I was in a very remote section of the desert and there was simply no there there.
I found myself wondering about those brave and hearty folks who ventured on this particular terrain and said:
"This is it dearest, we shall go no farther, we have found our little paradise. This is where we shall plow our field and fruitfully multiply as the good lord hath ordained."
Clean dry air and 110 degree heat notwithstanding, the general area is not anyplace I would ever consider putting up my shingle.
And who knows, stick me in a dilapidated single wide with a broken axle and enough gin to float my passage and I could probably even finally finish that novel I never really started.
You need that sort of solitude to write properly.
This particular stretch of nowhere would probably be a fertile environment to start your own cult or religion, if you ever had the need for followers and creed. Not situated all that far from hellfire and damnation, if fact I think that it is the next town over.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Why was I even here? Certainly not to pontificate, Edward Abbey had mined this stretch of literary terra firma so brilliantly that there was no reason to try to one up him, not that it was even possible.
Besides at my age in my late sixties, most of the really big thoughts have since flown out the window. Now it is about intake and outflow and complaining about the new locations for arthritis and similar ailments. Base shit.
What was I doing again? Oh, that's right I was driving to Prescott to hang out with some old friends and hit a Navajo rug auction. I had got up and got out of the door at five on Friday morning, the GPS took me up Winchester Rd. and finally I took the 10 to the Wickenburg turnoff and the lovely old gas station that I was forced to capture, entropy and spray paint being the hallmarks of the new apocalypse we were promised by our savior as payback for all those ungodly thoughts and actions we thought we could dodge.
Can't cloudsit with the big guy and the harps before you indulge in a little fiery introspection and look at life's book with a bit of honest clinical objectivity and soul searching.
At least my car was running, reasonably full of gas and still had four wheels, still fully capable of delivering me from my sandy purgatory if not hellhole barring any unforeseen intervention from Yahweh or his minions.
But the Anza Borrego couldn't take me last week and I will be damned if I let Ms. Mojave have her way with me today. Begone desert!
I saw a general store, decided not to stop, for some reason.
Nothing personal but no one needs water that bad and I still had a little that I had brought with me. I would wait until Prescott.
Case they are looking for another skull.
They are both funny and Sandi is a talented potter.
I think I am more comfortable at this stage of my life in pine and juniper forest and high desert than the lizard and scorpion type of sandier habitat.
Broken beer bottle desert.
We went and previewed the auction, which benefited the Smoki Museum or wait, that was struck as not woke enough, the Museum for Indigenous Peoples, really rolls off the tongue.
They call it MIPS, it is shorter and a hell of a lot easier.
Saw more than a few that I liked but didn't know how the game would be played and the nature of the reserve prices and those details can prove quite challenging.
It was festooned with multiple kokopellis, lizards, lightning, rain, antelope and even llamas.
Very rich and unusual iconography.
We left and had a tour of the courthouse.
Town just ain't been the same since all the Californians moved in.
We had a great meal at a Spanish place, Gato Azul. They didn't serve cat mind you, we weren't in Ohio, it was merely the restaurants cute moniker. I had a lamb chop tapa, perfectly cooked and a papas y queso appetizer.
The guests seemed to be of a similar hue and chroma, I asked Bob when I might see some brothers? He laughed.
On the way home they regaled me with tales of Big Nosed Kate, Doc Holiday's squeeze, born exactly one hundred seven years and one day before me and she who had found employment in a "sporting house" in Dodge City at the age of twenty four.
Prescott was the birthplace of the Roughriders, Teddy Roosevelt believing that hard bitten ranchers would be tough foes on the battlefield.
Damn right.
 |
| Buckey with the star |
He told me about friend of Roosevelt, gambler and one time Prescott mayor Buckey O'Neill, who had the unfortunate timing of emerging from a foxhole exclaiming that "Sergeant, the Spanish bullet isn't made that will kill me" only to be promptly hit in the forehead with the next volley and a quick departure from this mortal coil. Timing is everything.
We went to the auction the next day, separate cars in case somebody needed to bug out early.
Who is she?
Read about her. She has a chapter in Mark Winter's master weaver book. 80 years old, just took a left turn off the traditional path and forged her own way, design wise.
She incorporates ancient Hohokam wall art and cave paintings as well as some fanciful figures. There is a llama in this one. I have now seen quite a bit of her work and this is the slickest yebichai border I have ever seen her do.
From Toh-atin Gallery:
Esther Etcitty was born in 1944 in a traditional Navajo Hogan near Sanostee, New Mexico, about thirty miles southwest of Shiprock. The major trading posts for Navajo weaving in that area are Two Grey Hills and Toadlena. She attended boarding school in Sanostee and in Albuquerque but did not finish because she was needed at home to help with the family.
Esther is one of the featured weavers in Mark Winter's book, The Master Weavers, Celebrating One Hundred Years of Navajo Textile Artists from the Toadlena/Two Grey Hills Weaving Region.
Her weavings are different than most of the work featured in the book. As a young weaver, she made traditional Two Grey Hills styles and some geometric weavings, but about 25 years ago she found her own pattern. She started weaving natural wool colored pictorials with Kokopelli (the hump back flute player) as the predominate design. This mythological figure is commonly found in the rock art of the area.It also includes horned toad, sheep, rock art figures and Yei’s woven into the background.
Etcitty is one of the few weavers acknowledged by Winter as a Master Weaver who does not make geometric patterned rugs. She has laid her claim to having created one of the most unique individual artist designs in Navajo weaving.
I like this weaving, very hip and different, not sure anybody else will but I get that sometimes. I got it for a good price should make a little money and enjoy it while it is mine.
They put so much red chili in the food that it is almost too much for me to bear. Gut buster. We ain't in Californee no more.
Place has been going downhill for about fifty years but I still come back.
I left early the next morning for Santa Fe. I was completing the purchase of a wonderful collection that I was working on in August.
I stopped off at John Fillmore's, who was kind enough to perfectly clean an 1853 Hirishige print for me, no charge.
Thank you buddy!
I can't wait to put it on a metal stand, so lovely, in both color and architecture.
My friend treated me exceedingly well, as did his wife, and we had dinner at Harry's.
We finished our transaction the next morning and I decided to hit the road.
It was actually cold and rainy, a wet Monday, everything was closed and I got the sudden impulse to skedaddle.
We can talk for days but I needed to make tracks.
John gifted me a pair of really stylish and minty Rod Patrick smooth ostrich cowboy boots which set you back quite the kronar.
Finally got her to crack a smile.
I continued on yesterday morning. Santa Fe and back in five days.
Was colder in the desert this run than at my house, by a long shot, having left in 100° days .
Got home yesterday afternoon, little worse for wear.
Very good short trip.
Left early in the morning today to unpack the car.
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