April’s first Wednesday we were away before ten then after a stop at Heather Glen made it

over the hill to just past Truckee where, relieved to find I’d been sitting on the camera I feared was left on the roof at the Glen, we celebrated with a rudimentary lunch and a last chance,

seemingly, for the the dogs to see snow, not much but at least enough for Sumi to bathe in

before dropping in to dry Nevada where gas was $1.25/gallon less than in Cali. Or Reno.

Wadsworth, Nixon not shown, Empire etc…

and unloading at Wall in the Spring with help from Sonny and Seth.

Next morning I took a walk around the Park

and unloaded small paintings into the repo, then went over to Shayna Springs in the ’82

to borrow enough gas from Seth to rattle on in

to Gerlach

to fill up and wait at the county yard for Willey to load the boom extension,

back

to await Peter and Jason’s arrival from Omaha in advance of tomorrow’s two semis

…which they did and after settling in to the Repo we ate, strategized for the next morning

[there’d been a total screwup as the forklift had been delivered to Glenbrook CA instead of Gerlach, NV, so wouldn’t arrive until then either] and adjourned fairly early. But the best laid plans, impossible to alter, looked to become way complicated…which was definitely true

by morning, all the more so as Peter was having quite a lot of trouble getting the forklift reordered let alone, due to Corporate Chickenshittedness, delivered [even though it was on

the truck, ready to go]. Meanwhile Jason and I drove out to the highway to confer with truck #1

which had arrived as scheduled and then, leaving him at the turn,

drove past our gate three and a half miles to see if turning around at the county pit* was

feasible; “maybe” seeming the most optimisitic conclusion. We made it back for breakfast, Peter still trying to get the forklift committed, and at 9:45 truck #2 [which we could offload

without the fork] had arrived so I called Seth and Sonny to meet us with the trailer and after various delays we all converged at the highway and began ferrying its contents [see list] to Wall

and into the repo, which was managed in six trips with the three vehicles.  Heading back

for the sixth time what should appear at the gate but an extremely capable forklift, perfect

timing, really, as then Peter could begin unstrapping load #1 while the rest of us finished up.

Once everything from Truck #2 was stashed in the Repo I went home to rest and make dinner

while the big pieces were unloaded and dropped approximately where they would be installed some less wet and muddy future day at which point S&S disappeared up the Smoke Creek

to their hopefully cozy motorhome on the range and the KANEKO crew finally

made it in out of the cold for beers and piles of BBQ chicken.

Saturday came up chilly and still snowy but it was somehow nonetheless decided to attempt

placing at least some of the works before the ground turned to mush, “Gramma Seed” going

in first, a little slippery on the corner but otherwise successful so they moved west

to higher dryer ground

and were able to situate “Cloak of the Motion” with no trouble before breakfast

after which Peter cleaned up and packed [and packed] while Jason and I did the inventory,

which still allowed me time for watercolors as outside melted and mudded.

A last [and first] lunch together on the porch was followed by a trip out yesterday’s road [wotta dif’rence a day makes, eh?] for a visit to Planet X Pottery, and though disappointed

to find John and Rachel away on their annual mud season sojourn in Baja, thanks to their caretaker we were able to tour the premises anyway, most enlightening for me being with

the two serious ceramicists before they continued on to Reno to ship off their stuff, hose down the rental car and maybe relax a tiny bit before their long next day getting home**.

I, with a small souvenir for L. from the X, returned to Wall to put a last few things in order,

collapse and, after determining it was a wee bit too chill to dine out,

began going through the pictures to put this together, tiredly. It would take another several days of sun and mud to be done.

*The pit is not, however, on Surprise Valley Road as Surprise Valley Road is not on the Smoke Creek.

**A very long day indeed as it turned out – Airlines! – the flight from Reno was sufficiently delayed that they missed the Denver connection to Omaha and so actually didn’t get home until 12:45 Monday morning.  As far as I know they weren’t even flying Frontier.