My best friend Lloyd’s longtime girlfriend “Juanita” flew back to South Africa this week, as her 6-month visa has expired.
Lloyd and Juanita have been romantically “together” for about a dozen years, although they have been physically separated for most of that time. Juanita lives in Johannesburg, South Africa and travels abroad (on Lloyd’s money) to see him in the U.S. and her daughter and grandbabies in Australia. Last year, Lloyd and Juanita gave living in the Yucatan (Mexico) a go, but the hot and humid climate was unacceptable to Juanita.
So, Lloyd is going to relocate to “Jo-burg” in June, while we are traveling in our motorhome. Supposedly, this is a permanent move, so I will probably not be seeing either Lloyd or Juanita again… unless I fly to Africa. This is a bummer for Charlie and I, because we love Lloyd (and Juanita, too). However, Lloyd is due some happy years with his squeeze, and it is apparent that Juanita loves Lloyd. So, we wish them the best.
Lloyd has been my hiking buddy for the past four-plus years and Juanita has been hiking with us (along with my neighbor Mac) for the past six months. The bunch of us have hiked just about everything there is to hike within a hundred-mile radius. Lloyd has a Toyota 4 Runner 4×4 that gets us into hard-to-reach mountains, canyons and parts of the desert. Juanita is a good hiker and can handle everything that we tackle… primarily because she is fifteen years younger than we are.
When we’re out on a hike, we generally do 5 to 10 miles. As we’re walking along, we talk about everything from soup to nuts. Often, we’re stretched out along the trail in two groups, and I might talk with Mac for a mile or two, then Lloyd for a few miles, and then Juanita for a bit. We all love the outdoors, and the geography and geology of this region of the Southwest is quite interesting. So, we’re constantly checking out rocks, geologic features, desert vegetation, evidence of ancient inhabitants (like the Paiute Indians, who lived in this area), and the pioneers who traveled through this area via the Old Spanish Trail.
We’ve done so much exploring around this area that we take it for granted. However, it is a very unusual region called the “Triple Junction” where three distinct geographic/geologic provinces intersect: the Mohave Desert; the Colorado Plateau; and Basin & Range.
On our weekly hikes, we’ve encountered petrified sand dunes, Native American petroglyphs, Anasazi animal corrals, slot canyons, Bighorn sheep, Joshua Trees, crystalized minerals, a herd of 100 deer, evidence of the pioneers who passed by in wagon trains, native barrel cacti, “free-range” cattle, Desert Tortoises, ankle-deep snow, spectacular vistas, and an occasional snake.
I have yet to stumble onto a Rattlesnake (they’re out here), but we did observe a Grey Wolf on a hike in the Beaver Dam Mountains. One of our favorite lunch locations is a place down near Lake Mead where a natural spring comes out of a rocky cliff, putting out 400 gallons per minute, and is a precious watering resource for wild burros who reside in the desert. On one hike, Lloyd discovered a prehistoric camel footprint (imbedded in a limestone rock), which he later had verified by someone at the University of Nevada.
I’m going to miss my hiking buddies, Juanita and Lloyd. She is a wonderful, classy gal and Lloyd is a character, full of conspiracy theories, America-is-going-to-Hell anecdotes, and hilarious/filthy jokes.
What a pair!
