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Part 25

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Prescott AZ is a high desert town carved out by heavy winds and ancient rivers and rains, so that now it is all sand, dirt and rocks, and endless canyons.    My sister Jill and her husband Joe say that when they first moved here in the early 1990s they were the only house on the canyon.     Now that same canyon is dotted with houses, there are big box stores in town, and the town has mostly transitioned from ranching to  - now - tourism and retirees having moved up from Phoenix.      

Oddly similar demographic trends to where I live in Bandon Oregon, albeit that Bandon is still in the early stages of that transition, and still blessed with the charms of locals who will sit in the coffee shops and scowl and curse at the retirees and tourists because the town is changing too fast for them.    I have been told to my face by one farmer that he is just waiting for all the Californians and tourists to leave, to which I could only respond "Too late for that".   Can't stop the wave.     

The fabled Tsunami that the Oregon coast has been preparing for since forever has finally arrived, and it's not made of water, but of people.

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You can't walk 3 feet without stepping over five rocks here is Prescott, so while Jill and Joe were away I started making these rock towers around their property in order to complement the concrete pavers patio that we were building on the southwest side of their house.  These rock things have been a really creative outlet for me.    I am including 3 of them here but I built a number more of them around and about.      They probably will not survive this coming winter though, as the winds get pretty substantial when they get their back up, and they can really blow.   I am not sure my modest rock towers can withstand winds like that.

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Sometimes I get overly obsessed with how much I have spent on something.    An example of this is that I have bought two bikes while I am here.    The first one was the Walmart bike that I had intended to use as my main bike while I am here, but then I found the used Trek - a far superior granny geared bike, and that became my main bike here.    All in all about 300 dollars for both, then a helmet and lock. 

In my 5 weeks here, I have taken 28 rides over the mountain and back to get a morning coffee, so I am close to 10 dollars a ride.  Well worth it for me.   Yesterday though was number 27, and 300 divided by 27 works out to be an endless string of 1s. Way too cool to let go unnoticed.

Now that I leaving in two days (Sunday the 24th)   my plan is to leave  the Walmart bike (ridden twice) here at Jill's and take the used Trek back with Tamale and I on a cheap Amazon bike rack I just got, and am hoping we all make it back ok.     

I was not planning on going back this week but next, but my summer tenants got a good look at the Bandon forecast and saw the next two weeks of strait rain every day (Welcome to the winter in Bandon!) and decided to leave early, so I am bringing my plans forward a bit.    

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I have been gone long enough and Jill and Scott have been quite generous with me in offering their houses for me this past summer.   

It's been great, and a good moment for us to catch up with each other in our early retirement.    Who knows how many more times in our lives in the time we have left to spend substantial time with each other, so it's been worth it, but it's time to get back to Bandon.    At the very least, Tamale should be able to be an outdoor cat again.