where in those lazy crazy really hazy days of summer the breeze wafts through the trees [when available] like…a blowtorch.
After much better coffee, an omelette smothered in beans and onions at the Wigwam and a visit to the Gerlach Post Office I was at Wall Spring by 9:30 Friday to unload paintings, execute a monochromatic watercolor and lunch at the diminished Lunch Pond…by afternoon’s end everything was out of the truck and into the repo with the four-foot paintings racked. Evening stayed more than warm with a too-hot-to-heat-anything dinner on the porch as the murky light faded, checking in with L about her longer harder day in Benicia…
Saturday similar atmospherics, all the big stuff sorted and put away before another
similar watercolor, similar lunch,
the repository all in order and even time to
fire up the ’82 for a run over to Parker before, much delayed,
Linda and Scott arrived in the REAL truck, out of which we took various items
destined for here or Reno in anticipation of Sunday’s reloading.
Next morning it was laundry, an early walk and breakfast
before L and Scott spent some serious time analyzing the load ahead of Gary and Anthony’s
arrival; one fewer person than we’d hoped but since Gary has, over the years, become a master packer of weird shit everything ultimately jigsawed into place although It still took three hours
to figure out and tie off. Those two then returned to Gerlach’s Considerable August Weirdness
while we adjourned to lunch at the new outdoor table in golden light and windy heat eerily reminiscent of my long ago La Cañada adolescent days spent Longing for the Beach.
About two Scott rolled out [for Winnemucca, as it happened]; we closed up and locked the gate soon after. On our way into Gerlach a couple of Burnies in off the desert ran the yield sign in front of us, slowed to a crawl, were nearly stopped cold by the painted cattle guard on the edge of town and oozed their sorry selves towards the Black Rock City Saloon. Oregon plates.
We got ourselves down the road,
into Reno a bit after five, cleaned up and awaited our friend Lee on the eve of the very week he moves into his spectacular new house south of here. He came by by seven and
drove us all downtown for a very good [albeit spendy and not exactly the menu promised on the website] dinner at Campo where we lingered latish, catching up, anticipating
his years-in-the-making move, its implications, art and life…slept pretty well that night, the next morning took 395 to our old North McCarren-to-Pyramid Way exit and over the hill to a mega shopping center never there when we used to go that way where Campo’s Sparks outpost on the edge of a vast parking lot served excellent breakfasts for $9.99 [hot beverage included]. While the TV silently ran NASCAR histories endlessly my huevos rancheros with pulled pork
and beans were amazing, gotta say; worth the drive and easy truck parking. After breakfast
Linda fielded a long long call from Luz about Libre matters as I fueled the vehicle on its way
home to Penske where they threatened to charge me for a new air filter because I’d driven “off road,” most likely a local response to Burners’ ongoing excesses. I checked the contract, which sez off “improved” roads, so figure if it comes to that I’m good. We’re still in Nevada, after all, and if the 70mph graveled and banked Smoke Creek Road isn’t ‘improved” I don’t know what would be….
A Lyfft to the airport
to wait
for a hazy flight to DIA where things were considerably smokier and we had to briskly walk
probably several actual miles to reach the extreme end of the United concourse for our tiny connection, which was watched over by a bejeweled Texas stewardess in slinky black dress…
In Colorado Springs the terminal restaurant had been terminated so we pounded down the smoky Interstate to Pueblo, failed three times at two pumps to fill our tank at the south side Alta In-Convenience store but did succeed in securing a big chicken salad from Jorge’s
and, fading but buzzing from the tankard of coffee they sent me off with, finally scored gas in Colorado City [ashes and stench of smoke from fires unseen] and home just as Bill and Muriel were dropping off Aggie from her week at DogCamp.
Shower, wine on the cool porch and bed.
Six days on the road…and counting.