Yumazone Storm!

So one of the other things that happened shortly after I got there was this hurricane like 48 hour storm. The photo of the dry and dead looking Ocotillo is similar to what they all looked like before the storm, the green one with red flowers is what they looked like 24 hours afterwards.

The storm raged so hard that water came in through the seals in the window and I was getting sea sick from being rocked so hard for so long. After the first 24 hours I was surrounded by raging creeks which swept away my bird feeders.

The last photo was the dawn afterwards. During this whole storm I was really sick and kinda half hallucinatory anyway so this felt REALLY kinda biblical!

Yumazone Continued

Safely ensconced in the desert near Yuma, i set out to heal myself and simultaneously was forced to learn a bit more about off grid camping. I was in bed again for about a week after arriving. I'd made sure to fill the water tanks and fridge so I was good for down time. After a week, i thought i'd plan a day in Yuma. I was still pretty messed up but it was only a 12 minute drive and i knew I could just hit a parking lot and crash for awhile if I hit the wall.
I did some research looking for some kind of health food store for organic produce, came up with one (in a town of 86k!), went there and it was boarded up. Ok, don't get me started on Yuma. The store with the most organic produce in this pretty big place is guess where? Walmart!.

I managed to do a few things while I was in Yuma. I'll be brief as possible.
1. I installed a solar panel and charging system so i could live off grid.
2. i found some peeps starting a Course in Miracles group and attended the first 3 meetings.
3. I discovered that no human was going to rescue me from my emotional work that it was just me and god here and that was IT! Big work on this one. You'd have to know my personal 'story' to know what I'm talking about and this isn't the place to air that.

After 3 weeks of very marginal subsistence and self care I realized that I was NOT capable of being on my own anymore. Eeesh! Dang! Ouch!

So I did a bunch of emotional work on that one. Not fun. and meanwhile was having all of the lovely out of body experiences and rivetingly realistic dreams and was consistently amazed every morning that I was still alive. I'd look out the window and say, "OH! Wow! I'm STILL HERE!!! What do I do now??? Oh Yeah! I remember! Make coffee!

So i came to the conclusion that 1. If i went for dental work, it'd probably kill me. 2. If i was heading out, I needed to spend some time with my daughter and grandson. and 3. I had to go someplace where i knew somebody.

The adventure was over.

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

Chocolate Mountains, North of Pilot Knob

Algodones, MX from top of Pilot Knob

Motor home at Pilot Knob, near Yuma, AZ

Jaz from the bottom of Pilot Knob.

Motor home at Pilot Knob, near Yuma, AZ

This is my RV, Jazzy parked at Pilot Knob, West of Winterhaven, CA.

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?