Where's Hazel? Pet Hazel. Hazel needs her dreadlocks
trimmed.
  January 4 2023 Nita Died
Yesterday
I am truly sorry for us all. The Trail Angel of the
Toaster House has gone away to be with the rest of the
angels and we have to carry on without her. Every time one
of my extended family passes away I am reminded of my own
mortality and lack of preparedness for that eventuality.
Rest in peace Nita. Message from her family: Thank you all
for your prayers, thoughts, vibes, etc. for our mom. ❤️ We
were secure in our decision to stop treatment & are at
peace knowing that she isn’t suffering anymore. She left her
body at 6:06pm on January 3, 2023, surrounded by her family
and so much love.
Aloha!
"When the door of the mathom shop is closed and the
Inhabitant leaves the print of her footsteps for a moment on
the wooden stair, things pause. There is no movement, not
even of
time."
—Lewis Turco, The Shifting Web
Sleep my little baby-oh
Sleep until you waken
When you wake you’ll see the world
If I’m not mistaken |
Kiss a lover
Dance a measure,
Find your name
And buried treasure |
Face your life
Its pain, its pleasure,
Leave no path untaken
― Neil Gaiman, The
Graveyard Book |
Nor any stone unturned,
Nor any bell unrung.
...a couplet appended from my ana. |
Another Step On The Road To Decrepitude
Tuesday. Annual eye exam. I had an OK day more or less
visiting the ophthalmologist. My eyes have not deteriorated
much but one of them has changed. Now, for the first time
ever I have a prescription for glasses. Another step down
the road to decrepitude. I suppose the better part of all
that is my insurance pays for the glasses.
13th, Friday of January
Very active and busy day. Finally inspired to get off my
butt and commence to begin to get ready for a short road
trip. The Cat Drag’d Inn has not drag’d out for a
couple two-three years now. Aside from a jaunt of 24
miles round trip to Allan’s Tonopah Garage on 30-31
May 2022 for the fuel leak the bus has not been anywhere
since her last return from Pie Town in October 2021. I’m
concerned I mightn’t remember how to drive!
Despite this 13th of Friday's efforts the Banana Box
Retrieval Expedition was completed without adverse incident.
I spent 60$ of the boss’s stash to take on 5/8th tank of
fuel in his big pickup and used about 1/10 of a tank for
this mission to Food City 23 miles east to fetch 88 banana
boxes. Boxes are now covered with tarps against a forecast
three days of rain—an inch or so expected here with 6-10
inches of snow in the high country to the north. Truck and
trailer are ready for next Food Pantry.
That took care of the morning. After lunch and a short nap:
Got the 3208 main motor started yesterday afternoon. Built
air. Throttle modifications working. Disconnected shore
power and tested inverter & solar. Found two loose wires
to fix. Cleaned instrument panel and polished good luck
silver coins. Tested Bridge HF radio on 40m and 80m. I still
need to test the horns and wipers and lights.
Primary internet has been down for two days now. Relying on
the more expensive and slower alternate. To make matters
just about intolerable my TV, which in conditions of no
internet will usually at least work for OTA channels, will
not work at all with the alternate connexion. Not at all.
Cannot even watch local movies. But I have letters to write
and books to read. So. All in all a very busy
exciting/frustrating/productive day. I need a nap.
Sunday—Preparations Continue
Dump & Fill. Washing dishes. Cleaning floor. I’ve
decided to return the Shark IQrobot Vacuum. The thing works
just dandy; does a fine job cleaning as far as that goes and
the back and forth and round & round operation is kind
of entertaining. But the Shark does not do well with corners
and narrow spaces and area rugs. I am obliged to move tool
bags and other things out of the way and follow along with
the built-in vacuum on a hose to get all the places the
Shark misses. On top of all that Officer Hazel has given
Sharkey three citations for stealing kibbles, obstructing
traffic, illegal parking, and soliciting.
 Bring On The
Lilies!
This Winter we've had sufficient rain to waken the Ajo Lily
bulbs. They have been hibernating the past couple of
years—must be that Covid BS again—but right now three plants
close to The...Inn have put up their first leaves along with
one plant further away. December rain total 1.35” So
far in January 0.34” plus 0.13” yesterday, and 0.30
this soggy monody morning.
Wenzday...
1.10" of nice slow rain in the past 36 hours. Four more
lilies have poked up their first leaves.
Almost On The Road Again
Prepping to get The Cat Drag'd Inn dragged out onto
the road for a fortnight to Quartzsite and back. Got
TinyTruck loaded with all sorts of essential insanities. Now
my toilet flusher is leaking. Checked the running lights,
walk around, found a few minor problems: crazing, checking
& UV damage on antique lenses expensive to replace; if
you can find them. For toilet repair I may have to share
Hazel's litter box until I can order a new seal; at least
those parts are still available. I'm not actually trying to
restore this 1964 coach but I did find a few items of
original equipment today. UD$50 for one new taillight lens.
40$ for another used one but looks to be in better shape
than what is presently in service.
 One
interesting riddle concerned the common #1157
brake/taillight dual filament bulb. When I tested the
directionals alone the right side blinked OK. When I tested
the tail lights alone they worked OK. But with the tail
lights on and the directional lights blinking there were
some strange effects of the wrong lights being on or
blinking. Eventually I found the right side #1157 bulb to be
faulty. The two lead buttons on the base of the bulb, so
long in their socket, had flattened and spread to the point
they were touching, creating a short between the brake and
taillight circuits.
Rabbit-Rabbit & Ground Hog Day
Returned to Tonopah yesterday afternoon (5th of Febter)
after a mostly educational fortnight at The Magic Circle in
Quartzsite. The cold weather made playing outside rather
problematical but also kept my fridge from too much
overload. On the few sunny days my battery charged up to
100% however on the cloudy days the APU burned propane to
generate the necessary watts. Also burned lots of propane to
keep The Cat Drag’d Inn habitable. Prices are simply
outrageous. Propane cost 132$. Diesel for 76 gallons was
363$. Also found UV damage has removed the insulation from
some of the solar panel wiring on the roof of the bus. In
any case the adventure was a fun time reacquainting with
people I have not seen since B.C.
The Desert Circle Amateur Radio Club NU7DE held our Annual
Meeting and Pi Eating Contest at The Magic Circle
The Stupid Bowel!
Just down the road apiece. The streets hereabouts are
clogged with californicators coming to spend their money and
watch
the bull fight. What
it was was football.
Happy Valentine’s Day
Valentine's
Day originated as a feast to celebrate the
decapitation of a
third-century Christian martyr, or perhaps two. The
day then took a gruesome path to becoming a romantic
holiday.
I’m working a gruesome path to add another 200 watts (two PV
panels) to the array on the roof of The Cat Drag’d Inn.
The gruesome part is the cold. Most of the parts and pieces
are here, just a matter of finding and fitting. One smaller
panel will have to be moved to a different location, two new
panels installed, all the wiring on the roof to be replaced,
lots of holes to drill and fill.
That project got underway as the result of two discoveries:
The fortnight at Magic Circle proved that the solar array
was inadequate to support the current load of electric
appliances mostly occupied by the rebuilt fridge. Some of
the array wiring is too small a gauge and much of the
insulation has rotted away due to UV deterioration. I
suspect that loss of insulation is allowing some of the
electrons to leak from the wires instead of conducting to
the battery.
Weak Ending 26 Febter
Busy day seeing off a friend who has been dossing here for
3-4 days. Returning my bed and galley table to single
occupancy status and in the interim doing a wiring job for a
neighbour that netted about five gallons of Diesel. All that
followed by a four hour nap and 0.07" rain overnight.
A Week Into March
Out of step with everything. At least that’s the way I feel.
I’ve rewired the PV array with wire three sizes larger—from
#10 to #6—and added two panels. Total capacity 1000 Watts
+/- a hundred or two depending upon variables too numerous
to catalogue. Finally managed a laundry. Started thinking
about the total solar eclipse scheduled for April 2024 and
discovered there is one coming up in October of this year
that will cross near Pie Town. Paul’s new shed, yet
incomplete, has walls and doors and lights. Landscaping
next.
3-14 at Train Spotter Hill 
No Big Boy
here this time but lots of Diesel engines pulling long
freights. Six engines pulling 140 cars. Late in the
afternoon Tony wrote. What?! Pi Day? I had dropped the Pi.
Forgot all about Pi Day and nary a crust to be seen. But I
did have three squishy bananas. So I hastily concocted a
variation of my World Famous Male Banana Bread—in a Pi dish.
Male Banana Pi with Chablis for supper and for
desert. Ferroequinologists
abound!
 Feast Day of Saint Patrick
Slept well after a day of driving. Not all that many miles
but lots of turns and bumps. Ended up at TTT last night.
Lots of lakes in this lot. After we parked the driver from a
truck across the way knocked on Jack's door to offer some
advice: “When you leave”, he said, “don't go that way.” He
pointed at an orange traffic cone sticking up above the
water of one particular puddle. “Had to tow an RV out of
that hole yesterday.”
Arrived Pima County Fair Ground, southeast of Tucson, for
the Escapees 45th Anniversary Escapade. The Cat Drag'd
Inn is parked on several thousand oblong feet of
grassy lawn. Hurricane Hazel-Rah loves the taste.
Moeninf Rentle Geaders...
My keyboard has yet to recover. I'll have to type slower.
39F and breezy this morning... Betty wrote me one time ago:
When my hands are cold, I cannot type. And when it
is too warm, and hands are sweaty, I hit wrong keys
because fingers slip. And when the weather is neither
too hot, nor too cold, I am distracted by the perfect
magnificence of nature and my thoughts whirl faster
than my fingers.
—Betty Prange, Nomad on a PocketMail
Middle March Spring Equinox PCFG 47F
Yesterday the Gust-O-Meter topped out at 47mph.
Hurricane Hazel-Rah met her match. The week of Escapade and
running barefoot in the grass went well. Even managed to get
through a few days of only one donut with my morning coffee
and no trash to pick up along the way. Got a charge out of
the seminar about Battle Born Lithium Batteries. They have
to be in the same category of my Do List as green bananas.
Then off to visit Captain Hook in Deming on the return drive
to Tonopah.
Diesel in Deming is One Dollar less expensive than
Tonopah!
So before heading west I went to top up all available
hydrocarboniferous fluid repositories. The propane pump
revealed a leaking check valve in the upper onboard tank.
That same failure occurred a few years ago with the lower
onboard tank and an add-on check valve adapter was available
that fixed the leak. So the first delay early Monday morning
was to find a similar device. My six-hour drive on Least
Heat-Moon’s “Blue Highways” turned into ten hours of stop
and shop. All’s Well That Ends Well as the saying goes
except for the last 30-40 miles of driving through rush-hour
traffic straight into a blinding sunset. Finally pulled off
the road to let the sun and traffic get out of my way.
April Rabbit Rabbit
Ajo
Lilies Blooming In Tonopah. The three inches of rain
over this past Winter has been sufficient to switch on the
Ajo Lily [Hesperocallis undulata] bulbs. Mostly anyhow. Not
all the previously documented plants have flowered but
plants have sprouted in several new locations.
“Hesperocallis
undulata Gray-Ajo lily” is a protected native plant in
AridZona so I have erected a fence around the plant
sprouting next to TinyTruck's left front wheel.
3 April 1941 Disco 82
Yes indeed! Commencing my Second Childhood today. So I get
to be a snotty nosed brat all over again. Why? Why? Why? Are
we there yet? Are we there yet? What is
the significance of 82? Is it your birthday?
Women are like celery and iceberg
lettuce;
they wilt soon after they are freshest.
Men are like old Twinkies; there's no expiration
date.
—from a
skit on PHC
|
Not that I'm getting old and
tattered, but I don't get too close to the
kerb on rubbish day.....
Thanks A.C. |
My Preferred Personal Pronouns: [She, He, It, They, Them,
Your] Human!
A Preposition Is A Word You’re Not Supposed To End A
Sentence With.
|
2023 April — Greetings Virtual
Travellers and Pen Friends: 
