Going Home

 Rambling thoughts today.

Cleaning up the Casita is the big chore of living there. Strange beasties and such think there is NO REASON for us to be there, and perhaps they are right.  The cat and I have successfully repelled things on all our trips.  Perhaps his chasing across the floor as I TRY to sleep and talking to himself is what scares them off. 

I pass on some wisdom to the next tenant in the book by the bed they call the Guest Log:

• My words of wisdom include refrigerating your trash.  It is semi-primative.  By today's standards, VERY.  Mostly no internet unless your data plan works up there. But there is electricity and fridge, stove, microwave.   Oh, and the cleanest tap water... sigh.... here in Mesa/Scottsdale/Phoenix, I have not sipped from a tap since I moved here in the 80s.  Just smells like gas, and tastes like fish.
• The Baby Navajo Taco is so perfect!  I like Pow Wows because there are so many fry bread booths.  BUT tacos are just huge.  This Baby is so just right.  Freshly made and a bit more merchandise than mama's handiwork, but it is the real thing.
• There are sundried goodies in our pantry, including plenty of spare sheets and beddings, but you have to wash when done. I just bring my own.  Since they traded queen bed for twins, I found I had a bit more than I needed:
  Not a problem.  I suggest a cat.
• DO NOT FORGET YOUR COFFEE, as they have a brewer and liners but if you need that cup, bring your grinds.

I really committed to the nothing of the experience.  I dawdled cleaning and made my third rearrangement of the furniture something I just feel compelled to do.  The cat in my car is smooth as clockwork these days.  Bigger car, and older cat.  He slept all the way up and was only mildly interested in a little walk on the leash before we left.  He is borderline boring.

I spent time in the visitor center in the Puerco Ruins.  There is a semi-stupendous slideshow (a good 15 min) that has all the archaeological discoveries.  I was mesmerized.  Normally there is so much to do.  I never actually DO anything.

On the way out, I made another pilgrimage to Newspaper Rock... not for the petroglyphs but for the omnipresent ravens.  They literally were feet away this time, hanging around, grabbing bugs off our grills.

I will say, this is sort of wondrous.  It is the first time I had people actually seem as excited to have me back as I was to think about my next return!!!

Day 13

I am writing this in real time.  It actually IS he 13th.

One of the problems with my blog idea is when and where I can upload it, so I am sitting with day 12 in the mini computer waiting for me to go to wifi capability, but not always able to do it in the earlier parts of the day.

I put the cat in the bathroom at 4 and managed to sleep through to 7!  This is somewhat of a milestone.  I am sure it was the exhausting day in Holbrook, and I do not have a voice anymore.  Having become a hermit in town, has made this so very easy, but I blossom when I do get out among folks. But I get raspier and raspier.  I did stay up working pretty late and was happy at the progress on my portrait, but figured to get busy with some bird or small things to demo for the weekend in honor of Mother's Day.

I was advised to get out and do a walk in honor of Migratory Bird day.  Hallie who is such a great voice for the park and in charge of the daily notes on the Facebook page, met lowly me at 9 as publicized, in the Puerco parking lot and we went to a few semi forbidden places, accompanied by more wind than the birds needed to migrate around us.

I know I am allowed to avail of the rangers, and volunteers as long as I don't interfere with work, but I still have nothing but questions.  Each new discovery leads to more to look for.
Who would have thought that her love of wildflowers would have lead me back to the casita, after an attempted and non-productive nap, to go sit in the wind on my patio.  The temperature was perfect.  The grasses were dancing and all I saw was wildflowers.  I just walked around snapping these microscopic little things.
The sound of the wind is perfect now.  Tomorrow it may be more scary, but just for now, it is so soothing, I am happier NOT to be asleep, just listening.

What exactly is expected of an artist in residence?  The more I ask, the more happy I become.  I am such a night owl... besides if the cat watches me in the evening, he is less inclined to be bored and keep me up all night.  I do more painting in the casita, even though I did enjoy both jaunts into the public venues, I would rather talk and snap photos.  I will easily have over 2000 photos when I am done.  I do wonder if I could be a professional former Artist in Residence!  I know there is work for me but I have GOT to find an audience.  I get funky thinking about how to sell it, and that is when I stop THINKING.

My statement that AiR fall into two main categories.  The very rich with plenty of time on their hands to drop out for a month and the very poor who have NOTHING else to do for a month.  Guess where I am.  I am choosing to regroup.  Not probably the wisest but the healthiest.  I want to just have all this visual stimulus pour into me.  Painting can come later.
......
 I had originally thought this might be a two-part post. But the rest of the day kind of finished out the way the first of it went.
It was a great recuperation​ day. The cat even wondered why I was napping.

I prepped up for the next day at the Painted Desert Inn, with all my I rocks and reproductions and a little bit of everything.
I actually went to bed 8:30!

Getting Oriented.

There is something about having a REAL WINDOW SILL for a cat to settle in for the day, that makes this Thing, so much more cat-like.  Although he was still a total pain the first night and was banished for a few hours in the night (his plaintive cries did touch my heart..) he eventually actually curled up next to me and we slept.   Not really what you would call a long night (I did too much straining and stretching packing and the car ride whacked out my hips so I was up and down.  I even spent a while watching what I figure in the morning to be reflections from the OTHER window of the road out east. I thought it must be campers but they were  spookily nearby.  Ha.  I think this may explain the haunting across the road... reflections.

Before the sun actually came up (maybe about 5) a yellow orange glow fills the cloudless sky in the east.  Startling colors.  Not soft gentle pinks one is used to... but not enough to rouse me.  THAT happened a little over an hour later when the sun BLAZED in on my eyelids.  Once up and over the sill of the window, it was a perfect alarm.  I adjusted the center panel in the blinds to block the earliest rays and found myself brewing a pot of Mr. Coffee to load into my travel mug and see if I could play alone on the Painted Desert Inn patio and start loading the blog.

In the morning I realized the wifi was a phantom to chase, not a real thing available to me near home.  The PDI has a transmitter that only temps, not rewards wifi seakers.  But the walk across the Park Road was worth it.  Long before the the tourists and rangers showed, it was a chilly but not cold start of a day.  I found some amorous birds enjoying the shortening shadows with me as I slowed down again to sip my coffee and enjoy the view.  Every morning and evening, it is going to be different.  I am sure the  possibilities will overwhelm me.  I am going to try to just WATCH.

The actual environs around my place are pretty nifty. 

Aside from the greeting I got from a The landscape is full of blooming yucca. I  remember Mom valuing the pods for crafts etc.  

I also thought there was a scattering of actual litter.  White flowers individually stood boldly against the dusty, scruffy landscape. 

I wandered on the hill above the casita and got lots of little things... 

There were little jewels of rocks and shrubs.  I picked up two stray bits of petrified rock to admire in the cottage during my stay.
I saw a huge footprint of a wild beast.. fearing Coyotes or worse, I realize in a dog friendly park, Just good old Rover leaves his traces...
I met a Tarantula Wasp, and the little lizard (who I hope is not the one later in this tale..)

Late morning I went to the visitor center and scouted the wifi and laundry and loaded yesterday's blog. Kip was going to be at PVI all afternoon and I said I would bring the spare car magnet for visitors... Then I went off to see the museum in the ACTUAL Petrified part of the forest.

I had chatted with a cute woman from England who said her whole reason for being here was a discovery of Route 66.  

I am still working on  my theme of visitors, but it was initially following the ravens... all of whom have abandoned me so far. Packing up pencils as if I would do anything besides photograph, I filled up the card with the same amazing views as a year ago....then suddenly near Puerco Ruin, they found me.

My first painting will definitely be him, as he perched atop the silver vent on the restrooms, the 1/4 moon faint behind him in the bright day....

I met four lovely poodles on their way home from a club meeting in St. Louis.  They may be the second in my series.

A LONG eye-burning windswept trip through the park, found me exhausted but I managed to roll into the parking lot before the PDI shut and I walked the sign over to Kip.  I met my fellow artist, attempting to capture the vista across the street!  I am too daunted for that!

When I came back, the cat was looking intently at something....

It was a mortally wounded lizard who did not seem too excited to leave or to stay.   

After brushing him out the side door, I felt pretty sad.  

I had found a tiny broken egg this morning on the patio from the nest directly above my door and a petrified smaller lizard body.  

It is all natural, but it all made me sad.

Last Friday at Home, I Hope....

Today we got new brakes, and oil change.

Although I would not allow my car in the Park to be viewed by visitors if I had the power, I began doing longer trips when it hit 100,000 miles.  The CarTalk guys convinced me of the "nothing to lose" aspect of letting things fall off and keeping it running for the lowest investment.   If it is rolling, it is just fine.  Now it stops too!
In my mind it is like a jigsaw puzzle, packing for a month away.  I am really funny, as my last few trips to Denver went with entire art shows of 30 paintings in the trunk (I did not unload the last 20 until this week...) and my cat and the necessities of life, but I will no longer have the ability to run to the local 7-11 and grab a bag of potato chips at 11 at night.  I am visualizing planning ahead!  So today I got canned food, a salt and pepper shaker, spaghetti and sauce and will bring the last of what is in the fridge, freeze things that can't go bad and stop in Holbrook on the way in for milk and cold stuff.... need to learn where the grocer is anyway! And all for a whopping 4 hour drive!!
My computer is completely ported into a small external drive, I have the home phone now all computerized so I won't miss the tons of unidentified callers looking for that OTHER Debra Jones who has outstanding bills! Thinking of adding a few GB to the cellphone, and if it works, may even experiment with a "hot spot".   I am such a tech addict....hoping for withdrawal.  I am boxing up all the peripherals and a small printer and paper to begin fitting into the trunk.
I have a list of minimal clothes and the knowledge there is a laundry makes me feel much better about that plan.
Refilled all my meds, updated insurance for the year, paid all the bills and go out nearly broke, but tapping savings for now.
This weekend I have a few obligations and figure tomorrow will be actual loading anything not critical at home so I can figure the amount of finished art to carry for demos and show-and-tells.
The cat is a piece of cake. We have made about 8 individual trips in the past couple of years and he is cool!  As you know, he lives in that cage at home too.  I even opened the portable red kennel to get him used to it and he is sitting in it, supervising now.
So the weekend awaits and I am saying goodbye to the windy, concrete box I live in for the windswept (so much different) beauty of the millennia in this stark and amazing National Park.

(Nothing picturesque about all this... that will begin on MONDAY, if the internet gods shine on us!)

(....well I did find some wonderful traveling glasses....

Getting Real

I spent the day finalizing lists.
Today we needed to be sure meds were ordered and plentiful in case of emergencies.  Appointments that need done before I go are in line to get done.
Finally, we needed a micro chip and rabies shot.  No telling what sort of visitors may sneak in.
Thing here, is an indoor only kind of a guy, but since we are in the middle of nowhere, If lost, when found, I want him back!  So he was told NO HARNESS.
This is odd.  I tend to grab him by his handle when he is making trouble, but the vet fears he will rub the little "beacon" out if the harness hits it wrong.   So he is NUDE for a few days.

Here he recovers in his travel home, while I work in the office.  He is fine elsewhere in the house but in my studio, if I leave, paint water ends up on the floor and who KNOWS what damage he could do to an oil palette.   

Next to tuning up the poor sad travel machine and vision check for me before departure next week.

More to come.