A week ago I was in Gerlach to collect Linda’s Fedex, an unexpected parcel of my own and visit Willey at the County Shop to try to lure him out for a look at doing L’s sculpture installs*

before taking 34 north out of town along the edge of the Black Rock where after stopping

to clean the windshield it was disconcertingly discovered the right rear door wouldn’t close

without some considerable counterintuitive machinations. Said machinations, however, proved

effective, so I continued on beyond the Hualapai and the pavement up Leadville Canyon**

to higher grounds, including but not limited to

the turn to High Rock Canyon [open but not taken].

Instead I went on past the caged rocks of Lund’s Memorial Petrified Forest

all the way to Long Valley

to 8A to turn west towards California

where the west ends, the pavement begins as 299 and after Cedar Pass Mount Shasta

appeared, faintly looming over all those illegal marijuana grows in the free state of Jefferson.

All this being a roundabout excuse/route to get to Alturas for groceries, drop off scrap metal and return to Cedarville for gas and air too late for lunch so made do with a roadside repast

of “ch” – chips, cheese and chocolate chased with chilled coffee.  The remainder of

Surprise Valley***remained verdant but of course Nevada, adjacent, is ever less so.

So it was over the Buff Hills on 447

and down,

after six + hours and some 275 miles,

to our Smoke Creek Home where my unexpected package contained a delightful surprise

from my friend of many decades**** Stephen Hendrickson, who continues to faithfully frequent the second hand shoppes and summer flea markets of the rural northeast.

*Burning Man, already looming in mid-May, took precedence and a week later he still hasn’t found the time to get out here.

**Without, this time, detouring over to  Leadville proper.

***As near as I can figure most of Surprise Valley’s pavement ends at the Nevada line, where “the west begins”.

****Six, and still counting…