57 Years

This post is actually a travelogue but fifty-seven does enter into it. The last eleven days of March began our Great Adventure as my son, Brian, had agreed to take me on a road trip to Apalachicola, FL—by way of Ft. Worth so we could pick up his brother,Jeff.

 As I worked on planning the itinerary earlier in March, the boys began adding points of interest they wanted to include to and from Florida since our goal before we arrived back in Elko was to celebrate Aunt Dorothy’s 92^nd birthday in Tucson.

Brian wanted to see Four Corners, where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet and we traveled through Moab, UT to get there  

An arch at Moab, UT

Shiprock, NM

Further along the trip, he wanted to experience New Orleans. Unfortunately, that experience did not include a beignet and coffee but a creeping pace around the French Quarter. (I hope he can go back and actually enjoy New Orleans someday).

French Quarter--cheek by jowl

We arrived at our friends’ home in FL and enjoyed wonderful visiting time (we hadn’t seen each other in 35 years) and awesome food cooked by my friend, Sara. Her menus included fresh (meaning it was in its watery home just the night before) shrimp and red snapper. I would not want to have to rate the food against the renewing of old ties as it was all such an awesome time. 

Brian wanted to get a picture of the sun setting on the water so Sara took us to the beach and I decided to get my feet wet. It so happens that I don’t like to be in water deeper than a bathtub so you can imagine how I cut off the circulation in Brian’s hand the first time the tide came onto the beach—and my feet. The sight of that wave of water coming at me as well as the unfamiliar sound, truly was an eerie experience, but one repeated several times. I marveled at the way the water surged in and then out, leaving an expanse of sand as smooth as glass. To add to the special experience, a lone sandpiper walked down the beach in front of us (we were sitting on lawn chairs by this time), checking for edibles. He obviously was not afraid of people because it wasn’t long before he walked back from the other direction. He didn’t return again so I guess he filled his tummy or decided another location would be more fruitful.

The tide and Pat's feet

During our conversation I realized that I’d been fairly close to this part of Florida before—fifty-seven years ago my high school senior trip had Pensacola Beach as one of its destinations. Turns out I had never been back to a beach on the Gulf since then, so everyone agreed that it was high time I had returned. After all, everyone should dabble their feet in (sort of) the Atlantic Ocean at least twice in fifty-seven years.

My beach experience led me to try my hand at writing some haiku which is a three-line poem made up of five, then seven, then five syllables. (They are separate thoughts.)

Beach Haikus

Tide rolls in, rumbling

Smoothing sand like a mirror

Sandpiper distorts

As tide smoothes the sand

Man ponders troublesome life

Seeking that smoothness

Our return west to Tucson took nearly four days crossing bits of Alabama and Mississippi, the length of Louisiana and Texas and of course including New Mexico and Arizona. We walked a portion of the River Walk and saw the Alamo in San Antonio 

Bridge over River Walk

Muddy Boots visits the Alamo

We travelled on through TX and visited a quasi-Prada store outside of Marfa as well as  “experiencing” several trios of concrete "boxes without topses" on an acreage outside of that same town. 

Quasi-Prada outside of Marfa

Would you believe, their inventory

Fourteen sets of these!!!!

Bisbee, AZ was our last out of the way visit where we saw a very large copper mine pit (not as big as Newmont’s gold mine pit) as well as a unique RV Park consisting of Airstream and Spartan trailers and even a yacht that had been “beached” all for rent as motel lodging. 

Old Bisbee copper mine

RV Park where the vehicles don't roll

Over the mountain was Tombstone but we didn’t get in on the gunfight at the OK Corral.  We did, however, take a selfie in front of the Tombstone Epitaph (which has disappeared from my picture file).

Happy to say, Aunt Dorothy had a nice birthday celebration, Jeff flew home (by the hardest) and we arrived back in Elko after two weeks absence.  

Happy birthday, Aunt Dorothy

Aside from the wonderful visits with friends and relatives  and the good food we ate, Jeff said his favorite experience was climbing the lighthouse on St. George Island (which has had a hard life of being moved more than once, falling into the gulf and being put together again, better than Humpty Dumpty). 

  My favorite was the second time in fifty-seven years experience with the Gulf-Atlantic Ocean.  However, I don't want to leave out our friends and relatives, the Rundletts, Cousin Kate and ending with our favorite B and B hostess in Las Vegas.

My sweet friend, Nancy

As for Brian, it was probably all the great pictures he took, but also the realization that he had driven almost 5555 miles in two weeks into or across nine states and crossed three time zones—twice!