Like the Blues Brothers, we’re slowly getting the old crew back together, a bit earlier than expected. Amanda and I had already planned to camp together, but then Yellow Wolf was heading this way, and we’re happy to have her join us here in the Coconino National Forest. And then there were three.
There hasn’t been a lot of activity around here, but I’ve been really enjoying catching up with my nomad family. I now call Yellow Wolf my “Transit twin,” since that’s what she has, too. It was fun to show her my new home. Lister was also happy to see her. She made us an amazing shrimp dinner last night, with about three times as much shrimp as you get in most shrimp dinners. I was stuffed but wanted to keep eating, it tasted so good.
We’ll spend a while longer here. Amanda has to go back to her home base near the end of the week. That’s about when the overnight temperatures are supposed to start dipping below 40, which I prefer to avoid. At that point, Yellow Wolf and I will probably end up convoying to Wayne’s place in Sierra Vista, where we’ll catch up with another branch of our nomad family before heading to Quartzsite, my winter home base.
Speaking of neighbors, the cows are rather like the Sandpeople in Star Wars. They startle easily, but will soon be back, and in greater numbers. This is clearly the primary frontal assault force. A smaller group split off and circled around the side of our camp in a flanking maneuver. If you don’t hear from us again, you can assume that we lost.
Cell service has been solid since Friday’s outage. The cows probably caused it, to cut off communication to prevent us from calling in reinforcements. I also increased my Verizon hotspot’s signal from two bars to four just by putting my external antenna in the driver’s window of the van. Signal strength doesn’t necessarily mean faster data, but it certainly doesn’t hurt, either.
While no particular location has felt like home to me on this journey, getting back together with friends I’ve spent the past couple of winters with does feel like home. Perhaps that feeling is more about the people I’m with than the location. As a nomad, that should seem obvious, but after doing an entire loop of the country and only feeling that way here and now is making this extremely clear to me. I like my independence and adventures, but I also like settling in with people I’m comfortable around for part of the year, too.
Smokey Da Van 