely be saying goodbye to Micheal in a month. He is unwilling and/or unable to put forth the effort to participate in our family. He would rather be homeless than put someone other than himself first. To say this is an enormous surprise and disappointment to Jamie and myself is an understatement. Jamie has not been able to sleep or eat for weeks; the situation with Michael has been eating away at him. Today we told him that we would be unable to wait a full month of him proving himself; in his own words he says he will “try”, “doesn’t want to”, “can’t do that”, “doesn’t like that”, “doesn’t think he can”. We are hoping that if our expectations are zero, it will be much less frustrating when he decides not to help out. It is a terribly sad situation; that someone would prefer homelessness to making an effort and deciding to put the needs of others ahead of their own. It is incomprehensible to Jamie and myself that someone would not be chomping at the bit to help “pay” back (not monetarily) the effort we have made to bring him back from the brink of homelessness. We would both be working our asses off to work off our “debt” (emotional and, quite frankly, financial; we have to keep saying “no” to stuff the kids want to do because we spent around $6000 on Michael alone) and can’t imagine the concept of just saying, “no; I’d rather YOU do the work; I deserve a break”. We have never seen this attitude in him in all the years we’ve known him, but he has always been a very solitary animal and perhaps this was what was hidden. We now can imagine why none of his friends in Tahoe would help him.

Today we headed up to our old stomping grounds from last year; the top of the Cumbres Pass to see our old spot. We then headed down to Elk Creek Campground where we spent Labor Day last year and the kids played in the stream until the remnants of Hurricane Lane rolled in. By the time we got to the top of La Manga Pass it was almost impossible to see, snow was accumulating on the sides of the road and piling up on the windshield of the car. At first we were incredibly excited until the realization dawned that should the snowfall increase, we’d have a hard time getting over the second pass, Cumbres. Luckilly, it is slightly shorter than La Manga Pass and we had no trouble. It is raining here in the campground and I’m glad we have hookups and are not boondocking with a defective generator at the top of Cumbres Pass, snow in the making for tonight. We will probably stay here another night and then head to Colorado Springs, where we hope to get the generator fixed and Jamie to get some most excellent (sans snow) riding in.

the owl looked up at the stars above adn sang to a small guitar

I have an enormously long post to make about enormously large changes we’ll soon be making and my reaction, but as it always seems, I’m not currently with time to explore en blogue.  So, suffice to say, I’ll try, but we’re headed back to Carlsbad Caverns today for another explore, then to the Dollar Store (no thriftstore in town) to get gifts for Sissy’s birthday (tomorrow) and somewhere in the day I’m going to try to fit some hours of work in.  Pretty much a normal, hectic day.  So, my abandoned readers, keep the faith, an update will arrive…

Fort Davis, Texas

Jamie has taken over many of my chores since he got back from the US (in May) and is finding the budget aspect to be a challenge. After spending the thousands we did to bring Michael back, I instituted a strict budget and part of the budget is a limit of $600 a month on food. He gets another $50 a month for household items. Until recently, he figured he could just steal money from other budgeted items. That might have worked in other months, but $200+ in unexpected medicines (for ProstaQ, etc.) blew that fail-safe out of the water. It took a little “discussion” but I think he understands the idea of a budget now and how it should work. But I think he could really use some encouragement from you internets. He is coming very close to using his entire $600 allottment of food already but I think he can make it if he stays away from meat. And frankly, with the hormone, antibiotic and steriod laden meat in the US, I’m not so sure that is a bad thing. Michael, who LOVES meat is so aghast at the prospect of limited to no meat, that he is using his food stamp money to buy meat. So, if you’re so inclined, and even if you’re not, but could be pursuaded to become so inclined, drop him a little line at jamie.s.jam@gmail.com and give him some support. I think he can make the money stretch to the end of the month but he’ll need some encouragement.

The thriftstore here in town (Ft. Davis) is a little gem. I have purchased 6-7 pairs of shorts (good, heavy, cargo style) for the boys, swimsuits for both of the boys, a skirt and skort for sissy, skort for ellen, at least 5-6 shirts for the girls and am still under $20. Yesterday I found two Corelle plates (I’m trying to get rid of all our plastic without going to stoneware; stonewear in the trailer is simply Not A Good Thing but it does make for good crushed stone).

The other day we headed out to Davis Mountain Resort, which sounds like it should be a lovely, manicured lawn type of place with tennis courts and multiple swimming pools, but is actually an enormous ranch which has been subdivided. It is about 10-15 miles west of Ft. Davis making it even more remote than Marfa or Alpine or Ft. Davis (what I am now calling the “tri-cities area”, which is something of a joke since the largest town of the three is Alpine, weighing in with a whopping population of SIX THOUSAND). But wait, there’s more! After driving out into lovely valleys and mountains and through 396 acre ranch after 396-acre ranch, you’ll find the the DMR. The plethora of mailboxes on the road are an indication. The grading equipment along the 5-7 miles of dirt road approaching the DMR are another. This is no typical “resort”. Many of the roads in the “resort” are 4WD only, and while we scoffed at that designation from the safety of our trailer in Ft. Davis, once we got to the resort and started up some of the roads, we realized why they were designated as such. Many of the non-4WD roads were rutted where the rains had carved out their own pathways. Once our massive van reached the 4WD roads we decided to keep to the “good” roads before we got terribly stuck. Jamie wanted to check out a trailer and 7 acres of property but since the road was 4WD only, we gave up and just decided to enjoy the ride. Jamie has been scouting the idea of starting a bike shop in Alpine as he is finding there might be a good market for it. I’m not so excited about settling down, but the kids are ready for a home-base of some kind. This really is a very lovely area of Texas, but it is still Texas, and I’m not yet able to drop the stereotype I have of Texas, especially after reading about some of the folk inhabiting the DMR. Shiver.

So, send Jamie some support (Michael right now is trying to get him to take him into town to the store so he can spend money…) and love. We’ll leave here on Monday and head up to Santa Fe. Michael wants to go through Section 52 (Roswell) but that takes us out of our planned way and we had planned to stop in El Paso for supplies. We’ll see. Our destination for the immediate future is Albuquerque for Sept 6-10 and the Live and Learn Conference .

and on the 12th floor of the ACME building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions

The boys were disappointed again this week when Carl Kasell announced that Peter Sagal was again on vacation. They live for the weekends and Car Talk, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and Prarie Home Companion. If we were living in a stick house, I’m sure they’d know so much more of typical American kid pop culture, but instead of Pokemon or some TV show that I’m so removed from American pop culture that *I* don’t even know what is current, the boys love to listen to NPR’s finest. They recite the intro to each and every segment, the intro to each show, they “do” Carl Kasell and Peter Sagal and LOVE Guy Noir and The Life of the Cowboys and the Katsup advisory board. Jesse’s favorite part of “Wait Wait” is the lightning fill in the blank. I have no idea why; he rarely gets a question right and furthermore, I’d be astonished if he knew any of the answers. They both adore Guy Noir (and that man is ALWAYS finding some woman with pants so tight he can read the writing on the laundry instructions or something similar, but I doubt they “get” that part either) and have begun to love “The Life of the Cowboys”, both on PHC.

So, thanks to Jamie, who insisted on Sirius, each weekend the boys creep out of bed, switch the Sirius from Howard Stern to NPR and turn the radio on in their room to enjoy a day of their favorite programs. On Sunday they listen to them all again and somehow manage to enjoy them even more the second time around. Tonight they’re enjoying a lovely fire while I try to encourage Ellen to go to sleep. *I* need to get up early, so I’m so hoping she’ll go down before 11.

Ft. Davis continues to draw us in, Jamie is hoping to look at a piece of property tomorrow and Michael is going to visit the Alpine UU Church. It is quiet, it is peaceful and it is heavenly. I’m trying very hard to drop my negative stereotype of Texas.

They say that Montana is “Big Sky Country” and as I’ve never been, I can’t disagree. I would be hard pressed, however, to find bigger sky than that which we’ve seen in Texas. This must be cloud season and throughout each day, they seem to try to outdo each other. The depth and range of color in the clouds alone is astounding. The rainbows, the enormous black thunderheads and deep blue sky are indescribable. I can’t think of a more beautiful sky anwhere we’ve been.