…but the hangin’ judge was drunk.

Meanwhile rains [not shown] rolled through Benicia, bringing snow and road closures

to the Sierra. I briefly adapted to the late California winter – blue skies when clear, intense

green on the hills, biting wet cold when raining – there were a fortuitous couple of bike rides,

some investigations into the Archives,

three very nice evenings out and then, taking advantage of a rare Window

of Opportunity, I loaded up and on an unrelentingly overcast day made it, despite new snows,

over 80

to Reno, circumnavigated the Stremmels’ latest architectural triumph to

the NMA, a pleasant lunch with Bill Fox

and more dry roads [approaching Nixon under overcast]

[summit north of Lake Winnemucca] to the soggy environs of Wall

before dark. This allowed time to inspect the [near non-existent] damage, slight disturbances and inventory The Missing [some gallons of gasoline, a set of jumper cables from my unregistered but driven-by-strangers ’82 Chev and, um, a broom [?]] before nightfall

brought snowfall.  Also missing, it turned out later, were the contents of an emptied bottle of Zinfandel, later collected from the impounded motorhome for identification. I called Sgt. Krush

to discover that the “immaculate bandit”* had, after a detour into Arizona to steal license plates, been apprehended tapping away on his cell phone in the drive-through of a Burger King in Paso Robles, California.  His Deputy called to invite me in to the Gerlach Substation

to fill out an incident report which, after waking to wet snow Wednesday, I did…447 was a mess on the way in but while writing up my narrative I heard and overheard enough stuff

to not only make the trip more than worthwhile but fuel an entire Terry Allen epic.  It turned out ‘Jimmy” [sort of his real name] traded stolen goods for groceries or bits of cash all over town from a stash of tools and other possibly purloined stuff before, on his way elsewhere, the stolen motorhome’s rear diff seized up opposite our gate [his mom wasn’t going to press charges but didn’t want the RV or any of its contents back, either] and as said vehicle was about to be collected that day by the insurance’s salvage company the deputies were contacting victims [Deputy Fox [no relation to Bill] had me identify broom and the empty bottle of Zin personally; no sign of the jumper cables] to determine whatever he hadn’t stolen from mom

[and dad?] so it could be entered as evidence.  With 447 much improved as the day warmed I went home to ponder [as Janet speculated in her previous comment] what those fugitives might have made of our scene, kind of a weird scene to fall into eight miles from pavement right

opposite where their rear end finally locked up, and thought of all our stuff,

remaining most thankful they were so respectful of it…

We experienced thaw, then rain for quite awhile.

most all the next night, in fact.

With fierce winds it cleared out by late afternoon at the end of which a last [?] other mystery

surfaced in that in the Repo, unnoticed when I swept through looking for Things Taken, were a hard hat and all the documents for Dave’s old Jeep which had gone unnoticed.

Friday morning, hoping to beat the mud, I set off to return the docs and check on the jeep,

 only to be greeted by an all too familiarly sneery voice on the radio: We, the Trump proclaiming a National Emergency so, near as could be figured, We, the Trump could Build That Wall [the DOD will pay for it. To Keep Us Safe…from Demockery, presumably], execute drug dealers like the dictators he adores and, um, hard to parse…China. maybe?  “Deals”, maybe? Is the Trump now a “We” in the Imperial** sense, in the LGBTQ ‘they’ sense or due to multiple personality disorder?  No matter what it’s disturbing…though probably only because I’ve been drinking the wrong Kool-aid.  I keep waiting for “we the people” to rise up and say “whaddya mean ‘we’, orange meanie?” but I’m not so sure about them anymore, either.  Wrong Kool-aid…

The road was muddy in places, the jeep was fine and the day came on chilly, with flurries.

 

“WE”?

 

*”Immaculate bandit”; so designated by Twisto*** in the aftermath of the Visitations.

**the Imperious Weenie, perhaps…

***Not to  be confused with Barry McGee