My friend in Quartzsite and went on an adventure to search out the ghost town, Swansea, that once grew around a working copper mine. Abandoned in 1943, it didn’t really capture my imagination. Nor was my friend impressed witb the few ruins that comprise the so-called ghost of a town. (Apparently she didn’t know that many ghost towns are nothing but empty ground, with not even a ruin to mark the spot.)
Making the town more disappointing than it should have been, I skidded on the scree and skinned my knee quite badly. Luckily, I was wearing long pants, and even luckilier, I was wearing my fanny pack complete with first aid kit, so real harm done. This episode taught me two things — always bring my walking sticks (on purpose, I didn’t) and don’t be lazy — always wear some sort of pack complete with emergency supplies. (By accident, I did.)
The real joy of the trip (next, of course, to being able to spend time with my online-now-offline friend Holly), was the trip. Gorgeous scenery. A huge laugh when fifteen miles down a dirt road where we had seen no traffic, we had to stop at a stop sign. Admittedly, we were at a crossroads where we intersected another dirt road with no traffic for miles either way, but ludicrous for all that. (Holly took a photo of the stop sign. I didn’t, figuring we all know what a stop sign looks like.)
And wow, did she impress me when we came to ruts cutting across the road with no way around. These ditches (they were deep enough to drown my poor bug, so no way does “rut” give you an idea of how deep they were; if I were walking, I could not have negotiated them) had been cut by off-road vehicles, and seemed impassable. I thought we might have had to try to fill in the ditches so we could cross (we couldn’t turn back because we had already crossed an uncrossible patch of road, and besides, Holly is as stubborn as I am about backtracking) but Holly just studied those two parallel ditches, calculated the angle she would need to go to cross them, then put her car in gear and drove across as if those ditches were pinstripes in the road. Oh, my.
As interesting as that particular adventure was, I think I’ll stick to highways.
See you on down the road.
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(Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”)
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I am as ready as I will ever be. Despite the age of my VW bug, it’s as reliable as possible, with a new engine and transmission, new paint, new brakes. (As a test, I took a couple of drives “down the hill,” over an often foggy pass to the more populous area of the county along a congested five-lane highway riddled with road construction detours and delays, and the bug sailed along as if that treacherous road were a lazy river.) I have a carload of equipment, some of which I hope never to have to use because those items fall under the category of “emergency.” I have clothes for both winter and summer, insulated sleeping pads and camping quilts rated for a much more frigid climate than any I plan to travel. (I sleep cold, or rather, I don’t sleep cold. If I’m cold, I shiver all night.) If I can’t get warm, I have a nalgene bottle to use as a hot water bottle and hand warmers to tuck around my long-underwear-insulated body. I have at least a week’s worth of food. (Which reminds, me, I need to get several more days worth of water.) I have hiking poles and even a bear canister to protect my food if I spend the night away from my car in bear country. I have lanterns — solar lanterns and small battery-powered lanterns as well as a head lamp. I have word puzzles and pencils, paper and a printout of my WIP. I have maps and guidebooks, a binder full of notes, a head full of research. And I have a solar charger and an external battery for my phone, so as long as I have any sort of signal, I will be prepared.
The truth is, I have no objection to guns or any weapon. I certainly don’t believe in gun regulation — there is too much government interference in our lives now. As for me, personally, I realize we have a right, perhaps even an obligation to protect ourselves from harm, but I don’t want to own a gun. (Though I did enjoy my experiences at a local gun range, 
Still, it’s hard to write if I have nothing to say. About the only things going on in my head are plans for my journey across country, and sometimes I’m embarrassed to continue writing about those plans and preparations. I’ve been talking about some kind of epic journey for years, though the scope of the journey has changed. At the beginning, it was about going to bookstores across the country to promote my books, and to that end, I bought all sorts of authorish clothes. Flowing tops. Colorful scarves. Dramatic hats. When that fizzled (I wrote to all the independent bookstores in the country and received not a single response) I got the idea of an epic walk, such as the California Coast Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, or maybe even a walk across the country. When I discovered the impracticalities of such an epic hike (impractical for me, that is, since I can’t carry a heavy pack), I decided upon a cross-country trip, camping and hiking as I go — a sampler of possibilities.
I did learn something, though. I am a nester. It didn’t take me long — a day or two of housecleaning and moving things around to make room for me — until I felt at home. (Because, wherever I am, there I am.) Though I have to admit that when I was evicted by the management company and told I had a week to get out, I couldn’t stop smiling. It felt good to be untethered, unnested and stagnation free.
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