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WESTWARD, HO! For my yard man and me, it was the Pacific Ocean we were after! We've seen it before, but never from the beaches of California. Night before last we were perched near the border, still in Arizona.

(It's the border to that neighboring state that I'm talking about, but we know we are relatively near the national boundary as well. As we are checking into our motel room, there is a loud and unpleasant confrontation between the motel owner, "This is my property! Get off! Get off of my property! I own this property! I paid for this place!" and a Hispanic man who is entering the room next to ours, his arms full of carry-out food cartons. The Hispanic man is protesting, "But these are my friends! They invited me here! They are my friends!!" He refers to several occupants of the room, who have opened the door for him.

"No! No! You cannot be here!" responds the India-born man who is the owner. He points to the yard man and me, standing on the second-floor balcony near the unwanted visitor, our arms full of luggage, our mouths agape. "These are my guests!! You cannot be here! Go! Go! Get off my property! These are my guests!" Standing in the parking lot below us, the Indian motel owner is now screaming.

When there is a brief pause in the ranting, I lean over the railing and ask, "Is there a problem? As long as there isn't a lot of noise, we don't mind." The dark-skinned occupants of the room next to ours look over at us inquisitively. The dark-skinned motel owner pauses. "No, no, he must go!" He points again to the man near us, "This is my property! These are my guests! Go! I will call the police!!"

Standing beside me, my yard man is quietly getting upset. Suddenly he yells at the man below, "If he goes, WE go!" The Indian man is taken off-guard. He is confused. So am I!! Who really knows what is going on here? Meanwhile the unwanted visitor has meekly walked to the end of the balcony and disappeared down the steps.

The motel owner mumbles something, tells us in his strong Indian accent, "It's okay. It's okay," and walkes away. The yard man and I just stand there on the balcony for a moment. We are a little stunned, and somewhat creeped out. We confer between ourselves. The yard man surmises that the unwanted guest is an illegal immigrant. We should stand in solidarity with the poor man, and take our business elsewhere--that is his suggestion. But the room is clean and well-furnished, it is late in the evening, we hear not a sound from the room next door. We stay, and have a restful night of sleep.

In the morning, as we check out, I ask the woman at the desk (the owner's wife, I'm quite sure) about the altercation last night. "Who is the man? Is he homeless? " I ask. She gets a slightly embarrassed look on her face, gives me a faint smile, "Oh, he is someone who is always just around at different places in the town." Well...it didn't satisfy my curiosity, that's for sure. I was left hanging, Dear Reader, just as I'll have to leave you!)

So now the yard man and I are almost to the state line, leaving Arizona. "Wait!" I say to the yard man. "Stop the car! I think that's the Colorado River, again!" And sure enough. I get to cool my feet it in one more time. (That yard man missed this pleasant little interlude; he sat in the car and waited!)




When next I said, "Wait! Stop the car!" we were in California. (We had crossed the river [state line, of course] and come to some railroad tracks). Now, there's no way I can tell you right now, Dear Reader, all of the stories that are clickety-clacking through my brain about trains and railroad tracks on this trip. Good grief, the yard man and I had no idea the west was so full of trains! But this one I'll show you--eleven miles of stone-built graffiti beside those railroad tracks. I was fascinated. If Mr. Yard Man would have let me, I'd have added our names to the jumble. But we were in a rush (a California Golden State rush) to get to the coast, so I didn't really beg.
















And thank goodness for that! We had miles and miles
of more interesting things to see!




Including another Native American Reservation.
More than one, to be truthful, and each one made me think of Frank (Eagle Soaring Freely), and gave me a sorrowful feeling in my heart. A shamed and sorrowful feeling.












But we also came to a Joshua tree. And then another and another.


Ultimately, a state park full of them!


















And the state park was chock-a-block full of wonderful rocks--great big jungle-gym-climbing types and shapes of all sorts. The yard man and I climbed up...and then had a fine time climbing down (gravity's helpful, but sometimes made me nervous in a perfect-set-up-for-an-ankle-twisting way).





Not to worry, we continued along, and I exclaimed and gasped and said, "Stop the car! I need a picture!" so often that that yard man began to grumble.

(But, my goodness, Dear Reader, can you blame me? Everywhere I looked it seemed there was something more striking than what we'd just seen!)








Even the big whirligigs seemed more impressive than ones just like them we've seen back east.







Now my camera is complaining of overload; I saw so many fantastic sights today, my head is spinning like those big windmills. We could almost smell the Pacific Ocean by the time the sun went down and we stopped for the night. Tomorrow I believe we'll strike gold!
(I'll share. I promise!)

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