Category — Travel

As my trip to San Francisco comes to a close, I thought I would share a little of what it was like.

I came up here to work on a big web project. Most of my time has been spent planning two websites, shooting video, planning an internet radio show, and working out a comprehensive marketing plan. I loved it!

I also went for some nice walks and got to see a little of the Berkeley area. I actually stayed in Richmond, CA which is next to Berkeley and on the east side of the bay. The energy here is interesting. Palpable. There is a real concern for both the spiritual body and the environmental community. It can often seem that people talk less than they walk, but I do not get that sense here. People care. It is also a higher energy than I am used to in Arivaca, but still laid back and accepting.

This is an area I have thought about living in before and after spending a week here, I still see it as a possibility. I love the weather and beauty and the culture and the opportunities. I love the people.

This has been one of those months where it feels like way more than a month’s worth of time and energy has been used up. In October I went to several potlucks and played a lot of music. I played at La Gitana, for the Mesquite Harvest Festival, and with various friends. I also have been practicing guitar and fiddle a lot more than I had been in the past few months, although I haven’t done much with the mandolin.

October saw the Mesquite Harvest Festival, an event that I put a lot of time and energy into. I made sourdough mesquite pancakes for the pancake breakfast at the community center and later played music for a few hours at the hoedown. Although we had less people than we expected, we still made quite a bit of money for the community center.

A lot more happened in October than I will detail here, much of that time spent with dear friends, building community and developing my sense of place for Arivaca. However, travel and exploration is in my blood and by the end of the month I found myself making plans to travel to San Francisco to work with an extremely creative woman on a conglomeration of web projects, including an internet radio show. Next month’s post will talk about that in more detail.

We woke up early at Rusty’s RV Ranch outside of Rodeo, NM and enjoyed an amazing sunrise while we drank our morning coffee. We were on the road by 6:30 a.m. and thought it would be an uneventful last leg of the trip to Arivaca. About five minutes later we found out otherwise. The temperature gauge wouldn’t drop below the red line even though we had barely started, so I pulled over to see if I could figure anything out. I noticed the radiator overflow tank was empty and when I looked closer I saw that the damn thing had cracked down the side (towards the bottom, no less) for about three inches. I knew I just had to make it to Arivaca and then I would have more time to get it replaced, so I grabbed a plastic baggy and some duct tape and patched it up as best I could. It was still leaking, but slower and when I started up again it stayed cool enough to keep going.

The rest of the trip WAS uneventful and although there were a few more hills to climb, we managed not to overheat again. We stopped in Green Valley, AZ for a few groceries and arrived in Arivaca around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. I parked the motorhome near the house we are renting and partially underneath some large mesquite trees to provide a little shade from the summer sun. It is still too hot to be in their during the day, but in the morning and evening it is just fine.

We also found a vehicle to drive within a day of arriving. It is a big, gas-guzzling white van that has several interesting personality quirks, but it gets us around town and that’s all we need for now. We are renting it from a friend of ours and may end up buying it. We used it to go to La Gitana last night and we had an incredibly wonderful evening seeing most of our old friends and getting caught up. It feels so good to be back in what we now know for sure is our home. Sara is already feeling better and a lot less stressed and feels like this is where she is meant to be. We both feel that and are thankful we are back.

While it was sad to say goodbye to our friends, Steve and Kathy, we were excited to be back on the road again. Sara’s prescriptions were finally ready, so we spent the morning picking those up, delivering them to Walgreens, picking up a couple of items from our storage shed and getting packed up and ready to go. We hit the road at 12:30 pm and instead of taking I-10 westward, we dropped down towards El Paso and took NM-9 west, thus bypassing another large hill outside of Las Cruces.

We arrived in Rodeo around 6 pm and we are staying at Rusty’s RV Ranch with an incredible view of the Chiricahuas outside our windows. Just after we settled in and hooked everything up, the storm we saw brewing for the last hour finally hit. Well, maybe not hit, but it did graze us. Further up in the mountains the lightning was blazing away, but all we received was about 20 minutes worth of rain.

Now I’m sitting here writing this post with the window screen wide pulled open to let all of the fresh air in and to give me an unobstructed view of the mountains. There are Cassin’s Sparrows singing away, as happy for the monsoon rains as I am. Although the temperature was close to 90 in Las Cruces, it is only 70 right now and feels delicious.

We will leave fairly early tomorrow to get over Mule Pass in Bisbee before the day’s heat makes it too difficult. After that, we should not have to deal with any more potentially overheating climbs. And best of all, by the end of the day we should be back home in Arivaca after a 9-month absence.