You might have guessed by now, that I’m not the churchiest person. Spiritual, yes, churchy, no. But, as anyone born into Catholicism can tell you, once you’re in, you’re in for life. You can run away from it, but it never leaves you. Just when you least expect it, you’ll put up a velvet Last Supper painting above the TV, and stick a dashboard Jesus in your SUV.
As a recovering Catholic, I love checking out old churches. Maybe I’m subconsciously facing my fears, but the more realistic Saint statues and lit up candles they have inside, the better.
We’re done with workamping and back on the road this week. And now that our wheels are turning again, so is my stomach every time we fill up that tank. Today, the cost of B20 biodiesel in Santa Fe, NM is $4.46 a gallon. Regular diesel: anywhere from $4.17 to $4.34.
Like always, we swipe the card, fill the tank, and forget about it until the bill comes (it’s the American way!). While it’s painful, I try really hard to look at it as a cost of doing business; the business of living our life, seeing things we’ve never seen before, and having a good time. In light of the chaos happening in the world, I know that sounds like a truly schmucky thing to say. But for now, what else can we do except live our lives, one day at a time.
If anyone follows our adventures close enough to actually check for new photos on our gallery page, I truly wonder why. But they might have noticed some big changes there a little while back. I gave the galleries an overhaul, but didn’t announce it because we went for a while there without a camera. And what fun would new galleries be without new photos?
There are two big events that happen in Truth or Consequences every year. One is the annual New Mexico State Fiddler’s Festival, and the other, is the Fiesta. Last week, the fiddler’s came to town for three days..
It wasn’t the usual alt-country scene that we’re used to, with hippies, rednecks or cool cats from Austin. No, it was more like a retirement village dance. These old folks were dancing to bluegrass and western swing music long before it ever became cool again. And most of them still have their moves down.
Just as the music got swingin’, the oldest folks in the room started to leave. Then, at 9:00 PM, the announcer came out to tell us remaining kids that everyone was tired and they were ending the show early, because they had a long weekend ahead!
We went outside, got on our bikes to ride home, and prayed that none of these old people would run us down on the dark streets of T or C.
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Have you seen the May issue of RV Life yet? It just came out, but we’ve already received some visitors who clicked they way over here from the online edition. Why?
We thought Mike wanted a Blurb from us for a feature he was doing on Phil and Carol White’s new Road Trip Tream book. But we’re a bit embarrassed – and honored – to see it nearly the other way around.
We were also happy to see, however, that we got our plug in for NURVers.com which is quickly growing to be the hip place for full-timers who break the stereotype. Are you Nü?
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Ten years ago, Jim and I moved to Eureka on a whim. I knew it was rainy there, but I thought I could tolerate it, because I’d lived in San Francisco. But after a while, the rain forest was getting to me. The endless cold gray days, coastal winds and thick fog was wearing down my psyche. I constantly griped about what I knew I could not change; the weather.
So I started to have these fantasies about living in the desert. I wanted to feel the warm sun. Munch on chips and hot salsa and wash it down with cold beer. Sit next to a saguaro cactus and play my guitar. Go out at night wearing a summer dress, flip flops and a tan.
I thought that workamping here in T or C would convince Jim that living in the desert was a good idea. But after just one month, I’ve discovered that I’m too much of a wuss for this kind of environment.
In 1992, I’d just finished college, and in order to pay my student loans, I took a job as a receptionist at a big marketing firm. I was the lowest admin on the org chart, and it was an awful, demeaning experience. But little did I know that the skills I learned on that job would come in handy so many years later.
Here at Riverbend, we answer the phone when we aren’t giving tours, cleaning the pools or doing laundry. Although I do my best to sound cheery, I really hate picking up the phone; it just takes me back to that awful job. Many conversations are an exercise in Buddah-like patience, especially on busy weekends.
I know what you’re saying. “Oh boy, here he goes again … off on another one of his geek rants.”
But surely someone will be grateful for finding this information. It sure isn’t on the MotoSat technical support website where it should be.
When we started having some trouble locking onto our satellite for internet access, MotoSat suggested we upgrade the firmware in our Datastorm D3 dish controller. The support rep then promptly proceeded to rattle off a number of important steps, too quick for me to write them down. I decided to wait, thinking I would find details on their website.
Not. I present them here in excruciating detail for your reading enjoyment, or complete boredom whichever you prefer.
Our workamping job has been keeping us busy, but a couple of weeks ago, we made time to see not only the Trinity Bomb Test Site, but the Very Large Array (VLA) too, a collection of 27 giant satellite dishes made famous by the Carl Sagan fiction novel, “Contact,” and later made into a movie starring Jodie Foster. In the movie, Jodie Foster plays a scientist at the VLA, who is on the verge of making alien contact.
Like the Trinity Test Site, the VLA is only open for tours once or twice a year. As you head up to the desolate area where the antennas stand, it’s like walking into a Christo and Jeanne Claude art installation. With a beautiful desert mountain scenery in the background, the huge antennas standing among the plains are quite stunning.
We were lucky enough to join a small tour led by one of the VLA’s leading project managers, a female astronomer who was incredibly enthusiastic about her work on distant quasars. As she walked us over to one of the 230 ton antennas, she burst our bubble about the movie “Contact.” Although it was filmed on site, VLA projects have nothing to do with alien research or SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). The VLA’s sole purpose is scientific stellar and galactic research. The world’s largest SETI station is actually close to where we used to live, just 75 miles east of Redding, CA.
You might have guessed by now, that I’m not the churchiest person. Spiritual, yes, churchy, no. But, as anyone born into Catholicism can tell you, once you’re in, you’re in for life. You can run away from it, but it never leaves you. Just when you least expect it, you’ll put up a velvet Last Supper painting above the TV, and stick a dashboard Jesus in your SUV.
