Here in the Beyonds we’re ever the Behinds…two Mondays ago triage ensued as my care of the dogs proved so wildly inadequate that when L arrived it became necessary for us to devote over two hours each daily to repairing paws designed more for meadows and lawns than greasewood and cheatgrass which were infested at best and infected at worst by the

burrowing seeds and stems of Enemy Plants.

Within the week things improved to the point where it took less than an hour a day of mainly L’s efforts to intervene but meanwhile…pictures;

Aggie murdered a pigeon after it naively homed within range of her and

before ya knew it it was on the road again, down to the Gerlach Post Office, Friday a day

of tourist traffic barely averted before the Fire Zones

on the way again to Eagleville, Alturas [not shown] and again Eagleville, returning to

the Jesus turn on Duck Flat

for a luncheon detour out the northeast side entailing

a little peas, calma and reminder of what venturing out into the country used to be like

before the Chaos of Here; Here

with its everlastingly unrunning ’82 Chev,

heat,

failed wildlife photography

and bright windy afternoons.

Sunday we made it into town where over a dinner of Susie’s Curious Curry I mentioned

to Johnny Limbo not being able to get “Amarillo Highway” out of my head whereupon he launched into the first few lines, saying the Smoke Creek Irregulars used to start their shows with it. Never having been much of a bar person I never caught that, but kinda wished I had.

While there we also picked up our long-anticipated box from Elon which, once the cryptic instructions were decoded Monday morning, linked us up to Starlink in time for lunch to our

considerable delight.

“How did the glory of our foolish afternoon with the luminous children dissolve into nothing but memory?”*…or the internet.

*[William Kittredge]