Karma Stuff

It's 2:30 am Thursday morning. Jax and I are sitting on the front porch and the stars are brilliant. The Milky Way is running East West. There are raccoons walking all around us eating out of the bowls and in the flower bed eating Kobae leftovers. A few falling stars briefly appear and disappear resting or not on their new home. A lady from Orlando Homes and Gardens I think it was about ten years ago describing night at Base Camp "a sky so filled with stars that when one falls another takes it's place"......

Brandon has made a difference. He's a hard worker. He's spent his first week and a half tackling weeds and clean up over at Last Hurrah and was pulling reeds out of the pond today when three big horn, two of them babies, showed up to drink out of the pond. He called and I ask him to leave the pond and take a break. Guests told me that when he left the big horn did come down and drink out of the pond.

Jennifer is sleeping on the front porch. She's starting to settle in a bit and hanging out with Linny. She has a really good heart. When I called today on the walkie and ask them to wait for me to give Immersion a ride to town she got on the walkie and said "We'll wait. Tell him we got his back." When Jennifer and Linny returned from town they said he was much better but was still having a little hallucination issue with a woman in a white top, white shorts, and white hat serving him Coke and Pina Colladas while he lay in the shade. He said it's what kept him alive. Jennifer sings a little now and then. She's sort of a Jason Mraz except better.

We're busy enough again that there's always a dog here so Kobae and I aren't hiking. He's staying here to defend his turf and when there's not a dog around he chases Jax who's growing tired of it. I put Kobae's food down and Kobae went over, sniffed it, then started looking for dogs. Jax walked over and peed on Kobae's food. Then Kobae ate it. It's a nice night. Even Kobae is sleeping outside.

Linny has less than a week before she returns to Salt Lake. She has become such an integral part of Base Camp. Sometimes we say the same thing at the exact same time or see something and look at each other at the same time. She has grown so much this year as a young woman. Imagine that a girl that just turned 15 can be responsible without supervision for the cleaning and maintenance of five rooms at the lodge, two hogans next door, and a full two (2) bedroom houses. She gets up in the morning, gets her cleaning stuff, a canteen, and a walkie and heads off to work taking the truck, Jeep, or side by side whichever is most appropriate for the work she has in front of her for the day. She'll ask which rentals have checked out and which units have rentals coming in. Logs it mentally and heads out the door. I usually don't see her again until the day is done. She sort of went from early teenager to adult and skipped all that stuff in between. I will miss her so much.

It's been busy with Jax and I able to hike on average just every other day but we're going to try and get back to daily despite the Mother of all Weddings coming up this weekend. We have good people right now and we're going to leave them alone and let them do their thing.

Still getting six to ten vehicles a day coming up the drive way asking for directions, water, bathroom, or something. Most start with showing me a map and saying "We came over Hurrah Pass and now we're here." Since there's only one way here and I know where I am, guessing it's for their own reassurance. They comment that they were trying to get to.....but the canyon dead ended. I explain I've told all the rental agencies and they haven't fixed their maps, or do they mention it. There was a fence across it but some asshole tore it down. I put it back up and another asshole tears it back down again. Apparently there's no shortage of assholes.

I've got a system at the lodge that runs well, getting Last Hurrah into shape, found a way to feed hundreds of critters without them killing each other day and night so there's got to be a system for keeping people on the trails and not tearing things up. The dealers of the vehicles won't help and the BLM never returns a phone call or even responds to a visit, so it's me. If I'm going to keep the land out here from becoming one big sand dune with no vegetation and tire tracks all over the place I have to find something.

Karma has given me some good people so I hope she has a little bit more goodwill that could be lent to me. My gut tells me Karma never feels like it owes anybody anything.