From Yuma To Carlsbad Beach to Chico

The by myself adventure through the Southwest was over before it really began. I made some lovely connections and did some very deep spiritual and emotional work, but it became increasingly clear that being out on the road by myself was ill advised. I headed back to San Diego stopping with friends there again for a few nights and then up to Carlsbad beach where I parked for 3 nights.

From there I went to Lake Skinner for 1 night and then North where I spent a night in Fresno and then arrived in Chico/Paradise for about a week. Then I headed North again. Got as far as Yreka, spent a night in an RV park and made it to Eugene where I camped at a pretty empty city RV park on the McKenzie River for 8 nights.

By the time I arrived in Eugene, I was hammered and spent most of the week in bed. Friends invited me over for breakfast on Sunday and I was able to reconnect with some of the scamps from the previous summer's retreat near Ashland.

Rob had offered to take the train down to Eugene from Mt. Vernon to 'get me' and I pretty much needed to be rescued at that point. I may have a few photos from Eugene. Lemme check.

Half way up Pilot Knob. This is early January! Loved the warmth, probably 80 that day.

Chocolate Mountains, North of Pilot Knob

From Yuma to Lopez Island and stuff

So I guess I'm going to continue the saga of my travels and probable what...death? I guess that's what it is. Sorry if that seems sorta crude or direct or something.

As you probably don't remember from last time I was heading toward Nogales to get some dental work done. I headed east from San Diego. It took me 4 days to drive the 3 hours from San Diego to Yuma. I drove about 45 minutes the first day and started realizing that things were looking pretty weird out the window of the motor home and then realized that it was me, so I pulled off at a Native American Reservation RV Park in Alpine, in California, in the desert, go figure. Nice folks there. I spent two nights and days in bed, trying not to pass out, passing out, sleeping, whatever, accompanied by all of the usual amazing realistic dreams that had all kinds of meaning at the time.

The 3rd day, since I was blowing $30/night on 'camping' I decided I might be able to make it the rest of the way, maybe a couple hours, to Yuma via El Centro, where they have a Costco where I'd planned to stock up. I was going to be staying in the desert near Yuma, parked for free on BLM land so it seemed like a good idea to have some food on board.

I started down the road and was buffeted by pretty high winds, so stopped at a Casino for breakfast and a break thinking that the wind might die down after awhile. Then wandered on to El Centro where I crashed again, big time, hard, in the Walmart parking lot, which was right next door to the Costco and more likely to allow me to spend a night, I figured. It was about 2 pm when I put it in park, pulled the shades and crawled into bed. It was a long day and a long night. I don't know how much I slept or what I did, but there was a lot of angst. One of my biggest fears on leaving Chico was dying in a rest area alone. So I trumped that, a Walmart in El Centro, land of people who have breathed too many pesticide fumes it seemed to me.

Sometime in the late morning, I managed to grab a cart that had drifted over to the RV and using it to hold myself up made my way through the Walmart. I wanted to get to Yuma where I could park long term and I needed groceries. Barely managed to get through Walmart without falling (don't want to fall in a Walmart for SURE. It seems to be an immediate 911 call, right?).

I was pretty determined to drive that last hour to Yumazone and I did manage to do that. Pix and description of that affair in the next post, k?

Like I'm waiting to get home

I still haven't made the psych shift to the idea that this is my home wherever it's parked.

It's like I'm waiting to get home before I do certain things. Like you're on a trip visiting friends or something, instead of living every day in the RV. There's a certain discomfort, hard to hold the total peace, because you're not 'home'.
Like you have to kinda hurry to get to the next place because time is limited, you're going to run out of vacation (I have enough of that angst already, cause I think I may run out of lifetime before i do what, i don't know. Like what's the goal again?).

So I find myself waiting to 'get home' before I do this or that, take better care of myself or whatever. Yeah, I know this is a new experience and it's going to take a bit of time to get used to, this nomadism. Combined with just fear of the unknown on so many levels, it will be a good thing to shift.

The Veil Seems Thin

The veil seems very thin this time of year between the physical and the unmanifest. Life feels very strange to me today. Like I'm more on the far side than this side. I'm not talking morbidity here, more like seeing the separation as the illusion that it truly is. Purpose and meaning in dirtworld really become about loving. Sometimes that loving causes people some painful growth, like when someone grieves our parting either through death or distance. My job is to just continue to love with all of the integrity that I am and allow people to experience what they are called to experience. Not callous, not thoughtless, but neither protecting them from their experiences.



Today, I move to Chico for the final week of preparation. You'd think that I was leaving on an around the world voyage. I look forward to getting past the remainder of this particular transition so that I have the time and energy to just 'be' again and write hopefully with a clearer head (and do better self care).