We’re only a few days from hitting the road and taking our show to the Pacific Northwest for the Summer. Just in time, too, as the high temp here is predicted to exceed 103 degrees for the next ten days straight.
I got my “Vinnie” tattoo recently. My tattooist was the owner of Vamp Body Art in St. George, a guy named Adam. He’s a nice guy and we shot the bull for two hours while he worked his magic. Adam is a Mormon like many folks in St. George and I asked him if Mormonism, like some religions, forbids “desecration of body parts”. He told me that his church deacon has researched this and determined that the Bible does not have a problem with tattooing. Anyway, he has tattooed quite a few of his churchgoing peers and his wife (also a Mormon) does body piercing out of the same location.
(An aside: Two of the most successful businesses here in Mesquite, Nevada are Lee’s Discount Liquor (comparable to BevMo in Southern California) and Deep Roots Harvest dispensary (a place where one can legally purchase weed and similar products). Both liquor and marijuana are supposed to be verboten in the Mormon faith but that doesn’t stop the herd of Utahans who drive down here to Mesquite on weekends and buy enormous amounts of hooch and ganja. Like tattooing, maybe the Book of Mormon doesn’t specifically mention Don Julio tequila, Pacifico beer, Absolut vodka or Jim Belushi Estate CBD gummies?)
It appears that our good friend and temporary house guest Lloyd is having second thoughts about jetting down to South Africa at this time. Instead, he mentioned to us yesterday that he is considering renting a home here in Mesquite while he works out passport and visa issues. Lloyd is treating us to a nice dinner at the best steakhouse in Mesquite the night before we leave. We will miss him.
I spent maybe 2-1/2 hours yesterday soaking the plants in and around our property. It has been an unseasonably hot June in Mesquite and even the cacti have been looking parched. As I sprayed them, I could almost hear them saying, “Thank you, Man!” In addition to the artificial monsoon rainfall that I administered, our landscaping maintenance guy “Kenedy” upped the drip irrigation doses to two a day. All native vegetation can survive drought conditions, but they do much better with water, so we expect to see a Garden of Eden/Desert Edition when we return in three months.
(I feel somewhat guilty about doing so much watering in the midst of a drought, but our local water district honcho continues to tell us that our community is flush with groundwater. I think he’s lying, but I’m going to assume that he knows what he’s talking about… for now.)
I read yesterday that there is a nationwide shortage of lifeguards. Community pools and beaches are opening up short-handed because there are not enough certified water safety staff, another casualty of the long battle with Covid-19.
Lifeguards must be certified, and most pools were closed for more than a year due to lockdowns. Therefore, no lifeguard certification programs were conducted, and now there is a gap that cannot be filled quickly. It’s a potential liability problem for municipalities if they throw some unqualified folks into the breach.
I know a bit about this subject, as I was competitive swimmer, a certified lifeguard, a swim instructor, and a Water Safety Instructor (a guy who certifies lifeguards) back in the day. I worked as a lifeguard for four years (age 16-19) and then managed a municipal pool in Monterey Park for a summer. During my final year, I taught swimming and W.S.I. for four hours per day and managed the operation during swimming hours when we would handle up to 500 swimmers. We also hosted A.A.U. swim meets. There were lots of long days, a number of life-saving rescues, lots of laughs with staff, and I made sufficient money to fund books and tuition at Cal State Los Angeles.
(My lifeguard years were fun ones because they coincided with my “dating” years. I was a late starter in romance but made up for it during my college years. I met a lot of girls through my job at the pool in the Summer; in fact, I dated many of the gals who worked at the two municipal pools in Monterey Park.
I was also in Delta Chi fraternity during this time at Cal State, and we had parties with sororities often. I recall meeting a gal at one of those parties, then dating her once, and deciding that she wasn’t right for me. I moved on to other prospects. Later, at one of those A.A.U. swim meets that we hosted, I was walking past some female swimmers who were lying on towels when one of them said very audibly to another, “He’s pretending that he doesn’t know me!” I really hadn’t noticed the girl but then I realized that she was a sorority gal from St. Mary’s that I had dated one time only. I was kinda embarrassed but that’s what happens when your busy socially. I think I counted once and realized that I had dated something like 40 women during my college years. Lots of them were one-shot deals, although I did have a few steady girlfriends over the four-year period.
I learned a lot about women, for sure, but I wasn’t a Hugh Hefner by any means. Just sayin’.)
We are hoping to entice a few visitors up to Oregon while we’re there. It is possible that our friend Lloyd might drop by for a spell, as he visits his mother in Reno from time to time and that’s about half-way to Coos Bay. So, maybe we can see him there or possibly in Brookings. Also, we have invited our son Tim and wife Shanon to drop by while we’re in Coos Bay. That would be cool, as they will someday be driving our RV and they need all of the experience they can get living in and managing the rig.
Otherwise, me, Charlie and the dogs will be chillin’ on the beach and looking for adventures wherever we can find them.
I did my last hike today with Lloyd and another friend today along the bottom of the mesa that overlooks our city. We’ve been on this trail many times before and happened to pass by a familiar spot: Lloyd’s Camel Toe. It is a prehistoric camel footprint that was left on a since-concretized sedimentary layer when this area was an inland sea. Lloyd reported the find to a paleontologist at the University of Utah when he found it, the professor visited the site, and confirmed that it was real and approximately 6 to 8 million years old.
When we turned around to leave the Camel Toe, Lloyd spotted a Desert Tortoise, which are hard to find these days. All of the “badlands” topography in our area is being graded down to make way for homes and industrial sites. The Desert Tortoises, which are the State Reptile of Nevada and are supposed to be “protected”, are quickly losing all of their burrowing habitat. So much for progress.
It will take us several days to get up to Coos Bay. We will spend one night in Tonopah, one night in Reno, one night in Weed (California), and four nights at the Seven Feathers RV Resort in Canyonville, Oregon on the way to the Oceanside RV Resort, where will stay for a month.
In August, we move to At River’s Edge RV Resort in Brookings and will be there for a month. After that, we will head south through Northern and Central California, arriving in Southern California (Paradise by the Sea RV Resort in Oceanside) on Labor Day. We will be there for a month.
We expect to arrive back here in Mesquite on October 7th, just in time for some nice Fall weather.