Life is not the only thing out there imitating art.

​Evidently Nature's in on it too. 

According to Edgar Degas, "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."  And for that I might as well go ahead and apologize.  

I was thinking about the Alexander Pope quote, which was –– I thought –– Art is but Nature to advantage dressed.  Or, in this case, not dressed. I meant to rift extensively on part about being undressed. Low humor, sure, and possibly dragging in the topic of saggy pants.

But when I checked the quotation (From his Essay on Criticism, which is in strictest truth a poem), Pope actually wrote:
"True wit is Nature to Advantage drest,/What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest,/Something, whose Truth convince'd at Sight we find,/That gives us back the Image of our Mind."

Oh Alexander Pope, you navel-gazing noodler. 

Goblin Valley is full of hoodoos –– those weirdly worn pillars of sandstone that resemble human figures.  And I mean the valley is FULL of them.

It was first called "Mushroom Valley" when Anglos first found it.  Although in full disclosure, even more than goblins, I think one could argue a valley of phallus-like items.

Names matter.

I get it.

​Who in the world would agree to chaperone a busload of teenagers to Dingus Valley State Park for an overnight tenting adventure?

In any case, the valley opened as a state park in the 1964. It's one of the few parks where electric scooters are not prohibited on the roads, and where a visitor can meander at will up and over the sandstone structures. 

We put in our miles while visiting.   ​

I'm kind of proud of the asparagus.

The roots went into the ground in 2015. Of course I wrote about it. 

​Lo and behold, up they came. And up. And up.

So lush that the well-drilling guy stopped and marveled.

So enormous that my gardening neighbors ask –– with palpable envy –– how do we make them thrive?

So thick that I no longer have a view of the cool half-plough that Mr. Linton found for me. 

Uncontested success is rare on the farm. So when it arrives, we like to recognize and celebrate it.

All hail kale? 
Nu-uh: Rush lush Asparagus! 
​

​Not that any of us should wait for a special day to recognize the good fortune and lucky stars that has got us this far so far.  

But tis actually the season for this sort of thing. Plus feasting.  

Ah, feasting.  We have missed a few years of Thanksgiving in the States. So the groaning board seems novel this year, despite its familiar elements. 

Perhaps as time marches along, I'll see the evolution of the meal go farther yet afield.  Tofurky maybe, or into the funky Cajun science of the turducken.  Both of which appall my Yankee sensibility even as the latter –– wet bread filling notwithstanding ––does pique my curiosity.  

​Well, I promise to be thankful if I have the chance to see that.
 

​

Each year, Mr. Linton dreams up some Gucci modifications to the adventure boat: water ballast tanks, a foiling board, cassette rudders, a big old bowsprit.

​And he's back at it again.

Since the metal handicap-rail style hiking racks began to wrack, and it takes the better half of a small village to get the things pressed and warped into place, Mr. Linton has been cooking up a better idea.

Last year's water tanks (made of polycarbonate sheets)  point-loaded on the straps holing them in place, and after getting water-boarded by the mighty Gulf of Mexico the first night of the challenge, turned out to be less sturdy and consequently less water-tight than one might hope. 

Combine the these two elements, add in a salvaged carbon fiber A-Cat mast from the most excellent Robert Cummings of Cummings Marine, and design courtesy of OH "Ninjee" Rodgers, and the Spawn is taking new shape. ​

Folding carbon-fiber hiking racks.

Testing should begin within a few weeks.  

Trachinotis carolinas. Characterized by small silvery scales, forked tail, related to Jack-fish but highly valued for eating. ​

A Fishing Story –– Version 1
Caught me a biggun.  Though he had me whupped, but I turned the tables on his bipedal ass. Bootless meet toothless. How do you like them airless apples? Huh?  Swim like a fish much?

All he had to do was let go, but it's greed what catches em, every time.  Sparkle sparkle! Just let go and get back to your spot, but no. Gotta cling. Dunno why it's called landing when you reel one in. Land's the one thing they ain't much of in that situation, if you know what I mean. I figure he'll eat pretty good, give him a few days.


A Fishing Story –– Version 2
A short list of ways I've avoided writing today:  rearranged the fiction bookshelf, cleaned my stainless water bottle with bleach, followed by cleaning the bottle-brush. With bleach. Made a few calls. Perused Writer's Digest. Bootlessly researched a specific twitter from a specific Twit. Cleaned the keyboard with rubbing alcohol and q-tips. Listened to samples of Billie Martin's songs on iTunes.  Decided listing my excuses was nearly as good as writing anything. Words are words when you are trying for a daily word-count.

A Fishing Story – Version 3 
Swimming, swimming, swimming, biting at a shrimp.
Shrimp has sharp –– ow!
And damn! What the hell?
Swimming swimming, vaulting into air.
Tractor beam or something yanking.
Don't beam me up.
Swimming, running from the grasp.
Caught.

Between the Florida District series, the North American Championships, and the other events we try not to miss like the Midwinters and Wife-Husbands, we end up racing the Scot around 25 days each year. Weather permitting of course.  

We got our first Flying Scot (The Mighty Majestic, #4925) in 2007, Eleven years later makes it 275 days of racing –– plus maybe an additional 50 days of practice sailing, where we gather together with some friends and we all try to go faster and polish our boat-handling skills. 

That's over a calendar YEAR's worth of sailing in a bit over a decade.  

That's a lot of jibes. That's a ton of tacks, a megaton of mid-line starts, zillions of billowing acres of spinnaker going up and down again, and enough cranks on that tiny winch to lift a cinderblock to the moon. Muscle memory. 

We started the Devil's Garden trail at 6:30 perhaps –– the sun was up, but the shadows were long when we left the paved trail at Landscape Arch. 
​
​Bonus travel tip:  Even in the busiest and most popular national parks, we found that by hiking a few hundred yards down nearly any trail*, we could leave most of the seething mass of vacationing humanity behind.

Sad truth: few tourists do more than meander to overlook, snap a photo, and then roar off in an air-conditioned car.

Edward Abbey was right: "What can I tell them? Sealed in their metallic shells like molluscs on wheels, how can I pry the people free? The auto as tin can, the park ranger as opener."
​Desert Solitaire p 290.

*Exception to the trail rule? The Narrows at Zion. It was kind of the only game in town after the landslides of 2018  (aside from scaling bare rock faces). That hike –– a wet, awe-inspiring meander up the slot canyon –– did fill up considerably come lunchtime. Early morning or off-season recommended.

So, back to the dusty devilly trail.  

Devil's Garden trail is nearly 8 miles there-and-back again. A good scramble up red sandstone rocks, along ledges, through dusty piñon pine groves.  We ran into families of deer –– the females showing ribs and the fawns leggy and curious –– a couple of parties of human hikers, lizards of various stripe, intriguing tracks in the sand, and the odd path marker.

​Some markers odder than others. To a certain sort of thinker, this is an ambiguous sign:

I read it first as a series of nouns: road + leaf + laundry.

Clearly wrong.

A series of verbs: follows + goes + cleans.

Er, nope. Because, you know, why? But interesting. Return to this thought later, I told myself, tucking the camera back into my pocket.

I stopped for a sip of water a hundred or two hundreds yards later. The words transposed themselves: Trail Wash Leaves.

That seemed nearly probable: maybe the trail had a new name. The National Park people seem to engineer their signage so that visitors can have a more genuine park experience, complete with navigational anxiety and an understanding that maps are imperfect representations of the truth.

Maybe. But probably not.

The pieces fitted together a half mile or more later: Alert, hikers: your trail, which has followed the path of this dried stream-bed –– known locally as a wash or a gulch –– is about to diverge from the stream-bed.

Oh. That. 

Huh.

For the rest of the walk, series of words started presenting themselves. Triangular structures, each side a simple word that goes both ways: One can trail one's hand on the trail. One can leave the leaves behind, one can wash the wash.

Stone Ride Ice.
Rein Plant Saddle
Mount Slide Hollow.
Chant Riddle Stop.

Then we arrived back at the start of the trail.

And in the blink of an eye, we were addressing ourselves to pizza and cold beverages and a bookstore on the funky little main drag of Moab.

Half asleep in our narrow berth inside Base Camp, we are roused by sound: a crunching, rattling, scratching assault on the recycling container, a lengthy effort to unsnap the cooler, a hissing dust-up over a piece of aluminum foil that once held roasted chicken.

Eventually, Mr. Linton or I will have had Just About Enough and shout at the intruders. Angry-Daddo-Voice invective, which sometimes works, but does require warning the other person. ("Hey, I'm going to yell."  "All right." "GERRROUT OF IT!") 

Scamper scamper scamper.

This autumn, they discovered both suet and the bird feeders.

As Jeff put it: they ate a whole LOAF of suet.

Naturally, they knocked a bird feeder over and emptied it also.

However, the raccoons did.

The first morning, I found the jar tipped over, the lid unscrewed and a small, tidy spill of seeds on the porch. 

In the morning, the birdseed was not on my mind. I was blithely drinking my coffee and being all China-to-Peru about the dew-laden field opposite the porch. 

I changed lids and put the jar inside. Thin the tin walls of Base Camp may be, and permeable as sponge, but there is a geographical limit to transgression.

You'd think, anyhow.

When the light slants just right, a distinct handprint can be seen on the window that looks into the sleeping nook at Base Camp. Maybe two inches across, the little handprint is smeared on the window that stands a good three feet off the ground.  

I try not to imagine why a raccoon climbed up and appears to have pushed –– pushed!–– on the window that looks into our sleeping quarters.

Nevertheless, I find myself weighing a few options:

1. an electric fence,
2. a wider perimeter of hair-trigger mouse-trips
3. –– rat-traps even! ––
4. the lend of a noisy dog,
5. buckets of water and Rube Goldbergian trip-lines,
6. noise-making contraptions,
7. firecrackers,
8. preemptive strikes,
9. firepower,
10. becoming the new sheriff with a fast draw ("Names Spackler, Carl Spackler, ma'm.")​​​

Which is where I hit pause.  The bandits were here first. They raid for a living.

​I'll start by making it prohibitively difficult for them to get satisfaction around Base Camp before taking lethal steps. Muah ha ha.