RV Karma

Maybe it was a bug or just scenic-viewing overload, but I fell into bed last night early with a slight fever and a general “low limb” feeling. The two-gallon margaritas I had at the Fiesta Mexicana restaurant may have contributed to the malaise as well. But, they were delicious.

Yesterday morning, before the bug hit me, drove down the Salt River Canyon area, south of Show Low. There are a couple of pictures enclosed of the area. On the way back, visited Fort Apache. To my disappointment, there is little to see and learn. It is billed as a “national” historic site. What is meant by national, though, is not the United States government but the White Mountain Apache “national” government. There is no mention of the role that the Fort Apache, a US military outpost, played in the history of the area. Instead, the museum featured Apache clothing and ceremonial artifacts. It was not as instructive as it had the potential to be. The use of the word sovereign by the Apaches bothers me to no end. I suppose they see themselves as independent entities located within the borders of the United States. It is foolish self-delusion. But, I am not going to dwell on the monumental mistakes of US domestic policy (not foreign policy since there is no conceivable way the tribes can be considered sovereign nations unto themselves) regarding the Indians.

Today is a clean-up and maintenance day. The trailer needs some detailing and the truck is a mess. I found an RV supply store down the road and have a list of small items that need some attention. Figure I can spend the morning in some do-it-yourself maintenance then spend the afternoon looking around Show Low. (The place got its name from a famous poker game back in the 1870s when one player pushed all his chips into the pot on the bet that whoever had the lowest hand would walk away with all the money. He lost.) The place is full of seasonal folks – mostly retired people from the greater Phoenix area who seek the comfort of cooler mountain temperatures during the summer. It would be a challenging place to be a city manager. Lots of high expectations for services but strong unwillingness to finance the debt needed to build and run them. From the conversations I’ve had with the residents of the place I am staying, I may be the only Democrat for miles. Tomorrow is a moving day, heading for New Mexico.

I have long maintained that I live a charmed life. It may be more mystical than that. I suspect there is something to this traveling about, something I have come to call “RV Karma”. It involves chance encounters that yield more joy than would be expected. I mentioned earlier that the guy parked next to me is from Arkansas. As our chance conversations progressed, I learned that he hunts wild turkey in Alabama. Not just any place in Alabama but a place he described as “just north of the town of Opelika.” As we talked more, we figured out that he hunts on land of a friend of his about ten miles south of Welch. Imagine that. Then, to add to the richness of the chance encounter, he is retired from the US Corps of Engineers (public enemy #1 in my mind but that is a discussion for a later entry) and spent his entire career working on the Arkansas River basis – the very Arkansas River basin that has been a keen interest of mine for years. That is RV Karma in its richest manifestation.