No Drama Thursday

Chris, Tammy, Tawnya, and Krysti all headed up the hill to mud the lower hogan and I took guests hiking to The Fingers. The property is coming alive with flowers.

Doug Smith showed up with a couple friends and now Tawnya and Krysti have someone to play disc with. There are five more coming tomorrow and some more on Saturday. Brendan and Amy will be here next week bringing The Canyonlands movie with them and I'm really looking forward to that screening. Plus Duke will be back and he loves watching TV so he'll be happy as well.

I spoke too soon. The ladies are out of alcohol except beer. This appears to be a tragedy. They were asking me the other day if I drank and I told them no, then if I smoked and I again said no, and finally if I did any type of drugs and the answer was again the same, no. Then it got quiet and they all stared at me like I was a Monk or something.

They knew of somebody that was coming from town to here and so they called and ask him to go by the Liquor store, which are owned by the state in Utah. He called back and said there is a sign on the door saying somebody there was in contact with somebody that got the virus and they are closed until sometime in May. A little bit of drama after all. Tawnya text Michelle told her of the crisis and ask if she was coming this way would she bring lots of alcohol. While Michelle may be mad at me I doubt she'll let the ladies down so perhaps I'll see her and Jax again.

As the Stomach Turns

I went to town on Monday and ask Dre to clean the garage and get mud for the hogans for his Tuesday mudding party. When I got back nothing had been done. Tuesday morning Chris came out from The Land to help Dre and he was the only one that showed up. Chris got in the truck with Dre to go get dirt and water and learn to mud. They dropped off one load and then never came back. Chris came back with Tammy and said they had to get away from Dre.

Dre came back by himself and accused me of lying to him about how many bikes were stolen in town and completely lost it. He wanted to fight a couple times, threatened to kill me twice, and later I found out he told Tammy and Chris earlier that he was going to kill me that very night. I called San Juan Sheriff and while we were waiting for their arrival it was touch and go all the time about what might happen next. As we were all trying to get him to leave he started calling the women names and I have to say Tawnya and Krysti just laid into him yelling at him to leave and finally it was the combined pressure that got him to leave. Instead of heading back to The Land he headed over to the boat house walking. My truck was missing. I decided it was best to round up all guests on the property and bring them to the lodge so we gave him a few minutes and then got the guests out of the Last Hurrah side and brought everyone to the porch while we waited for deputies. In time two deputies showed up, found him sleeping in the boat house, and took him away.

I left out a lot of what Dre did because frankly it's pretty sickening the things he said. He had it made. Cash in his pocket, his own place to sleep, a garage to work and create art, and mostly his own work hours. It's all gone.

After the deputies took Dre I said I guess we have a vacancy in the workforce. Chris stood up and I put him in a room. Today much of the work got done on the lower hogan mudding and I had Lance come out and fix the pipe from the river to the pond in about two hours. The two big projects that Dre had been working on for weeks.

On Wednesday Dax and a couple others from The Land came over to get Dre's stuff. We all did what we could to round up everything that might be his and around dark Dax drove off with every trace of Dre except his art. I ask him to pass along that Dre can have whatever art he wants back but somebody else has to come get it. I called my attorney and we're all getting protective orders. I hope it's over.

When we were rounding up guests to bring them to the lodge I found my truck.

Tuesday Morning......Stuff

As of noon, one person has shown up from The Land to help Dre mud. It's a guy and he has all his clothes on.

As I've been by myself so much I try to set up as many systems as I can to run by themselves, always subject of course to human error, usually mine. I take one 14 gallon gas tank to town to fill up each time I go, plus the truck. It stands up and doesn't take up much room so I have more room for water jugs and or lumber. When I get back usually I'll work outside for a bit and drain from the large tank to smaller tanks. Usually six gallon. I'll put five or so gallons in the first one, change it out for the second, and then when I put the third under it I close the door and leave and let it drain out into the third tank. However somewhere in there I started with a half full tank and filled it up, then the first full empty, but didn't keep track of the math in my head so when I left the third tank there and closed the door. I put about three gallons of gas on the garage floor when it filled and overflowed. I opened all the doors and it dried leaving just my footprints.

Then I realized that I was pumping water from the pond into the holding tanks. There are four rates of flow. Gravity feed with a nozzle on the hose does about sixty gallons an hour. Gravity feed with the nozzle taken off is closer to 75 gallons an hour. Pump running with nozzle is closer to 100 gallons an hour and pump running no nozzle is about 120 gallons per hour. I opened the gravity feed before I left, took the nozzle off, did the math that I had until about 9pm, and left. Then I realized I'd had a request for the Condo where the holding tanks are for Tuesday and it was wiser to run the pump so I got extension cords and hooked it up but never redid the math in my head. When I got back from town, flooded the small garage, dried it, and was finishing up it hit me the pump was running next door. I jumped in a side by side and headed to the Condo. I could see water running down the driveway when I pulled up meaning the tank had flooded and some for sure would be inside the Condo and it was. I ran up the hill and moved the hose to the big garage tank and went about drying the Condo with a push broom first shoving water out the sliding door and then with two dry vacs. Eventually Tawnya and Tammy went over to make it right again.

At 10pm I took a side by side over to Last Hurrah to unplug the pump, wrap the cords, and pull the hose. I had avoided the trifecta of flooding the large garage, but not by much. When I got back to the lodge Tawnya said there was a meteor shower beginning at midnight so she pulled up a gravity chair and slept the night in the parking lot.

During the disc golf tournament a month plus ago I took the screen off the office window to do signup. Yesterday I cracked the window before I went to town. This morning when I woke up the clock on the nightstand didn't just say 8:13, it also said squirrel. When I went to open the blinds, the blinds said squirrel. While I was in town a squirrel came through the office window, found the sunflower seeds and sat in my window enjoying the view while munching sunflower seeds.

I walked outside and Tammy said there was a squirrel in her car. I went to the garage and got some coyote piss, not easy to get by the way, somebody has to hold the coyote, well, another time, and sprayed it on her engine and ask her to keep an eye out and let me know if anymore rock squirrels jumped up there. I wish Jax had a cell phone.

At 1:30 this morning I finished the last Rich Curtin book about Manny Rivera a fictional deputy sheriff in Grand County/Moab. While fiction it leans a lot on close to things that have happened and many of the characters and locations are similarly named or slightly spelled different. Two were close to my heart. In one book he mentions petroglyph arrows drawn on rocks giving direction to something and apparently made by the same ancient hundreds of years ago. To my knowledge Ute's were the primary artist of horses. I know a place where spread over a mile or two there are four drawings of horses with the head starting on the right and the rest of the body going to the left. If I were drawing it I'd start on the left side and go right with the body because I'm right handed and that seems natural to me. My theory is the artist of a thousand years ago is the same and he/she is left handed.

In another section of a book he weaves a Spanish conquistador into the story with a petroglyph drawing of the conquistador. I know such a petroglyph and it was drawn by my left handed friend who I never met, only the stories he told. Two of the ten or so times I've been to the drawing a midget faded rattlesnake was guarding it.

I think I can help Rich with at least two stories for future books. 

Until the world returns to what it was and perhaps Rich and I meet I've ordered the Bud Shumway series by Chinle Miller about a mythical deputy sheriff in Green River 50 or so miles from here. The walkies will be here next week the books in mid May. Apparently my reading needs are not considered essential.

There are several more. Tony Hillerman and upon his death, his daughter Anne, wrote of Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn detectives on the Navajo Reservation. Allen Chappell's Navajo Nation Mysteries, C.J. Box on Joe Pickett, Indy Quillan and Fox Walker, as well as the Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson. A lot of reading coming in the days ahead. I hope to learn a lot.

Just the Usual

On Sunday evening Krysti and I took a drive around Jackson Hole and swung by the Twin Towers. A few days earlier we'd been standing on the front porch and a medium size dust devil came up the driveway, hesitated across the yard by Kobae's house and stared at me. I heard me say to Krysti though I didn't mean to, "I know her." Then she moved on over the hill toward the river and headed out toward Jackson Hole. Sunday night as we were heading out to Jackson Hole I was going to tell Krysti and show her why I know a dust devil personally but when we got within hiking distance from the road I decided not to. We just kept driving.

When Dre left Friday at 2pm with two of my trials bikes in the back and towing one of the Kymco side by sides with Tammy and Tawnya following he was going to drop the Base Camp stuff off in town and do some errands and then take Tawnya and Tammy to see The Land where he use to live. Linny and I called it Thunderdome but it's sort of turned into a hippie commune. Dre kept stopping and talking to people and finally Tawnya and Tammy went to The Land on their own. Said Dre didn't show up until late Friday night. Saturday around noon I called Mad Bro to tell them what work I wanted done and they had no idea what I was talking about. They hadn't seen the Kymco or the Scorpas. I text Dre to let him know that they closed at 1pm on Saturday but didn't get a response. He left me a message at 6pm Saturday saying he'd left the Scorpas around back of Mad Bro locked up with a bike lock and chain. I paid $6,000 each for them 12 years ago and they're still worth $5,000 each. Two dirt bikes were stolen in town last week. That's not going to work.

I kept calling Mad Bro and tried to find their home number while emailing them over and over but no luck. I couldn't go get them because Dre didn't come back with my truck. Sunday morning Lance came by who use to work at Last Hurrah when Doug owned it and I ask him if when he went back to town if he'd go get my bikes and haul them to his house and keep them until Mad Bro opened on Monday. Lance called me later to tell me as he was loading them on his trailer the owner of Mad Bro drove by saw him taking my bikes and pulled into ask questions. Eventually they got it worked out and took the bikes inside.

Tawnya and Tammy came back Saturday night and Dre Sunday afternoon. Dre couldn't explain why he hadn't gotten anything accomplished in the 50 hours he was gone other than drop the side by side off, with the trials bikes secured by a bike lock, and got a load of wood. That usually takes me three hours, or less. 

Dre said he did get something accomplished at The Land. A work crew coming over on Tuesday to mud the hogans. I mentioned the last two guys he brought over to mud the hogans were plotting to kill me and take my money, what money? He said while that was true he had talked them out of it. Second he figured I could probably take care of them by myself. Third he'd used better discretion this time. I told him I was headed to town to do the errands he never got done and he ask me if I'd swing by The Land and make sure the work crew was still coming over. The last couple times I've been to The Land, the women have been scantily clad and or topless. Sixty years later, Woodstock and the sixties have returned and wound up seven miles from Base Camp.

As I dragged the gate open at The Land, the hinges are broken so it's just attached by chains to the poles, a truck came out from The Land. I saw Dax who owns The Land. I ask if there was a work crew coming over tomorrow? He said he wouldn't make it but he gave me some girl's name (I forget) and said there were three women and at least one guy coming to help Dre. Then the girl by the same name got out of the truck to introduce herself with little clothing on and the little she had was transparent. Said she'd be at the lodge with the work crew in the morning.

Life at Base Camp

Michelle left with Jax and their return, if at all, is unknown. Dog from the Condo came over so Kristi's dog Canyon had someone to play with. They both knew to get in the shade of a vehicle before they started playing.

Tawnya and Dre got some driftwood and made a blue heron out of it.

Claret Cup doesn't usually bloom until May but there's one on the side of the hill going to Last Hurrah that exploded.

Life is opening up. Other than airbnb who keeps sending me emails asking me why I'm open since I live in Grand County things are going pretty well. I email them back and say I don't live in Grand I live in San Juan and I'm good to go. Three or four days later, twice now, they've done an investigation and responded with "We have investigated your claim of living in San Juan County and found it to be accurate." Well no shit. After 13 years I'm pretty sure I know where I live. Then three days later I get another email from airbnb saying they're going to block my calendar because I'm still taking reservation though I live in Grand County. And the process starts over.

In the van was a guy named El who showed up late Saturday. Said he met Tammy, Tawnya, and Dre on their way to The Land and they said they'd meet him here on Saturday except I hadn't seen any of them since they left on Friday at 2pm. He had a compass, a knife, and bear spray on his belt. I ask why he was carrying bear spray and he said he likes to take selfies with bears and sometimes it doesn't go right." He waited awhile for Tawnya, Tammy, and Dre and then left. Tawnya and Tammy showed up later and said they met him on Hurrah.

Linda sent me this picture of sunset in San Diego and Andrea this picture of sunset from the Amasa Back by Lars Leber.

One yellow-headed blackbird showed up with the red-winged blackbirds and so I got the bird book out which has all their voice speak and we had a conversation. I don't know about what. Brendan and Amy called to say they are wrapping up the Canyonlands movie and they'll be out in the next week or so and have a screening of the movie here at Base Camp. I emailed Linny's mom to see if I could go up to Salt Lake to get Linny to watch the movie together but never got a response. I've been putting all the guests up at Last Hurrah so they have their own dwelling but took my first guests at the lodge yesterday. So far almost everyone has been Colorado and Utah, lost their jobs a month ago and have been holed up in their homes for three or four weeks. San Juan County still has six or so cases all of which are on the Navajo Reservation along the Arizona line.

I went on Airbnb and Home Away and changed my listings to start with "I'm Open, Last Hurrah, Male Hogan, or similar depending on the rental. I keep getting potential guests emailing me asking if I'm really open because airbnb says I'm not. Kobae hasn't come out of the laundry room in five days but as I'm typing this he just moved onto the porch.

A week since Jax has been gone but everyone still backs into the parking lot and pops their hoods so Jax can see if a rock squirrel heads towards their vehicle. We're all a little bit at risk without the enforcer.

Starship Enterprise

Monday morning Jax and I hiked up a creek bed to the rock resembling the Star Trek ship Enterprise.

Once we get close to the lodge and he's comfortable I'm not going to suddenly hike off in a different direction he runs up the drive way to make sure no squirrels have gotten in any of the parking lot cars which he considers his domain. Some days he just sits under cars hoping a squirrel will make a stealth run for a vehicle and Jax will be waiting. Today though that wasn't necessary.

More Weekend Stuff

A rouge basket showed up above #13 on the original course.

Jax and I got in a glove fight when we got back and he took off with one of my gloves. Krysti spend 15 minutes trying to get it back but Jax doesn't give up ill gotten gain easily.

I took Dre to the hospital Sunday afternoon. He's getting worse. He has two kidney stones.

When we returned Michelle's two week I think I'll paint the ceiling project had ended and despite a few rough starts and occasional delays she, as always, did an excellent job.

It's late after I got new guests settled, Dre dropped off at the large garage and came back to pack stuff away and catch up office organization. Linda had mentioned in an email was the Easter Bunny going to visit and sure enough as I was making room above my closet I found "The Bunny" in a box. I put it on and stepped into the dining room while Jax ran along sniffing with his tail going crazy. It's a tough Easter for all but it is my hope we're all making the best of it.