I must have gotten some sleep last night, since I’m not totally exhausted. I woke the final time around 5:30 and finally resigned myself to not getting any more sleep around 6. Time for that thyroid pill anyway, so I can eat and take more meds, including ibuprofen again, in the not-too- distant morning. The skies now, at 6:45 are slightly lightening. Not that I’ve opened the blinds to look out or anything, but that’s the time they lighten up 2 hours south this time of year. The reason I even bothered to note the time is because there’s a very diligent rooster encouraging the sun to rise with all his masculine charms. He’s been a very busy boy for about a quarter hour now. It might be time to get dressed for a very chilly morning and take the camera out to shoot those cliffs as the sun hits them. Unless it’s cloudy, of course. Then I’ll just stay here.
Getting here was such a challenge, and I made the mistake of relying on my skills, thoroughly checking a map and redrawing it for myself to show the meaningful parts, and logic to locate it. The other couple had cell phone navigation. They also had the code for getting through the gate to this place. Nobody mentioned that would be necessary. My skills got us to the exact spot it should have been, but the street ended at a cross street just before the numbers got to this address. I tried a couple things, since the signs for streets mostly only show one name and not both for the intersection, and some turns are more guesswork than signage, but this name didn’t pop up again.
It was a fairly interesting drive... the first time through. It was a mix of medium homes, ranches with horses, showpieces homes on hills hogging the view for themselves, and a large section of a community where hundreds of worn out mobile homes came to die - while still holding families. Recliners lined the roadway, not to be taken away but for neighbors to congregate. The yards looked like junkyards, but considering the likely income levels of the residents, the contents of the yards were probably still very much in use. Our destination was supposed to be on the other side of that... but where?
We thought we’d try our friends to see if they were here yet, since Steve got a text a bit before that they came north early and hit Sedona for some shopping. Groceries mostly. Unfortunately, this part of the world seems to have no cell coverage whatever. We punch the right keys, and get “call failed.” Steve tried his cell’s navigation system which sent us off where we’d already tried with no results. We asked three different sets of locals, and nobody seemed to know where the road went after it hit the cross street, but one said it “divided” without clarifying how or where. Another pulled up a map on his phone and sent us down a different rabbit hole. We finally headed back into the center part of “town” looking for an open business (Sunday, doncha know), or somebody else to ask.
Meanwhile I was completely frustrated by having no communication with our friends. The rental was in their name, they had the local phone number of the owner in case of… well, anything. How do we tell them we’re hopelessly lost, we’ve exhausted every avenue, and please come find us at… hopefully somewhere. By this point I was almost in tears. How on earth would we connect?
Just before getting back to the highway Steve recalled seeing a cop car parked at a house we passed on our way in, so we started looking for that, figuring we’d stop in and see if they could be of help. I spied it just as I was driving past and couldn’t stop quickly because of a tailgater. We continued to the highway, found a (closed) place to turn around in, and headed back. I had my turn signal on for the turn into the home with the cop car this time, and just as I was stopping to turn an oncoming car honked at me. Loudly and repeatedly.
WTF? Did they think I didn't see them and was going to turn right into them?
Steve announced delightedly it was their car! They’d come to find us! Lead the way! This was especially wonderful since the cop car was for the next town over, so who know how much they'd know about the town they lived in. Where they worked, you bet they'd know all the roads, but once home?
Later conversations at the house informed us our friends had set out just as soon as they realized they also had no cell service in the area, and figured we’d have problems. Not only that, we’d need the code for the gate to get in to the area! He just had to slip in the comment that it would’ve been so much easier if we’d caravanned up and stayed together. Of course it would have! The previous afternoon before they left for our house for the night, suggestions were rolling around as to how and where we’d meet up. Our house? Their B&B? I had a scenic but efficient route in mind. It was his choice to head up separately, and their combined choice the next morning to leave a couple hours before they’d told us we should go up. Everybody knew I was relying on maps, that Steve’s cell had navigation, however inefficient that was. But the kicker was nobody knew yet that cell service was nonexistent. (As it turns out, we have the wi-fi code for this place. Just no wi-fi is detectible by my laptop. None. Zero bars anywhere. So none of this will be getting posted until we return late in the week - unless the landlady has a fix for that.)
Recall that the street ended before the numbers got to where we were going. Turns out that’s not precisely the truth. The paved part ended, but a little gravel driveway continued downhill on the other side of the cross street but after just a little jog. It doesn’t look like a road but a large gravel parking area with a commercial-looking building on each side. Not being homes, they were obviously private and we had no business being there. Except we did, since at the other end was the gate we needed to go through. The gate we didn’t have the code to. But we were here at last!
Oh, Steve’s phone navigation system? We used it right next to that gravel parking area, and it told us we were 4 minutes away, pointing us back north. Exactly opposite of where we should have headed. Naturally, like everything else about locating this spot.
* * *
A couple hours have passed while I've been writing this, waiting for the rest to wake up. Seems I'm an early bird. While waiting for the thermostat to decide to kick in some heat again, I got chilly and went back under the covers to warm up again. After a while I decided to actually get dressed in my winter gear for indoors. I had moved around a bit, raising the living room blinds to see the sun hit the cliffs across the way. Nope, not cliffs after all. Yesterday afternoon it was just a backlit blue wall. The rising sun now hitting it revealed a typical low mountain, dotted with small trees with few spots so vertical nothing showed but bands of rock. So, large mesa then. I still haven’t been out with the camera, having finally just warmed up enough under the covers to brave getting dressed. There are enough clouds that’s it’s still not an inviting prospect. I’ll just wait a bit longer for everyday else to start moving before making my coffee.
Meanwhile I’ll try to recall just where my camera landed last night in all the chaos. There is a tree just outside the big window wall that has a growth on it that from this angle looks exactly like a lion’s head. There’s an eye, long snout with a dark nose, mouth that curves up in a grin to the cheekbones, bearded chin, and a nice 3-d mane around the sides. I pointed it out to Steve and he agreed it’s a lion. It will likely change completely from any other angle, so I’ll shoot through the window. Once I find that camera.
* * *
Later shots with different angles revealed the lion head from the front is a lamb, and from the other side is an elephant. Later I’ll have to see how they show once I’ve cropped and edited the photos. I’ll know what I’m looking for anyway.
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