I had a Saran-wrapped cream cheese slathered bagel stuffed in one armpit and a hot cup of coffee in my other hand. I inserted the key card in the door and stepped one foot inside the room just as my shorts fell to the floor and landed around my ankles.

It figures.

In the rush to get here I had forgotten to pack my belt. I glanced behind me but alas, no one got to see my drawers on this fine day. I can’t say it hasn't happened before but at least there weren't witnesses-this time. I am butt-deficient and built like an egg with legs. Randomly losing pantaloons is a body type hazard for me. This was the least of my worries.

For the past two nights, Libby and I have slept in a hotel room without Dan. As I sit here on the second night, I consider how foreign this feels. John Lennon said that life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.

Agreed.

On Friday of last week, Dan and I went to his general physician’s office here in our mini-town to ask that he be seen for unusual symptoms following a medication change nearly a month ago. They were not able to fit him in that day.

We have one, count ‘em, one general physician in this one-camel town. They could get him in on Monday, they said. We left disgruntled but compliant, feeling grateful that the appointment wasn’t further down the calendar. This physician is the Cracker Jack prize, but the one you were hoping you WOULDN'T find at the bottom of the box. I cannot abide by him myself having spent my career in the dental/surgical field. I will just leave it at that.

Our loosely-setting Jello-nailed-to-a-tree plans that we had JUST made began to jiggle. A recent call requesting that we change an upcoming appointment led to the realization that the excellent cardiologist Dan has been seeing would be hopping on his camel and getting the heck outta Q (heavy, heavy sigh).

They never stay.

The scheduler was more than happy to move up his last two appointments and to allow for his final follow up appointment to be a tele-med visit. We were giddy about the possibility of leaving this month instead of next month. We went from melting and whining to shaking a tail feather to get ourselves ready for an earlier departure.

Vitals were taken at the Monday appointment that set off alarms. Dan’s resting heart rate was through the ceiling at a whopping 160. His blood pressure was slightly above normal, but his heart rate was 10 points higher than what would be considered a medical emergency.

The ambulance arrived before we were told it was on its way. The lieutenant recognized us both right away. Dan is the unofficial medic-type neighborhood helper who is often on scene when they arrive. I am known for my herbal remedies, and we both have practical medical skills that make us the first call for many who are afraid of or can’t afford immediate medical treatment.

We met the first summer you all spent in Quartzsite, the lieutenant recalled. Dan was dancing our neighbor Kim’s mom BJ out of the trailer and down the steps when dementia caused her to panic and fight back when they tried to transport her. She had a little crush on Dan, which I can fully understand, so she batted her eyes and followed his lead. He just has a way about him that makes everything alright when it clearly isn’t.

I was rattled as the paramedics worked to do a cardioversion via injection to stabilize his heart rhythm. He was experiencing supraventricular tachycardia which he had never been diagnosed with. I was so grateful to see the lieutenant’s smiling, familiar face and to have his input when the first shot worked for an instant but didn’t hold. The second shot was also ineffective.

Things sped up at that point.

Dan was loaded into the ambulance and whisked off to the hospital in Parker, Arizona, 40 minutes north of here. I headed home to make a motel reservation and to scoop up Liberty and put together go-bags for all three of us. I turned one of the air conditioners up since we wouldn’t be home and it simply refused to turn back on. I had to just leave it, but dreaded that inconvenience when we finally made it home. We may have another motel room stay in our near future as our home would surely be an oven was my belief. Again, the least of our worries.

Fast forward to the next day and find us finally back home watching the rain fall after a long, restorative nap. Dan had to have the paddles applied to straighten out his heart rhythm in the ER but it had snapped back into place and kept the beat perfectly while they charted the progress in his 48 hour stay.

Is it strange to feel traumatized from knowing your husband had to be paddled? I am grateful that I was driving at the time and didn’t know about that part until afterwards. The nap and the rare rainfall was so helpful. I needed a minute to turn my brain off and relax from everything that happened, and I know he needed that, too.

The new medication he had been prescribed failed at keeping his blood sugar in check and caused rapid heat exhaustion when he had been handling the extreme desert heat well thus far, in modified, limited doses. He wasn’t having any heart issues at that point, but felt off and didn’t know how much of it was getting used to a new medication or just the unrelenting heat.

With further investigation we realized this drug was contraindicated due to a family history of heart failure (which it can cause), and it did not play well (to say the least) with two of his existing medications. Dan had discontinued it four days before his appointment and was beginning to feel better, so we suspected the drug interaction.

The general physician and cardiologist on staff at the hospital feel like a perfect storm that created this situation. The medication mix, the heat, and the subsequent blood sugar rise all combined to make Dan a very ill man.

Luckily, no damage occurred to his heart and his blood sugar is not perfect, but headed in the right direction. His cardiac care will be managed moving forward by the excellent cardiologist he saw while he was inpatient. He says he feels 200% better and I would second that myself.

I must mention that today is my birthday.

The calls started at 4:30 this morning and my phone is still ringing and dinging as I type this update. I am already well over a hundred posts and comments behind on saying thank you for the well-wishes on Facebook, but I am just going to let them stack up for now and wallow in the gratitude of a home that managed to stay cool with half of its a/c turned off and 107 degrees outside, and the relief at having Dan and Libby sharing the couch while the rain hits the roof.

The only road home flooded behind us, so if we had not made a hasty retreat just before lunchtime, we might have had that extra motel night in Parker after all as we would have had to turn around and not drown.

I would have missed the very first hummingbird that I have seen in our yard this year. He came to the feeder as I was sitting on the steps enjoying the delicious scent of the rain on the creosote bushes which smells like nothing else on this earth. Joy finds us if we let go of control and have faith that it will all work out.

Great Spirit, may we always walk in gratitude for every day that we are given to live and breathe, to struggle and soar, and do our best to get it right. We are divinely led and protected, as always.

I got the best birthday present EVER when I picked Dan up from the hospital.

The birthday well-wishes are the icing on the cake. Thank you, friends, for following our journey for more than a decade. We still have travel plans, although we will be rising in altitude for cooling purposes a few hours from home when we are ready instead of making a big haul cross-country at this point.

Adapt and overcome every chance you get, my friends.

Raindrops and raspberry jam,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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It all began with a new tent and a couple of cots. We had to start somewhere. As soon as the tent arrived in the mail, we sprinted to the edge of town to set it up, to make sure it had all of its pieces-parts, as Dan would say. It did.

We soon realized that we could jump in the truck with our camping gear and be outta here in a white-hot second. Since it is white-hot outdoors, we knew that it wasn’t time yet. We also knew that the tent would be one road-life plan B housing solution. We are and have always been about the plan B.

Under a buttermilk sky, we sipped our coffee and made our decisions about what is next for the rolling version of Camp Cordray. Do you know about buttermilk skies?

Traditionally viewed as a cloud formation that warns that a warm front is moving in, bringing with it the chance of rain or thunderstorms. Deep in the throes of this monsoon season, albeit a dry one thus far, it seems fitting.

“Ole Buttermilk Sky” is a song written by Jack Brooks and composed by Hoagy Carmichael. It was introduced in the 1946 Western film, Canyon Passage. It’s also a song about popping the question. We are way past the question of marriage because of course, we did, and we do. The question was, how would like to roll as we reinvent ourselves? I have always loved the song and lean into the levity it provides as we glide from one season of our lives to the next.

The answer came the day the monthly bill for our storage room arrived. It had more than doubled.

Nomadic folks come in a couple of different types. Either they shuck it all when they head out on the open road, or they reserve a few items for “someday” that they store somewhere out there. They may or may not pay for storage, but there will be visits to said items to pick up or drop off necessities or overages accumulated on the road. There are goods nestled there that we were unable (unwilling) to dispose of before our early tandem launch to full time travel.

These items run the gamut from purely sentimental to the far-too-good-to-toss. Our doubles have been shuffled off onto kids and grandkids, other nomadic folk, or have been loaded up in our current chariot when its predecessor bit the dust. Nothing like having backup spares until you have paid for them many, many times over and only visit them once every few years. They are not as handy when located half a country away from home.

Mentally scanning the contents of our storage space, my inward eye lands upon a black leather coat, tucked away by this girl from Texas who survived 15 frigid years in Michigan. I have never grabbed that one up on any pass through the area. I planned to never get cold enough to have to wear it. Since its 21 year old barely used winter coat predecessor burned, it would seem to be the next in line, but I make no promises. I still do not want to be that cold. There are some magnificent finds waiting for us that will be great for a homestead, but there is also a lot of useless fluff.

There are the dozen boxes of my mementos, my kitchen gear, and of course far too many books and rocks that waited for me in a friend’s basement when I first launched into nomadic life. Another friend said hey you have a few boxes in my garage as well, so twelve boxes became 24. THAT friend found another box of my stuff when she cleaned out HER storage room for her recent move. We picked it up in September and hauled it cross-country to Quartzsite, where it became part of the losses from the fire. I told tale of some of those items in a post about what remains.

We traveled from Kentucky to Michigan to get my two dozen boxes in our former then new-to-us cargo trailer that later became our art studio storage room ham radio shack spare room deluxe. We sure miss that thing. It was gifted to Dan’s son Terry to use on the farm. He offered to give it back to us, especially since it resides in Kentucky. We decided against it. With the shelves and cabinets Dan built, there wouldn’t be room for a bed. Might as well build something custom for what we need these days.

What else do I spy with my little eye? Dan’s spare room full of prepping gear, the stuff from MY van, his family mementos and a few of mine, stuff we gathered after we met…well, you get the point. It’s a lot, and it ain’t all coming with.

So we have a late-summer, early-fall-ish trip planned to Kentucky, heading out with our (mostly) empty brand spankin’ new cargo trailer, our cots, and our tent. We will be using our cargo trailer to bring that storage stuff back to Quartzsite, so it needs to remain mostly empty for now. When we get back this way, it will be cooler and we will be able to finish our build out here at home, hopefully before the snowbirds arrive.

There may be hotel recovery nights here and there, but a greater part of this voyage will be the fun of what is known as a “shakedown cruise”. Let’s throw a few cots in there and go live in it awhile, to see how it wants to be built out. That really is the only way to do it.

I saw a sign on Facebook that made me ponder our road life/stationary life situation. Turnkey farmette for sale - for poultry, equines etc build to suit, it said.

Farmette? We are not likely to raise livestock, but a change to our plan B home-stay situation might be in the cards. For now, having all of our belongings in one place will allow us to see what we are working with. The less your life costs, the less you need to pay to keep it. We need to consolidate, tuck in, and make the most of what we have on hand to consider what is best when it comes to our nest. We plan to build out the trailer for part-time usage as we will be spending a more balanced amount of time both home and away, moving forward. 98 square feet of living space (7’ high x 7’ wide x 14’ long) is more than the 60 square feet we shared in our van, Erik Van Home.

Letting go of what was, doing our best to enjoy what is, and looking forward to what comes next is what we strive for these days. Busting through the inertia of months of grief and tough adjustments is much harder than it seems, even when we are on the same page and want nothing more than to sort it all out to unearth our new normal.

The daily hundred and teens and hundred and twenties temperatures have sucked the wind out of us. The one thing that is true for me is to find my shiny, I must move my hiney. My hiney wants to scrawl out on the bed in front of the dueling air conditioners and wallow in coconut consolation cookies dipped in hot coffee.

While cookies help in moderation, they do not compare to the wind in my hair, man and dog beside me, a map in my hands and a cooler full of sandwiches ready for the travel day ahead. There will be other cookies, dipped in campfire brewed coffee if we do the deal and get ‘er done.

Like the mouthful of ants I swallowed in my sip of ice-cold lemonade, I could just resign myself to my fate and ride the wave on down into the darkness. I often need to sit there to feel my feelings and to heal, but I bob to the surface eventually, looking for sunshine. I am finally feeling the bob.

Standing outside the laundromat laughing and crying at the same time because the few spits of rain wetting my face did not smell like rebooted house fire was where I found my redemption. There is life out there waiting for us if we can wipe away the smoke and ash and get a clear view through the windshield.

We have a great deal of what we need to get started on hand, and the rest is arriving in cardboard boxes daily. There aren’t many places to shop for such things in this one-camel town. As always, we are divinely led and protected, resourceful, and willing to do what needs to be done to once again earn our freedom. We can visualize it rolling out before us like the endless ribbon of the I-10 freeway that whizzes by, closer to this desert home than the Mississippi River was when we lived on its banks in Memphis. They recently slapped a Pilot truck stop billboard within view of the back porch. There’s your sign.

Great Spirit, remind us that it took more work than what we have ahead of us to carve out our nomadic life when we first started, and it took a lot of effort to join forces and make our dream sustainable for more than a decade. Every ounce of effort paid off then and will make all the difference this time as well.

And so it begins!

Bowling balls and bat’s wings,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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I am a sailboat caught in an unexpected gale, sails touching waves.

I am the wildfire racing through the canyon, scorching the underbrush and trailing miles of live coals and smoldering wasteland behind me.

I am the unwatched pot tired of boiling over, a sputtering pressure cooker gauge spinning wildly, headed for the ceiling.

I am the hoarse whisper on the desert wind, cheeks full of dust, muddy clouds puffed up with rain that will never make it to the ground.

I am the blustering and the stalling, the weather front that never comes to pass, the flip-the-coin forecast that fails to notice rotation.

I am the empty calendar, the days and months moving in their usual order but with little variation. I am the here and now, the why and wherefore, the that's the way it is, because.

I am the uplifted foot, shoes untied, searching for the next step but barely sensing the ground beneath me. I am the wings clamped shut, the jammed door lock, the cryptic scrawl, the torn map.

I am the time-will-tell, the detective peering through a shattered looking-glass.

I am the foggy intersection, road signs storm-blown and lying crumpled in the ditch.

I am the sliver of daylight on the horizon, tapping my flashlight on the lowest tree branches and sending the nocturnal creatures to their lairs so the day shift can take over.

I am the first bird song of the morning, the rooster crowing, the earthworm squirming beneath the soil, blindly feeling for direction.

I am the yard full of rocks and sand-colored lizards awaiting a drop of rain, not a blade of grass expected.

I am the tree tipping slowly, root ball exposed, grasping at the roof to remain upright.

I am the half-burnt cactus, blooming anyway. I am the monsoon rains perched on the horizon. I am the damn-straight promise of a little, or a lot, depending on conditions and the lay of the land.

I am the limb of the bougainvillea-bush, dry and brittle here and green and leafy there, waiting to be pruned. I am the overgrowth and the wasteland, the kudzu curtain and the creosote everlasting.

On this day that seems twice as long as most, I am the tenderest of seedlings, hoping.

I am the inkling of a plan, brewing.

I am the faded snapshots, the proposed trajectories, the average daily temperature, the old route with a new twist emerging.

I am the rough and ready, the let me catch up. the you better run to catch up with ME, also depending on so many things. I am the run fast now and rest long later, the together we can. We have before, so many times and in so many ways.

Of course we can.

I am the sad but not sorry, the itching to go, but also the longing to lay flat and move very little. I am the cooler packed with provisions, the quick stop along the way. I am the detour and the fast lane, the open road and the flat tire.

I am the radiator overheating, the thirty-eight miles to the gallon. I am the we can't see it all this trip, let's start here first, next time.

I am the certainty and the risk, the shot at adventure, the timid steps before the plunge.

I am the possibility of movement, the moments of epiphany, the willingness to try. I am the flicker of the flashlight, the lightning bug glowing in the deepest darkness of the wee-hour maps searching for a soft place for us to land whilst humming my tune.

I am the act as-if, the weeks and months of preparation, awaiting clues as the map sputters to life. I am the yes, please, let's doooooo it, the let's see what happens, the it's now or never. Or at least, very soon.

Vrrrrroommm VRRRROOOOMM…(!!!)

Not right away, but soonly, as I often say, we will launch in a modified way. Oh that we had the reins of our original chariot, as we have realized it was better for what we needed than its fancy upgrade. Sometimes tragedies morph into blessings given the right perspective. Every ending is a chance to begin again.

Camp Cordray, in this cocoon-ed version, was necessary, to pick up the pieces and lean into the healing end of the loss of our travel trailer. The fire did not destroy our desire to move freely about the country, though, in case you were wondering. Betcha our next rolling living arrangement will be just as cool as our first, eventually, although Erik Van Home will be hard to beat.

We have local appointments yet and chores getting done slowly due to the heat and lack of motivation. With more of an idea of timeline and even a general direction chilling the Jello into some sort of recognizable shape, the motivation is rising.

Wisdom taken from Facebook meme: “You are not lazy. You only have a certain amount of energy, and you are using all of it to survive.”

I really needed to hear that.

It has been a rough stretch, with the waiting being one of the hardest parts. Even Dan has become impatient. It’s usually just me riding that crazy train.

We are being deliberate with our decisions and keeping the faith that all is or will be as it should be in every moment. As always, we are divinely guided and protected in all that we do, no matter where we go and even if we stay.

Thank you, Great Spirit, for every day and every breath and every opportunity to continue to live this dream we call life.

I am elbow deep in my lists of road gear and provisions while tapping out this update, plus a submission for a writing contest that is due tomorrow for AARP. Wish me luck!

Much gratitude for those who ride shotgun with pom poms and cat-call whistles, and to those who have been my (our) lighthouses and sounding boards on the rougher days of this stretch.

Thank you for not doubting for a second that we would rebuild and prevail, and that it will all make a great story someday.

Didja know that I took all but three of these photographs?

Ping pong balls and paddle wheels,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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It was a bug on a pin kind of night.

They all are since we arrived back at our desert home and watched our freedom catch fire and turn to ash. The belongings we are left with in our park model trailer are worth our gratitude, don’t get me wrong. How many times have we said or thought it could have been worse?

At least we have a place to settle our bones when we aren't fighting the good fight of just merely trying to exist.

It could have been worse is not entirely true. Yes, we still have a place to live, but the park we live in is not liveable. It is far worse than we left it, when we still had wings (and wheels) to fly.

Every day the rotten situations fester with no resolution. Every day my body begs for mercy, for rest, for ease, for a sense of safety and comfort that is lost to me, even surrounded by the miracles of “something left” to be grateful for.

Having been gone two years, we missed the deepening evil of those who were invited to build their nests and embed themselves with all of their habits and wee-hour commerce within view of what we have left. We spend our days talking with authorities and attending town hall meetings, hoping to do our part to repair what's busted and to involve ourselves in the growth or failure of this town we have called home for 9 years.

Every day I hobble around in the misery of an autoimmune flare that has been screeching and clawing since that not-so-good Friday when it all popped off. When the smoke cleared, we saw our situation as it truly is. We are well and truly hobbled by the inept leadership we live under in our badly chosen retirement park. This place was a paradise when someone else owned it.

The new fence doesn’t completely shield the view of two burned out trailers that still sit, their contents slowly disbursing themselves with every gust of monsoon winds.

It doesn't shield us from the looter who stole a refrigerator from one burned out unit in broad daylight and left the months’ old contents on the sidewalk where they sat for days, alerting all of the flies who thought the buffet had closed. Invisible to those who should care, but obvious to those who are still suffering.

The new fence is on the wrong side of the house to shield us from the Mad Max variety of cobbled together wheeled, untagged vehicles and non-residents who move about in the shadows with flashlights, setting off our security lights. They have (nightly) broken every park rule that governs the rest of us, but we are told there is no “proof” that they are doing wrong.

77 miserable days.

The thing is, I am known for my resilience. Even with an overflowing fist full of “incurable” diseases, most days I still manage to do my part, or at least a good portion thereof. Every day that nothing gets done, my ability to see past what is blocking me dims.

We are well and truly trapped, unless we want to load up a grocery bag of what matters most and walk away from the whole shebang. This place won't sell, and if we leave to search for respite, there is a good chance we will be looted. But that's just my opinion, based on what I can see through tear-filled eyes. We are more reality based than some, which becomes apparent with each passing day.

Last night, there were fewer flashlights and vehicles coming and going so I “should” have been able to sleep. My fight or flight mechanism is blown wide open, though. My it's-fine-filter is clogged with false promises and lack of movement. The bigger part of me feels that this will never end.

Sleep is nearly impossible for me due to overvigilance, rage, and body parts bearing sledgehammers that think I am not aware of the danger. My snit-face is stuck on the intolerance setting, my smile a rarity. My feet feel like someone is standing on top of them with Army boots on, grinding, reminding. My low back, hip, and knee knock and clatter with every step, night and day. Do you see this mess, they scream. How can you live like this? Yes, I holler back. I can’t seem to see anything else.

Dan is a saint, doing every little thing that he can to bring me joy and remind me that I am not alone in all of this. Cycling through appointments with specialists and tests for a new serious health condition that has raised its ugly head in the weeks after suffering our traumatic loss, he is greatly diminished as well. Some days we just sit here and melt, making zero progress on important projects.

Without Dan, I would have skittered away with my satchel full of mismatched socks and been done with it. I have walked away from a life I loved with less. Unfortunately, there are elders here who have no voice, scared to speak up since they cannot afford to move. I (we) speak for them as well.

It's just too much, for far too long.

So forgive me if my Sunny Side travel and inspirational Facebook page is post-less, dark as midnight, my ramblindesertrose art page snipped and cobbled, silent for the most part as well. My shiny bits are hiding and fail to fling any light upon the masses.

So this post is for those who are wondering how it's going and if things are getting better for us. Dan, Liberty and I are still around, making waves when we aren't drowning in the aftermath.

Great Spirit, remind me in every moment that I still have life to work with and work to do on this planet. I still have today to get it right, whatever that means. All I can do is attend to my mental and physical health and search the sky for a vision of what is next.

Bless those who remind me that my true nature is joy, peace, and a positive outlook that in normal circumstances, steers my little life-boat and gathers others who are flailing, offering them a lift to calmer shores.

Like a butterfly pinned to a child's bug collection, I am currently a dried out sliver of my former glory.

My word is my wand, my sword, and the hill I will LIVE upon, when my body and spirit catch up. Great Spirit, help us all.

Buttered toast and bottlerockets,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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Once upon a time and not so very long ago, my artwork hung at The Memphis Art Salon in Memphis, Tennessee. It was one of those bucket list checks I had always dreamed of, not to sell my art for profit or to make a big splash, but to satisfy an urge to share the way I see my world, through beauty-tinted, color-popped lenses.

At the time, Dan was working the contract that paid for the travel trailer that we just lost to the flames, and the truck to pull it with. We needed to upgrade, which meant full-stop on the travel end of our existence.

It was nice to be housed in Memphis with all of the luxuries and necessities, but it was rough to not be rolling down the road. Six months became a year, a year became a year and a half, but we accomplished our goal, and then some.

That period of time, for me, was about being the support team for Dan as he went back to full-time employment after years of retirement. Well, Dan never fully retires, but that’s a story for another day.

I managed hearth, home, and him, my own bodily issues, corralled elderly doggies (as Layla was still with us back then), worked on the book(s) that will detail now much more than a decade of nomadic life. I also made piles of art.

83 pieces of art on the wall, 83 pieces of art.

Painting and drawing as stress relief and to open the channels of creativity for writing was my goal. Most of it was not much to look at, but it sure was fun (and therapeutic) to create.

The ones that waited patiently on the top shelf of the cupboard on my side of the bed in our reduced-to-ashes travel trailer were of the epic variety.

At the time of the fire, they were not in the portfolio housed in the wardrobe in the bathroom where they belonged.

They were out of place because I had been trying to get color copies to decorate our rolling home. Several times we had stopped at print shops along the way. Each promised a print but none could DELIVER a print for a variety of reasons.

The last attempt to make copies of my original art was on our way out of Florida. A one hour turn-around, go run errands promise led to 4 hours maybe, we are so behind, and then can you pick up your prints tomorrow?

Nosireeebob.

“Have them ready because I am on my way to get them,” I growled. Snatched off the countertop with a waved-off “but ma'am let us help you”, I stomped out of the store and stuck them in the safe spot.

In the wreckage, I could see clouds and twisted metal in that safe spot, but no art.

There are plenty of pieces that have been scanned and saved on my Zenbook, which made it, but not all of them. I have photographs, but like a good book, the tactile feel of holding something that you have created in your hands hits different than seeing what the camera’s eye suggests.

Over the years, I have sold more crafty stuff than arty stuff. I tend to give the arty stuff away as part of “care boxes” mailed off to my beloveds. More art has gone elsewhere than has stayed in my possession until I started doing Arty-Parties in Quartzsite.

A binder full of samples created for two fall/winter seasons’ worth of classes, plus quite a few for Memphis area Arty-Parties is also history.

I keep telling myself that it’s only smoke and ashes, baaayaaybee.

It helps if sung in a Tracy Chapman-esque singing voice, which I do not have but cannot resist belting it out anyway.

Humor and unabashed frivolity is not a cure-all, but it sure lightens the mood and makes the painful stuff a bit easier to bear.

Enough art supplies to host a gymnasium full of Dabble-In-Artists has melted or turned to ash. I know this because I could see a boot box full of well-organized but half-melted Sharpie and acrylic markers in the rubble, a horrific sight for any sketcharoonie. There was no sense in digging deeper to find more unusable tools, or more charred art.

We lost our 1920’s-era home to a house fire when I was 9. Firefighters flung antique cherry wood furniture out the second-story window where it landed in the snow and was later plucked from the ashes, refinished, and continues to be in service from what I understand. The vintage linens that had been in the china cabinet and all of those pieces forever smelled of sickly sweet smoke.

I always thought we should have dug deeper in those piles to find more treasure. Now I truly understand that the smell of what remains, the distorted, distressed disarray of the melted clump of what it IS instead of what WAS is not worth searching for. I have one more post in me about the boot box of items left behind.

I think.

I may just fling it in the next trash bag going to the dumpster since I have sat with it a second time already, tears streaming down my dusty desert-girl face. Ugh. Oh, my tattered heart. It’s often just entirely too much.

It is at this point that I have to take my own advice. I tell my Dabble-In-Artists that making art is about the intuitive, joyful act of creation, not the “quality” of the end result. I have often been as impressed as my viewer, surprised at how a piece turned out if I stick to this one rule. Just grab your marker and step onto the page. Let go, let flow. Whatever it ends up being is exactly what it wanted to be. You answered the call, opened the cage, and let your dandy-lion roar. That's what counts.

So if it truly is all about the fun of making it, then it isn’t about the need to hold it in your hands, is it? The memory of creation is tangible, if tangible also means palpable, so intense as to feel touchable.

Yes.

I can close my eyes and remember the moment of their creation and say that although I cannot hold them in my hands, the feeling of their creation is tangible and accessible to me if I set aside sorrow at their physical loss. That's where I need to live to move through this. Kinda like adult children who are alive and kicking, who love you but are notoriously distant for no good reason at all. (sigh)

The mood, the intention, or lack of intention, all add to the feeling that flows from each work of art. As interpretation is a subjective act, what one sees depends on what is inside each of us.

Awhile back, I flung a post about how art heals, and what that means to me. Again with the listening to my own advice.

Landing in the didja-know section of this post are some links that will lead you to some of my other creations.

My art and photography pages:

Brenda Cordray Art for Sale | Fine Art America

ramblindesertrose on Facebook

21feathers on Redbubble

My travel/inspirational Pages:

The Sunny Side on Facebook

@twentyonefeathers on Instagram

The burnt bits and pieces reside in a snap-shut tote where I can see them but I can't smell them. There will be a campfire ceremony at some point to send them off to join their comrades. I am grateful to have this post behind me and to have braved that pile of what was left.

Still we rise, feeling and releasing, shedding, making way for the new as we round the bend on this chapter of life at Camp Cordray, Plan-B desert homestead version.

Whimmydiddles and waffle irons,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

https://buymeacoffee.com/thedesertrose

Last evening, a month and a half after our trailer went up in flames, we are out for the after dinner stroll. I am holding the leash, stopping to let Libby sniff the ground when Dan says "Was that Johnson who just ran by with a gallon jug of water?"

I didn't see him, I say, as I glance to the left to see smoke rising in the air. "Not again!" I scream. Our pace quickens as we watch him try and fail to get into the laundry room using the recently updated code. He runs to the lapidary shop as we get closer, then sprints across our path with a large, newly installed fire extinguisher in his hand. This man who has just had 4 homes burn in his park shouts "Do you know how to use this?"

It is at this point that I say you are NOT to get involved, Dan Cordray.

It is at this point that he denies my request and heads straight for the dumpster fire.

He is standing two feet from the flames while I scream his name from where I am standing, just beyond the police truck that has pulled up nearby. The 911 operator asks if I am calling about the 88 Shades dumpster fire. Yes, I am. 88 Shades IS a dumpster fire.

The dumpster is still on fire as Dan moves 20 feet away, slowly, arms crossed, chatting with those around him as the flames rise into the air. I holler out his name, once, twice, before he turns to look at me. I fling my arm into the air, toss my head, and turn tail, dragging Miss Liberty as he calls out to me. Earlier, I could barely walk having spent much of the past few days on the heating pad due to bursitis in my hip. Still, I haul ass and do not wait for him to catch up.

We AGREED, Dan Cordray.

When he gets back home I am seated in my zero-gravity chair in the she-shed, fuming. The gravity of the situation blazes in the seat of my soul. "You don't listen for SHIT", I holler, my patience and tact fully melted. Let me state for the record that I do not speak to my husband this way, and I rarely cuss in a blog post. I hope my grandkids read these someday.

I am not myself right now.

"I was just schooling the man," he says. "Schooling the man right next to a burning dumpster?" I say. "The next one is going to take you from me,” I holler. “Are you ready for that? I'm not,” I bellow. RETIRED, Dan Cordray. You are a RETIRED firefighter."

Whatever ground that has been gained trying to ease myself out of fight or flight mode has been lost. Well, this is the second time.

Two large sheet metal pieces from the burnt out trailers behind us launched in heavy winds not long ago. One flew completely over our trailer and landed on the other side of the street.

A flying burnt 2’ x 4’ bent the antenna on our truck. Luckily, it didn’t take out the $350 headlight and assembly that had to be replaced when someone’s Igloo cooler lid took it out on a road trip out of Memphis. I am learning that being a responsible party is rare these days. No one would be responsible for us, nor our property except the insurance company had we been outside during this gale.

The other piece of sheet metal got stuck in our singed white mulberry tree, hanging precariously in the exact spot where we had been standing earlier that day putting up poles for the fence. Winds come out of nowhere here in the low desert and start at 20-30 mph, with higher gusts possible.

I called Johnson myself in an outraged panic. I wanted it removed, NOW, before it did more damage to our property or one of us. Dan said let me go pull on it and I can clear it off the tree.

NO, Dan Cordray. This is not our property OR our obligation. Is he going to help when you get hurt?

The folded sheet metal panel partially dislodged itself, groaning, between the time he asked an employee to risk life and limb to come ease it down and the time said employee actually arrived. Dan had already pulled on it.

A new crop of bits and pieces of burnt just about everything blew across the two sites that have been (mostly) cleaned up. Again, the park owner has promised that sand be spread on the ground to bury the bits of glass that couldn't be removed earlier. A few shovels-full have been dropped and spread. The rest of the pile sits unmoved weeks later.

My zero-gravity chair is crammed inside the she-shed so I can sit here and enjoy the sight of my overgrown and partially burned, partially trimmed tree that is still healing from the fire instead of the two burnt out trailers that apparently are not going anywhere anytime soon. We live in a war zone.

The high winds are predicted again today and the fence is half built. Already, the low roll of wire that is stretched across the gaping fence-hole in our yard has snagged the brand new shade material that is held by grommets onto poles, a common fencing option in this area. Theory is that the wind will blow right through the woven plastic fabric, keeping it from acting like a sail and taking flight. A trip to the "big city" of Blythe, California drops the price of building materials by half. We now have all of the materials to complete the job, but is it wise to build the fence before the debris is removed?

I have already had my say on that, words that rose and floated on the breeze like dandelion fluff because they aren't convenient timing. Liberty hasn't tried to find a way to wiggle out of the yard but she is not safe and secure here.
None of us are.

A friend reminded me that people who retire from public service struggle to stand down when stepping out of that role. I reminded her that people who have had two, almost three homes burn down meet rising smoke with a deep sense of panic that never goes away.

I would not have made the best firefighter’s wife.

The living is cheap, and highly flammable here in Quartzsite, Arizona.

Bird's nests and bumblebees,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

Dan and I ran away to Yuma for a couple of nights to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary.

I cried all the way home.

And I cried when I got home, too, because we really have been through it as of late.

The physical items that were lost in the travel trailer fire will be replaced. We are doing so slowly, though, because we can't really picture what the next phase of life will look like for Camp Cordray.

As navigator of our free-rolling life, I am at a loss. My inner workings can't shut off the need to map the next route, to cast my net of interest and research in the usual three directions and wait for the clues to land that will give me the next address to cue up on the Garmin.

We traveled to celebrate our anniversary, of course, and to finally renew those truck tags and make a futile, frustrating 2-hour visit to the parking lot of the Social Security office. The office is "closed" but there are workers inside and appointments are being taken.

Dan's locked out of his online account, which requires an in-person visit, thus the hour and a half drive to the "big city". This was the office he was directed to but they couldn't help him, even though one worker bothered to come out to the parking lot to attempt to help. They are no longer allowed to help set passwords, and you can’t do it online. We could have made an appointment, had he been able to get into his acount (sigh).

We are Arizona residents but our Social Security office is actually in Indio, California, two hours WEST of Quartzsite. We were SOUTH of Quartzsite. No bueno.

The thought of a utilitarian trip to Indio feels like an obligation and not a pleasure cruise. Of course, perspective is everything. I could skip around on the map to see how we could make it an adventure, but my heart isn't in it.

We explored both the Pilot Knob BLM free boondocking and the long-term visitor's areas a dozen miles from Yuma in Winterhaven, California, places we had not been to before.

It was fun to kick around on new ground and check out the local varieties of rocks, cacti, and foliage as this area is wetter and more lush in vegetation than it is here in Quartzsite. Right around the corner from Camp Pilot Knob was this question mark in the desert. What in the world?

I will leave this gallery right here, with a few links to help you find your way to The Official Center of the World. Did you know that the stairway to nowhere located here once belonged to the Eiffel Tower? A labyrinth, a tiny church on a hill, and panels of granite etched with photos and facts about just nearly every era will greet you there.

This article from California Through My Lens has videos and plenty of photos for your armchair travel pleasure.

This Facebook post includes another interesting video about one man’s dream to share the history of the world at this location.

The museum was closed with a drop box to pay for the self-guided walking tour, which in the summertime only allows for the outdoor exhibits and not entry into the pyramid or other buildings. We will come back someday to experience the whole enchilada. With private homes on property, it kinda felt like trespassing to loiter, so we moseyed.

We drove down Sidewinder Road N to its end, landing at the canal located along the wall between the United States and Mexico. We walked along the edge, alerting the California Border Patrol officer driving his truck along the border wall on the other side of the canal. He kept a close eye on us. I am sure others we could not see did as well.

Miss Liberty thought about making a run for the border, but she is the wrong breed of dog and there is nothing she hates more than beans. She found me in Phoenix when she was still cutting her teeth. I have a feeling that she had been fed a few frijoles in her early days, which might have led to her escape.

She checked out the road-smoothing apparatus but she was too worn out from all of the rock-sniffing to see if it might float.

With a bit of coaxing she finally agreed to get back in the truck, but she didn't wanna. We get it. We didn't wanna, either. We wanted to be camped just down the road, at the spot where we walked around wishing we could.

The loss is not the stuff. The loss is our freedom. The loss is the let's run back home and load up, and come right back down and camp right here impossibility.

Aye, there's the rub. There is far too much to see down dusty dirt roads to sit still for very long.

Liberty is a fan of the whole hotel experience, which was probably why she agreed to get back in the truck in the first place. Her plushest blanket was waiting for her on the king-sized bed, right in front of the air conditioner, and right next to the two of us.

She has suffered her own traumas with losing her sissy Layla back in November and the loss of our trailer home, which she seemed to understand once allowed to sniff the debris. A little ease matters more on the hardest days, so we make sure she is as comfy as she can be in every moment.

Comfort is relative, and our little house in the desert is getting cozier with our efforts at sprucing things up and making it feel like home.

It's important for us to have a home base right now. During Dan’s recent regular checkup with our local doctor, a complaint about a knee that had been sore a few days led to further testing. Blood clots were found in his calf leading to a diagnosis of DVT-deep vein thrombosis.

We went straight to the ER, and then back to the ER the next day when signals were crossed and another doctor in the practice felt we should. A 45-minute drive each way plus figuring out what to do about Miss Liberty who was easier to leave for long stretches when Layla was still here added to the stress.

Dan is taking meds to dissolve the clots, with other tests and follow-ups scheduled over the next few weeks and months. We met this challenge pre-rattled, which didn’t help.

He feels well otherwise, although getting used to daily triple digits has been a challenge for both of us. Time, patience, more slow-mosey and less pushing ourselves to finish our projects is prescribed. We endeavor to stay in the moment and not worry too far ahead.

Our efforts center around self-care and the daily chipping away at projects that have been in the background for far too long. Dan’s busy putting up smoke detectors for the American Red Cross and checking off a few honey-dos for those who don’t have honeys to do stuff for them. I admire him for that and happily share my helpful hubby now and then.

So that's the dealio. We know that we are, as always, divinely guided and led. We give thanks to the Great Spirit that our trailer fire happened so close to home. We are grateful to have a place to rest and recover and some time to check in with ourselves. We are grateful to have each other, friends nearby and in every corner of the world, and a chance to reboot and redefine Camp Cordray as we often do. Carry on we will.

Oh, and one more, for the road.

Have you read the children's book Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran? @ReadingWithDadUSA does a fine job of reading this book aloud on YouTube:

Roxaboxen Park is located at 8th Street and 2nd Avenue in Yuma. The true story of Roxaboxen took place in the early part of the last century. The author's mother and other local children worked together to create the make-believe town of “Roxaboxen” from rocks, boxes, bits of broken glass, and other found treasures. The story is timeless, with a second volume called The Legacy of Roxaboxen, also written by Alice McLerran, that tells the behind-the-scenes stories of the family who birthed this creation and the children who inhabited it. I was thrilled to find it on Internet Archive where it can be accessed for free (see link in title) as it is a rare book with an Amazon price tag of over $500.

I learned that Roxaboxen is a favorite book of the elementary school set, yielding all sorts of fun classroom activities for teachers, even to this day. Our retired school teacher friend Patty Wise Noble said it reminded her of me, so I had to read the book. Yep, it was me through and through, the little version and the still little but older version as well. Add this stop to the completed list of bucket list checks. Thanks, Patty!

For more information about planning a visit to Roxaboxen Park, check out this TripAdvisor link. Jon Mooallem's “Smallville” article for The California Sunday Magazine gets right to the point with a solid description of how it feels to visit this hallowed ground.

As usual, my post is lengthy. I appreciate those who have taken the time to make it to the end. So many have called, sent messages, or have stopped by to check on us. Much appreciated, my friends. We will be stationary for a bit so I am looking forward to catching up with some of you and to being a bit more regular in my updates. Sending love to all of you from Camp Cordray, the Sonoran Desert version.

Applesauce and oatmeal pies,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

https://buymeacoffee.com/thedesertrose

It was a great day full of adventure, which was sorely needed and much appreciated. Tell me, friend, would YOU hang out in OUR neighborhood?

Armadillos and alligators,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

https://buymeacoffee.com/thedesertrose

A sorrowful howl is rising from deep in the pit of my being with the clatter and crash of each scoop of debris that WAS the trailer next door as it is lifted by the skid loader. Even with utmost care and consideration by the crew lifting the burnt remains, it is a messy, emotionally draining experience for those of us still living at ground zero.

Our backyard sanctuary is gone, the outside wall of the neighbor’s winter oasis leaning, attached to nothing and waiting to be broken apart and hauled off. The contents of all four homes and three sheds lay intermingled, the wind lifting papers once nestled inside of notebooks, never meant to land in the street.

As a woman of papers, private to a fault, I am horrified. I do my best to gather up any that I can see but I lose the battle quickly. My shell, my bubble, my oasis, bursts open and oozes bags of burnt pasta and the metal springs of a luxury mattress one week old and so deep we had to buy step stools for both sides of the bed to get up on it.

Particles of ancient handwritten bits lost for years and just recently unearthed in my buddy Stephanie’s storage room, but not yet read, not yet savored, lay scattered on the ground, lifting to travel down the street in charred-edge flakes. Old photographs given to us on this leg of our journey by family and friends who couldn’t wait to see us this time around so they could give them to us have dissolved. I know. Scanners are cheap and portable these days. There is very little left to scan at this point.

I am a woman of herbs and spices. The whole lot of it smells like cumin and a half dozen jars of chili powder. I see my favorite purple flannel shirt, or half of it actually. Maybe 3/4ths of the purple dress I wore for Jon’s wedding. Duffel bags full of winter and summer clothes and coats, some circa 2013, in service from the beginning of my nomadic journey and even way earlier in some cases are halfsie-toasted. I take good care of my clothes since I loathe to shop for such items, or any items. It is just not my thing.

I long for my bathrobe, and he longs for his. Not the one that will replace it, but the ones we had, all worn in and cozy. I shop for clothes on Amazon to match pieces I no longer have. Frustrated, I skip the whole thing and wear the same shirt four days in a row. I want to do the small amount of laundry we have but that means knowing exactly what is left, and what is gone forever.

There were some cool things in there. Dan’s kilts, my black flowered Wellies, a rare three pair of decent jeans that fit me, all of our hats. In quiet moments my mind scrolls through our clothing and accessories like they are hanging on the spinning rack at a dry cleaner’s shop. I can see all of them from the window, but there is no way to access them. The shop is closed forever.

I can see a section of my elegant yellow and green kimono, a treasured gift worn only once, for pictures. I plan to share the post I have written about how I acquired it now that I have made peace with the fact that my writing is and has always been non-linear. That one has been a bit hard to complete.

Way-back in time is a mode that will be getting much more play here since we will not be traveling for a bit. I apologize in advance for location confusion. Maybe that will be one gift of this sitting still slice o’ time. 65 drafts of blog posts in the vault, oh wait, 64 drafts of blog posts. I heard you sing that.

Discovered in the cinders:

If you could enlarge the hand-written pages below you would be looking at a vintage Brenda (Durbin at the time) Cordray story, circa 1990 or so. Scott was my then-husband, which you might have discovered in my recent Lake Palestine post.

“Quit Grandmomma-ing me!” Scott said for the millionth time. A common complaint out of him, when asked one too many times if wanted another slice of pie or if he needed another blanket. He always says it good-naturedly, and I know he enjoys the fact that he married someone like his Grandmomma. I think being compared to someone like Grandmomma is the highest compliment I’ve ever received. Grandmomma is Mrs. C.P. Durbin, Mildred, Ma-maw. She is Scott’s grandmother on his father’s side. She is the world’s best cook, pastry chef, hostess, grandmother, mom, housewife, friend. She is many things to our family, but most of all, she is outspoken.

It is Grandmomma who can persuade you to have another bowl of homemade peach ice cream when you are unable to get out of your chair because you already downed several helpings of a typical Grandmomma feast. Roast, potatoes and carrots, gravy, salad, hot homemade bread, purple hull peas, all prepared at a moment’s notice and washed down with a glass of cold sweet tea.

Grandmomma’s sweet, crumbly sugar cookies are next, or it might be a slice from the endless supply of lemon ice-box pies in the freezer on the back porch, or lemon or chocolate meringue pie, the brandied fruitcake, or the blackberry cobbler. It could be any number of things, but you know that sweet tooth will always be satisfied when you are at Grandmomma’s.”

From here the document gets hard to decipher due to wet spots, burnt spots, and holes, but I mined a few additional bits. Kinda like what Grandmomma called a “dab lunch”, but that’s a story for another day.

“She swears that she doesn’t cook like she used to. Then why does every stray animal in the neighborhood know that Grandmomma’s garage is the place to be to tie on the feedbag? Twin house cats Zig and Zag know that Grandmomma is always waiting nearby with a pat on the head and a fresh dish of food. Grandmomma’s dog Baby, or Sugar (we call her both), a previous stray (they all were) gets spoon-fed. To entice the appetite or to encourage her to come inside for the night, well, Grandmomma swears that a sugar cookie has the power to do this…(?)..and much more, for man or beast.”

From here I see mostly bits….”my daughter Courtney, curled up around a stack of books, an expert at cutting out paper dolls and dancing with bears….and how soon the calves raised out in the pasture and recently sold would be replaced.

It won’t be long. Papa’s already talking about it. Papa talks about things one day and then before you know it, he has done what he set out to do.”

I am positive in all the ways that matter that I have turned out a lot like Grandmomma. My post about being a straightshooter proves it. I wish I knew how I wrapped up that declaration that she was outspoken. I do see persistent, though, and sweetly (mostly) stubborn as the day is long in this, and in both of us. Check, double check.

Like Papa, we Cordrays are persistent about putting our words to action, and putting our heads and hearts together to recreate our own versions of “home” both stationary and free-rolling. We have on our own and together built out FOUR variations of nomadic chariots over the last dozen-plus years. We are old hands at it, but will be resting and taking our time this time deciding what we want next. We are still doing that sometimes tedious home-maintenance thing whilst feeling profoundly grateful to still have a home to maintain.

Earlier in my Substack journey, I wrote a piece about my idea of home being a feeling and not a place. You can read it here. My feelings on the subject have not changed.

Whew! This not so great in-between time has been a doozy.

Still, we are feeling loved by family, friends, and even townspeople who will not accept the stubbornness that says help everyone else first. Don’t worry about us. We planned for catastrophes. We are adept at rebuilding, we say, we don’t need help. We had insurance. We still have a home.

Several ladies that I dare say are a match for me and Grandmomma in the stubborn department are and have been gathering donations for the residents of all FOUR homes that were lost, which includes us. I give. We give. I couldn’t keep saying no, we are fine, we have what we need. They ain’t havin’ it.

It is not our usual role, to be the helped and not the helpers. Maybe that, too, is a lesson from this experience.

In all the bits and pieces of both today and yesterday are evidence that we are loved. Great Spirit, thank you for all the ways we are guided, protected, nourished, and provided for in all of our moments, even the hard ones.

Thank you all so much for loving us, for following us, and for believing in us every step of the way. Thanks for being patient about the skimpy updates and the slow-to-return messages and calls. Thank you for your prayers, positive energy, and comments on our walls. They have all meant the world to us.

I am being honest by saying that I am practicing extreme self care right now, which includes making this my blanket post about how we are doing. Bless you for following the link that led you here. As I have said many times lately, we are getting there!

With two of the four burnt out homes gone, we are enjoying the quiet moments between now and when the others will be removed. We are working to make our backyard and park model home an oasis again and dreaming of the road. Until then, this is what I’ve got.

Frog’s legs and fish tails,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

We had just made it back home to Quartzsite after two years away. Dan popped out of retirement long enough to work a contract in Memphis to replace our previous van and cargo trailer combo which had 304,000 glorious road miles on it. Our new 23’ pull behind travel trailer and a new (to us) pickup truck ensemble had been home sweet rolling home since September. If you scroll back you can read stories of our travels in both set-ups.

We arrived in Quartzsite the Wednesday before Easter. By Good Friday our brand new travel trailer would be reduced to a pile of ashes.

”Help! Help me!” someone screamed from somewhere beyond our back fence.

Glancing over my shoulder, I could see brown smoke rolling along the roofline of the trailer kitty-corner and behind our park model trailer. We were sitting on the patio mesquite-smoking pork chops on a tabletop propane smoker. We had just clicked beers in a toast, celebrating a day when most of two years’ worth of leaves had been raked and bagged up, regaining our treasured outdoor lounging area.

Dan dropped the barbecue tongs and flew past me. “Call 911!” he hollered as he cleared the gate. I made the call while turning off the propane tank attached to the grill. Unaware of the emergency at the time of my call, the dispatcher kept me on the phone long enough to locate the fire within the park.

The Quartzsite Fire Department arrived, then the Brenda, AZ Fire Department joined them. Two park model trailer homes went up in flames in what seemed like a matter of seconds, then strong winds surged through the area, carrying flaming debris from one structure to another. One shed caught fire, then another one.

I screamed for Dan but could not locate him. The stabilizers were down and the trailer was unhitched from the truck. I rushed into the trailer and gathered up Liberty, my purse, and our lap tops sitting on the bench seat of the dinette. A propane tank fired off like a bottle rocket outside and someone screamed “get out of there!” as I bolted right past the fire extinguisher next to the doorway and left our ham radios and Dan’s phones behind. My phone was in my back pocket, but panic was making the calls.

There wasn’t time to flip up the steps, unlock the outdoor compartment to get the cordless drill and lift the stabilizers, back up the truck, hitch up our trailer home, and roll away. I jumped in the truck with Libby in my arms but was unable to make the electric seat motor work to move the seat forward.

I perched on the front edge of the seat up against the steering wheel and advanced slowly through the crowd and smoke to park the truck beside the shuffleboard court, leaving Libby inside.

Dan emerged from a wall of black smoke, arms in the air screaming “where is the truck?” just as I rounded the corner. My prayers answered, his tall, pale silhouette against the burning shed behind our trailer one sight I won't ever forget.

Our new trailer home was seconds away from being fully engulfed in flames, but our truck was around the corner, for better or for worse. All souls were accounted for.

Could he have hitched it up in time had I not moved the truck? Would we have lost the truck as well, or one or all three of us trying to save our rolling home? Could I have hitched it up myself and rolled the whole shebang around the corner before it caught fire?

What most of us know to be true is that you can’t live two timelines, and there is no one to blame. Shit happens. We do the best we can in any situation we find ourselves in. Dan’s impulse as a retired firefighter/EMT was to be sure every soul was accounted for.

My response was rooted in the stark terror I felt as a 9 year old girl racing next door barefoot in the snow to alert elderly neighbors to call the fire department when our house was burning down. The pain of frostbitten feet, the confusion and panic of not knowing if all seven family members were safe, and the shame of losing everything we had, thereby becoming a front page spectacle roared inside of me. Great Spirit, thank you for all lives accounted for in both situations.

Dan's sock and shoe was filled with blood from cuts on his leg due to flying debris that he encountered as he tried to locate the source of the fire and make sure all residents were accounted for. Grabbing paper towels from the back of the truck, he headed to the bathroom in the spa to clean his wounds. Our neighbor Kim brought out bandages and first aid supplies and was one of several ladies who huddled around, helping him patch himself up. I comforted Libby and was comforted by fellow residents near the truck, but didn't walk around the corner a second time.

I scanned the faces of those standing in the street watching the fourth trailer burn. Our park model trailer was right next door. I couldn’t for the life of me be one of the spectators if our second home burned in this fire.

We were briefly interviewed by a police officer and Dan was checked and re-patched by emergency medical personnel, just in case. They confirmed that he and the ladies did a fine job and recommended a recheck at a later date, if needed.

In the aftermath, the endless stream of paparazzi, mouths agape, driving by slowly snapping pictures of our tragedy was appalling. Some exited their vehicles and stepped behind the caution tape like they owned the place, not acknowledging us at all until we asked them to leave. People milled around pointing, speculating on the origin of the fire. One said curling iron, they heard it on Quartzsite Chatter so it must be a fact. Another said propane tank explosion. A third said hot water heater. Not one knows for sure because the investigation was scheduled but had not taken place at that point.

Shanana Rain Golden-Bear, Editor/Publisher of The Desert Messenger News acknowledged our loss and the losses of the other victims of this fire in tasteful post that included her sorrow at having to take heartbreaking pictures of our homes to issue her news report about the fire. I have much respect for Rain and appreciate her sincerity and compassion.

Within her post are photographs of each of the homes that were destroyed, so people wouldn't need to come take their own photos of our tragedy. I personally cannot imagine the lack of compassion that fuels that kind of activity.

I was admonished by another resident for my aggravation, as I was told it was a natural thing for people to try on what might happen to them by witnessing another person’s loss. Witness, pay your respects, move along, and don’t log-jam our streets with your morbid curiosity. I would not wish this on anyone, nor would I camp out on their doorstep in the aftermath, but that’s just me.

I was told that Lee-Ann Van Auken Henle of Quartzsite salvation Army Thrift Store and Service Center was on-scene before the second fire engine arrived. Lois A Dupre, American Red Cross Disaster Action Team Member and President/CEO of Friends of the Quartzsite Food Bank called not long after.

These ladies hold a special place in both of our hearts as we have interacted and become friends through volunteer work with the Desert Amateur Radio Club and other local happenings. Lois was able to secure a card with some funds to help with immediate needs through the American Red Cross and made sure we knew that food, clothing, and household items were available to us at the food bank, if needed.

Lee-Ann secured two blessed motel room nights for us so we could rest, regroup, and start making necessary calls. We were grateful to have a home base that didn’t come with the scent and the view of destruction right outside our door.

What will become of Camp Cordray, you may ask. Well, since we planned to be here for a short while to catch up on home maintenance, we will continue along that route. We are so grateful for what we have and will shop for what is needed, including a new rolling home when we find one that suits our fancy. Insurance covered our trailer and some of the contents.

Most nomadic folk who have a home base usually take everything of value with them when they leave home. Having just outfitted our travel trailer with the best of what we owned to make road life easier, we find ourselves looking at the contents of our existing park model trailer with new eyes. We have most of the basics here and have planned for emergencies, so in time we will once again be back to the life of freedom (with some roots) that we so enjoy.

So now you know at least part of the story of the fire that claimed our rolling home. We thought the debris would be hauled off yesterday, but it didn’t happen. We will feel a lot better when we are not sitting in the middle of the wreckage and sorrow of four burnt-out homes. There will be more posts about this experience upcoming as it is still unfolding, but the worst is over and done.

I have a pile of post drafts with pictures and no words of our waltz across Texas, New Mexico, and Southern Arizona on our way here. It seems fitting that I should finish them in tribute to the just under 7 months of adventure we had as we transitioned from vandwellers to becoming part of the RV set.

Thank you again to the hundreds of people who have commented on my post about our news. I will be honest and say that I haven’t been able to do much more than curl up and nap between phone calls and errands, lacking the words and bandwidth to respond to such an outpouring of love and support.

I see, I feel, I (we) appreciate deeply. Thank you all for being here for the free-flying joy and the tires-are-melted sadness of this part of our nomadic journey. We each built a life of freedom from scratch on our own, and then together as a result of finding each other in Quartzsite at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous back in 2015.

It’s all just part of the story, and that story continues.

Beansprouts and beehive hairdos,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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As we crossed over the lake, I saw the waterspout off in the distance, headed right for us. We were en route to Coffee City to get some beer for a rare kidless date night. Back then, we lived in a dry county.

The radio was blaring in our Oiler-blue ‘66 Chevy pickup truck when the tornado warning alert cut the song in half. Coal-black clouds stacked one upon another above the trees along the highway leading up to the bridge had already set off my alert.

“Get down in the floorboard!” Scott hollered. He gunned it and I landed with a thud, curling up tight between glovebox and seat cushion, the world full of wind and water and branches and leaves hitting glass as we raced away.

The memories flooded back to me as Dan, Liberty and I crossed over that same bridge over that exact same lake last Monday, headed towards what we thought to be the very tail end of a significant storm crossing the country.

I had many camping possibilities pinned on the map as we traveled our next three-state-hop from Mississippi, through Louisiana, and into Texas in one day. We were tired of the wind and concerned about spin-ups and heavy rain. According to radar, if we placed ourselves south of Tyler, we would be just beyond the bottom edge of the squall line. We used to have friends and family in the Tyler area with brick houses and open doors, but they are all gone.

I searched the places I had pinned, glancing over the reviews on Google maps to rule out the ones where people complained of low or no signal. We needed to be connected as this storm played out. I wanted the nearest, safest place to where we were at that moment. I wanted to get off the freeway and out of heavy construction, immediately, if not sooner.

I felt like I was pulling the arm on a slot machine as I made the call to see if there was a site available at a campground on the list. There were spots available given the incoming weather, so we headed that way.

As we crossed the bridge over the lake, the miles to our turnoff for the campground seemed low. There was nothing out there right past that bridge except a small mobile home community, I thought.

As we made the turn I hollered, “hey, that's Ruthie and Al's place!”

The story of how Al, the caretaker at the lake house that had been in the family 50 years at that point, had called me to his bedside when he was dying of throat cancer flashed across my mental screen and came tumbling out of my mouth.

Al had asked for me, specifically, so I hurried over hoping I could be of help.

A frail shadow of that man lay curled up against his pillow, head turned toward the window. I called his name. He turned toward me, gasping, working hard to make himself heard. I leaned in to hug him, to kiss his cheek, to hear what he had to say.

He grabbed me by the shirt with both hands and pulled me toward him. “Get me a gun,” he whispered, his eyes inches from my face, pleading, begging, his gnarled hands twisting my shirt, pulling me closer. My heart shattered into a million pieces as I denied his request but promised to take care of Ruthie. It was all I could do.

I kept my promise and added her to the long list of people under my wing. I did my best. One night she wet herself trying to exit bed to get to her portable toilet and fell in the puddle, laying there broken and calling for the one who was raising a young family and couldn't be there every minute, the one sixteen miles away. Her neighbor heard and the ambulance came. She never went back home. Broken heart, broken hip, quick exit. Back then I felt like I had failed them both.

As we continued down the road I saw the campground where there had once been tall weeds and a whole lot of nothing worth anything.

Surprised, I was processing memories of Ruthie and Al as I watched the coal black clouds double-stack along the shoreline.

We weren't out of it yet.

The girl behind the check in desk suggested a site near the shower house, away from the shoreline due to the storm. We backed into our spot between the folks who have taken up residence in that campground, their porches and yard decorations giving away their permanent resident status. Trailers to the left, right, and front of us, bathhouse behind us. Windbreaks, I thought. I hope none of that yard crap lands on us.

We dropped the trailer stabilizers atop plywood squares onto egg-sized gravel, still hitched up to the truck so we could leave early the next morning, and bolt in an emergency, if need be.

Dan finished setting camp while I hurried to feed and walk Libby. I was grateful for the chicken and chops that Dan had grilled at our last stop. I was ready to throw a few vegetables at dinner and tuck in before the dragon's tail reached us. Already, the skies were darkening and the wind was picking up.

Random household items blew across our section of real estate as we watched out the kitchen window. The tail end of the dragon snapped once or twice, lit by lightning and growling like a bear caught in a trap. Our trailer shook as we ate our dinner, but no rain fell. The storm was over within an hour or so, even with the sassy little second squall line that didn’t show up on radar until the first wave hit. I commended myself for once again steering us out of harm’s way, and thanked Dan for being the man who drove that route to safety.

The next morning, clear skies greeted us. We saw none of the “wintry mix” that had been predicted that night, after a day that swung from the 80’s to the 30’s. Libby and I walked along the shoreline, looking for her correct pooping spot as I surveyed the half-sunk sailboat before me.

When did this happen? Why is it still here? It felt pirate-y, in an ominous sort of way. A warning, a prop, an object out of place.

In the next moment, we were in front of a small marina. Looking around to get my bearings, I saw the bridge, the shoreline, then the boat ramp.

Libby trotted past the marina and ventured down the boat ramp to sniff the water. My personal wheel of time lurched off its spindle and rolled down the incline.

I hadn't realized that it was THAT boat ramp.

Time slid backwards once again.

Scott and I were unloading our 14’ johnboat and Courtney was climbing in. She was eight-or-9 years old, carrying her own fishing pole that she was unlikely to use, with matching hat and tackle box. I was right on her tail, holding two-or-three year old Jon by the handle on the back of his lifejacket like a bag full of oranges.

He was hanging there in his papoose, sound asleep from the ride over. Once plopped onto the floor of the boat, he roused slightly to get his bearings and then tipped back against my legs, deep in slumber for the entire trip. Scott mostly trolled, going full-throttle now and then to scare the bejeezus out of me and to mine giggles from Courtney. She was daddy’s girl, after all. Jonathan was a snoring lump of contented young boy, happy to be out in a vessel he thought was named after him.

We aren't far from our old place, I thought. I reached for my phone and typed in our old address. 16 miles.

Every week night Scott had pulled into the driveway after work, snipped a rose off one of the bushes leading up the walk, or if none were blooming, brought home a two-dollar mini bunch, a dozen rosebuds wrapped in newsprint and secured with a rubber band. Wet from sitting in a bucket of water placed near the checkout of just about every shop and gas station in the Rose Capitol of the United States, they were pretty, but they meant a lot more to him than they did to me. My friends shopped for petals for potpourri from the dozens of bunches hanging upside down drying on the back porch, not far from bushes chock full of live ones. I preferred the live ones.

He would give me a kiss and peek at what was bubbling on the stove, asking that his plate be left on warm in the oven. He would hook up the johnboat to the truck and head for Lake Palestine to fish until just before dark, or to gather up the proceeds from his trot line.

16 miles, just exactly how far Dan, Liberty and I were from the last spin-up in part one of my story of this ride home.

The gas station where we stopped to fill up when we left I-20 to head to camp was four miles from where Scott was born, a house my parents would later inhabit for decades, right next to his Grandmomma and Papa's house.

I walked Libby while he pumped gas, assuring her that we would be camping soon. She knows well the meaning of that word. We sat for a minute so she could take a quick snooze in her favorite perch, the one she can’t enjoy while Dan is driving. She is also daddy's girl.

I stood outside and sent up prayers for family and friends, skipping the chance to visit the graves of those who are buried between that spot and the old 44-acre homestead a few miles away. So many gone, some still living nearby but long gone, to me at least.

Bittersweet is the highway that crosses the backroads that lead to our homes of the past. As we both do when we are in familiar digs, I pointed out those roads but didn’t need to go down any this time around. THIS road is my true home, but home is anywhere you find yourself, if it feels right deep down in your soul.

As we traveled down HWY 31 from Kilgore to Tyler, I was back in my midnight blue Berlinetta, both kids strapped in their car seats in the back and groceries and crock pots full of meals in the floorboard and hatch for all four of the older folk. 40 miles each way for years as we raised our young family, assisting our elders in the practical ways our progeny will not likely do for us.

In the next frame, I am standing beside Jon, Courtney, and Scott's sister Brooke on a dock overlooking another part of this same lake. Each of us is scooping out a portion of Scott's ashes and dropping them into the water. Another memorial took place at the family lake house, but oh, is that a story for another day.

Scott opted out of life early, leaving us with the duty of carrying his dusty bits to all of the waters that he loved. His ashes are also in the Gulf of MEXICO, as Brooke later carried a sprinkling of him there. I am sure he was quite pleased, floating around up there watching all of that brouhaha on his behalf.

The wind picked up as I walked down the boat ramp, kneeling to touch the water with my fingertips, my prayers and blessings flowing for all of us, for this water, for all water everywhere as every drop is sacred. I am sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.

Every full circle traveled leads us back to where we once belonged, where we couldn’t have imagined any other life but the one set before us.

Although we were only one stop in on our current waltz across Texas, I found healing along the shores of a familiar body of water that I hadn’t planned to land beside, all part of that divinely led and protected thing.

I sat with the sorrow of knowing the homesteads I once loved in East Texas now housed people with faces that I would not recognize if I knocked on their doors.

If Scott were still alive he would despise Dan, not for who he was, but for who he is to me, clearly a better man and an honorable husband. Would he be a familiar face greeting us, if he had finally made it back to the land that occupied his heart instead of heading for the stars?

Time marches on, but I can look myself in the eye and be proud that I am a survivor. The life I have now far exceeds any I might have hoped for way back when. In this lifetime there will always be storms, but full-circle doesn’t have to be spin-cycle if we choose to be gentle with ourselves. Also, you can be glad in the same pants you got sad in. That is all for now.

Texas is a big state. We are only halfway across. Stay tuned!

Powder puffs and penny candies,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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Expiring truck tags and a need to check on our place in Quartzsite recently lit a fire under our butts. With new intel and a continued wait for an opportunity I alluded to in other posts, it was time to quit stalling and waiting for direction. It was time to pick a horse and ride it, and ride it we did. The Cordrays are headed west. Yes, we know it’s hot out there, but the Cordrays gotta do what the Cordrays gotta do.

Our first stop was Cottondale in the Eastern Florida Panhandle, landing at Collins Cousin’s Camp for more scrumptious vittles and one more day, night, and a teeny slice of the next morning to visit. I offered to buy barbecue for dinner as we were seriously short notice guests this go-round. They weren’t having it. They already had a plan. One hint that we might be on our way, and the two of them preheat the oven and start cooking.

We waddled out of Florida. Of course we did. Somewhere along the way we will lose our Southern space-saver spare tire around our middles, but this was not that place.

We loved seeing Kim and Terry one more time as we left Florida. Having safe, comfortable places to stay with people we love means the world to us.

The camellia and azalea bushes in their yard that are taller than the house and shed remind me of my childhood in both East and Southeast Texas.

This stretch of land is one spot where Libby can zip around leash-less for a little while. It is a joy and pleasure to watch her fly. This spot is a place of respite for all of us, amongst family who don’t mind our crazy seat-of-the-pants style of traveling and welcome us home anytime we happen by.

That was the tail end of Florida. One state down, three to go. We headed out early with a general idea of how this trip might play out, but there was of course that pesky weather variant to consider.

We then skirted the edges of Mobile, Alabama, cringing at the idea of getting stuck in their famous tunnel as we whizzed by on our way elsewhere. The Southeast Get-Together of nomadic folk happens in Stevenson, Alabama, in mid-April. We are sad that we won’t make it this year.

Florida, check. Alabama, check. One more state to go before nightfall.

We arrived in Lucedale that same afternoon. We had traveled through three states in one day to land in Mississippi. Granted, they were short hops but we were dang proud anyway. We were making progress.

We hadn’t planned our usual stay in Mitch and Mandy’s driveway due to their new pup situation that might have rubbed Miss Liberty (the Crab Ass) the wrong way.

Spidey sense said tucked into the driveway of a brick home owned by friends wins over a crabby dog’s self protection intolerance when a major storm is blowing through and you live in a truck-pulled piñata.

The local campground did not get our business after all. Since Mitch and Mandy are some of our favorite people, we were excited to hang with them, however the lodging worked out. We decided to give it a try and are grateful that we did.

When the tornado warning siren wailed in the midnight hour, all three Cordrays hurried into the Davis house and behaved ourselves until the threat was over. Well, two out of three of us behaved ourselves as we hurried in. Liberty Tallulah Jones and Miss Maddie Mika Davis met by accident on the gravels between our place and theirs.

Liberty spun up, gnashing the air with her toothless chops and sounding like hell coming down until my stomp, growl, and holler shut her down toot-sweet. She tucked tail and was carried, planting herself wrapped in my t-shirt between me and Mandy as we waited it out in her comfy bed. She didn’t have an issue with ol’ pal Rooster-pup or new pal mellow Sadie-dawg, but her interactions with wild child Mika earned her lots of alone time in the trailer this trip, which she never minds. She didn’t understand the evacuation part, but she was sure to go where we went.

Dan and Mitch monitored radios and watched radar on the big screen in the living room while I followed along on my phone. A fierce, persistent wind howled at the door, but both homes were safe and sound once the storm had passed.

16 miles stood between us and that spin-up. Divinely led and protected, the tornado-warned rotation that whipped down a sign close to the campground where we had planned to stay near Lucedale, Mississippi last Wednesday night did us no harm. Springtime in the deep south can be a little dicey, Mandy reminded me.

This weather event kept us up visiting awhile longer in the wee hours and helped us to decide to spend another night there as a cushion of rest. The food coma we felt after a huge plate of Mitch’s homemade deer sausage gravy over hand-patted biscuits at breakfast sealed the bid. We needed an after breakfast nap instead of day on the roll.

Another round of porch-sitting was just the ticket, with dinner later at the local catfish house. Another chance to explore the yard and commune with the critters, and to celebrate the blessing of friendship that makes no demands and puts on no airs. Nobody dresses up, nobody minds if things don’t go as planned. We know how to roll with it, baby, we sure do.

Leaving Mitch and Mandy’s, we zipped up to Pearl, a suburb of Jackson, Mississippi, where we enjoyed a Boondockers Welcome overnight stay locked within the gated gravel parking lot surrounding Van.Life Service, an RV dealership specializing in custom built conversion vans.

No hookups, plenty of freeway noise which doesn’t bother us, and a great owner and friendly office staff who made us feel very welcome soothed my panic. We had reserved two nights at this place that originally opened their parking lot for those needing shelter from a named storm or hurricane.

With gates closed and locked at 6 p.m. and opening at 10 a.m. the first night was perfect for a sit-still Saturday night. With a storm approaching and the possibility of having to stay locked in until Monday morning, we decided we better pass on that second night.

Instead of camping in Delhi, Lousiana, near Marsden Mounds and Poverty Point World Heritage Site as planned, we used a free night coupon at Askew’s Landing RV Campground located half an hour away in Edwards, Mississippi.

We needed to regroup. Keeping an eye on the storm, we were just another can of sardines in a campground filled to overflowing with kids and their parents on holiday for Spring Break. It was the perfect spot for joiners. Right away we were invited to bingo, art classes, and all kinds of joiner fun. Alas, we were not joiners on that day.

The campground was well-staffed and organized, clean, and worth another stay on some other day when we had more time to linger. We appreciated the free night’s stay for signing up for their emails and would recommend them to others who travel this route.

Dan took this opportunity to grill up some pork chops and chicken thighs to use as provisions as we made the leap westward. The best way to avoid impulse restaurant meals is to have plenty of tasty choices on hand to cobble together a quick meal. Grills were allowed even though there was a burn ban in place. Dan improvised for safety’s sake and got ‘er done.

I listened to the newborn baby next door howl through open windows as I watched the radar projections and navigated the route ahead. Even though our “baby” Liberty can be high maintenance, life in Camp Cordray is pretty dang simple. Ride, fill tanks, dump tanks, fill bellies, dump bellies, rest, relax, ride, repeat. Whew! I don't know how we would do it with a kid fresh out of the oven. I applaud people who go anyway and make it all work with kids. We have ventured far past those days, other than the wee-one currently onboard.

The next morning forced us back on our timeline as we worked to avoid the major storm traveling west to east across the country. The wind was whipping as we crossed the Mississippi River heading into Louisiana.

We pushed against high winds and the dust it stirred up as we moved westward across Louisiana, where we only stopped for gas. Sandwiches in the lunchbox cooler were eaten on the fly. I watched both radar and traffic in real time to steer us around the worst of it. It was a tedious road day but we were committed and just kept moving.

We had the choice to drop down and go west along I-10 if the weather got out of hand, but we hoped to stay up on I-20 to avoid going too far off our original path.

That was where the weather was about to go south, no east. We had to go east, then south to continue to stay under it. The photo of me with the hat on was taken after we landed in Texas, but that is a story for another day. Stay tuned for the rest of the leap!

Sunflowers and summer skies,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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The bing-bong (outside motion detector) jostles me out from between the pages of a book I am reading to drown out the cannons and musket fire happening 2.7 miles away from where we are camped in Sanderson, Florida.

No one hollers or knocks, so it was probably one of two cats we have seen lurking at our site who set off the alarm, sniffing around the campfire ring searching for dropped morsels. A flash of lightning followed by ground-shaking thunder sends Libby deeper into her blanket pile, trembling.

A tornado watch is in effect with a squall line approaching so most of the tent campers have checked out early, their Valentine’s Day festivities over for another year. The kids with their flashlights and headlamps, giggling and hollering as they ride by on their bikes and scooters after dark had shaken a rumble out of Miss Liberty last night. We are not sure if it was a warning, aggravation, or jealousy. Liberty is quite the fan of the after-dark stroll and she lives for kids.

The two young men with the flag of “their side” draped over their shoulders, BB guns slung over their shoulders haunted me. Did they learn about the real, horrific history of what happened here at school, or during their visit? The contrast between what happened here in the past and what this land is currently used for lay heavy on my mind.

Many families saved on holiday babysitting fees by bringing the whole tribe along. At most sites, campers grill and bake in fire rings on Coleman stoves and ovens. Nearby picnic tables laden with condiments and family-sized bags of chips are the norm. The scent of someone’s meal on the make as you stroll by to walk the dog and carry the trash bag to the dumpster is intriguing. Part of the fun of organized camping is trying to figure out what’s cooking by the smell. Coffee, bacon, and grilled burgers win in the easily identifiable category, but maybe it’s because my stomach growls loudest when I recognize these three.

People enjoying themselves surround us. We are happy for that, being kindred spirits, although surely not all are nomadic. Camping this weekend feels like flipping through a stack of 70's Polaroid vacation snapshots.

Many have come for the 49th annual Battle of Olustee reenactment taking place at the Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park located just through the woods from here. A thousand participants make this the largest historical reenactment in the Southeast. The Battle of Olustee (or Ocean Pond, as it is sometimes called) was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. 1,861 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or listed as missing, as were 946 Confederate soldiers, a staggering tally in proportion to the number of troops involved, which was 5,400 souls.

We are at the moment camped on the spot where the 47th Regiment, New York Infantry Union Army volunteers were camped during that battle. When we are at Cobb Camp, we are in the area where the 1st North Carolina Colored Volunteers were located. The Union Army retreated and gave up their plan to organize a loyal Florida government and to recruit troops to their cause before the 1864 election due to this event. We have been immersed in the stories of what happened here, as we are when we visit any historical site. As an empath who is sensitive to not only the present but the past, I feel, hear, and see much of what others cannot. The atrocities of war vary, but not one is acceptable and all are heart-breaking. Some black Union soldiers were killed by roving Confederate troops after the battle ended, a deplorable act visited upon those who were doing their best to serve their country and to survive that service. These links will start your exploration if you have interest in this battle.

As navigator, I spend a lot of time mapping three possible directions for our next leap. I chart the hours and miles of travel, the sights or possible visits with beloveds along the way, the places to camp, and every other detail until I am satisfied. Then I set it all aside and wait for clues. I was yearning to head south, but being divinely led means being willing to listen and to wait until a firm yes, go forth, hops up and waves its hand.

We had planned to be long gone from this area knowing how Libby feels about gunfire and other loud noises, but oh, trailer life got us again. We were waiting on a part for the stove to be delivered to the local Camping World location. For having been purchased brand-new, this trailer has been a constant fix-it situation, but those are stories for another day.

In any case, we couldn’t leave until the part came and Dan could install it. Thank you, Great Spirit, for leading me to a man who can figure it out and fix it if he can just have parts in hand. So instead of heading south, I refreshed screen on the recreation.gov app until I could see a spot available due to a cancellation since the local campground was jam-packed with a no vacancy sign at the entrance.

Thankfully, with the additional solar panel Dan installed at our last stop and the extra battery and new controller he installed at previous stops, we could rely on our kick-ass solar set-up and didn’t need to plug in for power. We may not be going further at the moment, but we can stay longer without being plugged in. Such a blessing!

So, fully charged, we were off to a primitive (no hookups) site at Ocean Pond campground, where we have always plugged in. Cobb Camp, the other primitive site, had campers of every variety double-stacked days before the event, another reason we had planned to vamoose. The sharks were circling there, waiting for any rig to vacate so they could slide into place.

The forest was calling and they needed to go. We get that. As much as we love this particular forest, other forests are calling our names. We knew once we left for any reason, our spot would be gone. Move your feet, lose your seat is the rule.

As one camper noted, we could do what we wanted to do, but he himself never chose to camp in the “rich people” full hookup spots so we could have his, if one was available.

We have recently passed our 150 days on the road milestone for this little joggety-jog. Between free and cheap campsites and driveway surfing at the homes of friends and family, our current average daily lodging cost is $12 a day, down from about $15. We feel proud to be able to count this lifestyle as sustainable, even with the new bougie truck and trailer combo.

I will state for the record that we bemoan the fact that this is still home ownership, with all of the perks and hassles that come with that responsibility. Warranties are great (and we have them) if you can drive to the handful of dealerships across the country that will honor them and also find somewhere to live while they do the repair. Comfort comes with complications unless all systems are go. Life seemed much simpler in the van.

With all that being said, don’t call me a whiner. I remind myself every day that we are living a life most people only dream of. I have mixed feelings about posting very little on social media these days. Those who miss my posts pop up in my messages or make my phone jingle. Those who send me a hey hey are truly cherished. It means a lot. I planned to be much chattier this go-round, but there is work to be done to clear the energy of what has happened here and that is part of my role in this lifetime. Much more about that later on down the road.

Other friends and followers are satisfied with the updates and tidbits Dan shares about our current life on the road situation and our replies to their comments and questions, and that is perfectly fine with us. Dan does his best to inform and entertain, being the more social half of this set of salt and pepper shakers. I can be a bit brash verbally, so I would say I am more salty than he. He is the the spice, the most-often-nice, at least initially. I hang back and observe, ferreting out the fools and looking for a reason to speak. I sure appreciate the traits that make each of us who we were meant to be.

For those who follow along here, thank you for making the effort to open my blog post links and for subscribing to emails if that works for you, and for comments that drive my interest in telling my tales. I appreciate your willingness to make the leapity-leap to come read me here as well.

I will admit to being loathe to post anything on social media that doesn't involve a memory of some other day in my personal timeline. I have lost my taste for doing the dailies. I lurk to check for dumpster fires on my own pages and run away, missing the ins and outs of the lives of those I care about and follow. It's sad that you can't have both.

I personally find it hard to share today's little victories, joys, and sorrows when the world around us is crumbling and being reborn. I feel these earth and societal changes viscerally, transmuting the energies through bare feet on sand, through leaves rustling and bird song immersion, the wind clearing and releasing, the waters dissolving. I wait for it to flow through me and curl up in a ball, howling, when it gets stuck. It’s not something I have all of the words to explain just yet.

We all have our part in it, and we all have a place to be to do our part. I am not the one to spar, I am the one to understand and soothe, to honor and remember. To linger longer when the need arises, and to see the dragon’s head in the mushroom-covered fallen tree trunk, like the one on my cover shot. If you can’t see it, you need to spend a little more time out in the forest.

As mentioned a couple of posts ago, there is an opportunity brewing that hasn’t quite firmed up the Jello-nailed-to-a-tree plans I have tried to cobble together. In the meantime, we will sit awhile here and there, and waltz through the homesteads of local friends and family for a change of scenery and some mental stimulation that conversation and connection bring.

We will do a rain dance for this drought-stricken area and pray for those in the path of wildfires downstate. We will rest, repair, recover, renew our energies and wait for the clues that will ease the road open. In the meantime, all is well at Camp Cordray, Florida version.

Sparklers and sassafras,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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“Excuse me, sir”, I holler, as I cross the street between us in my stocking feet. His back to me, he ignores me as he hurries about his task. He’s stealing two connected strands of indoor/outdoor lights that roll up into a disc from the trees around the campsite next to him, in broad daylight.

Knowing how cool these lights are and how much the camper will miss them because we own two sets of them ourselves and use them daily, I am incensed. Louder, I holler, “hey, the gentleman is not gone yet.” He stops what he is doing but does not turn around. “I didn’t realize that”, he mumbles. “Obviously NOT,” I bellow, as I stomp across the street and head back to our campsite. If he had glanced at the placard pinned to the pole, he would know that the camper who just drove off a few minutes ago had three more days reserved. I see Dan look up from the campfire ring and snicker. Dude better mind himself. He knows I’ve got this.

I stand in the 34-degree Florida sunshine with both hands on my hips, watching as he unrolls one strand of lights and hooks it back to the tree. He strings the other section of lights and ties it to the pole, never looking back to see if I am still there. Surely he felt my steely eyes upon him, and the pin darts of disdain I am shooting towards his sorry silhouette. As the Mrs. Kravitz of this and any other campground, I cannot abide thievery. Not on my watch, and you can bet I am watching.

Another afternoon of snow flurries here in Florida is mind-boggling, but flurries happened again yesterday. We have had more below freezing nights this winter than I can count, but not much precipitation in this drought-stricken state. As a large swath of the country digs out after winter storms Fern and Gianna and the bomb cyclone event, we count our blessings to have seen a only light dusting both times.

We were in the western Panhandle hanging out at Dan’s cousin Terry and wife Kim’s driveway boondocking spot again, waiting on package deliveries and doing upgrades and repairs when the first batch of snow fell.

Winter Storm Fern was on her way, and although we wanted to head west to see Mitch and Mandy in southeast Mississippi, my gut said go due east at a sprint, Camp Cordray. We were hoping to leap from Terry and Kim’s indoor fireside perch to land beside Mitch and Mandy’s wood burning dining room stove. Alas, it was not to be.

The tornado watch popped up on our truck’s weather alert screen as we headed east in the dense fog with heavy winds at our back. A tornado touched down in Defuniak Springs, a 45-minute drive west of where we had been camped, and three others were reported in the area. With that being said, I will give thanks once again for my navigational spidey-sense and Great Spirit, who guides us and guards us as we move about the country. We are heartbroken to hear of lives lost and horrific damage unfolding from these storms. I stand by the belief that these are very unnatural events.

Every now and then I chide myself for being so nosy about the goings-on of other campers. My situational awareness is finely honed after years of road life. It’s a trait Dan and I share, although I leapity-leap to a conclusion quicker than he does.

When I saw a man hurrying down that same road with a long something-or-other in his hands, I was curious. When I saw that same item lifted into the air and lofted up into a tree, I had to go see. If he injures a single leaf, I thought, I will turn that pole on him and give him a good thrashing. I often think I am tougher than I am. Nonetheless, I would not try me. I am a straightshooter. You can read about that here.

As I snuck up on him, my jaw dropped. Fresh oranges littered the ground and more fell as he gently loosened them from the highest branches of the orange tree, hidden in plain sight along the Florida Trail. Dan and I had walked by that tree a zillion times and had never seen the oranges. So much for situational awareness.

Bobby was quick to introduce himself and to share his fancy homemade citrus harvesting tool and technique.

Fashioned from a portion of plastic coat hanger, some electrical tape, and a stalk of bamboo plucked from the surrounding area before a burn of the understory years ago, he was proud of his ability to gather oranges, pomelos, and tangerines. He was excited to hear that Dan was aware of a lemon tree in the primitive camping area of this campground and was happy to share its location. He was making friends through gifts of citrus and was excited to have another variety to offer.

I tucked ol’ crabby Mrs. Kravitz into the cupboard as I graciously accepted more than a baker’s dozen of the sweetest, juiciest citrus fruit we have enjoyed in a long while. That’s saying a lot, since we have been feasting on citrus since we landed in this state.

Bobby shared his citrus fruit and also his self-publishing journey and much, much more. Ready to tuck back in to our comfy (and toasty) rolling home, I may not have been as patient as I might have been with his lengthy stories if it had not been so frigid outside. His family and friends thought he was crazy for camping locally, just to make friends. He knew the names of the camp hosts and half the campers that surrounded us. I enjoyed the conversation, although I honestly did not get a word in edgewise.

Bobby wrapped back around first thing the next morning and was waiting outside when we opened the door with one sweet little tangerine, the only one he had found so far that day.

I rode the way-back time machine, remembering my red-headed son Jon as a small boy with his very own strawberry patch. He was 3 years old, watering his crop with an oscillating sprinkler held upside down.

Patiently, he would wait for each strawberry to fully ripen. When he was sure it was ready, he would pluck it and bring it to his mama in his teeny little outstretched hand, never once saving one for himself. He is still that man, newly married these days. Bobby was also clearly that man. It was written all over his face.

While Dan told him hey, keep it for yourself, you have given us so many already, I took the lone tangerine from his outstretched hand, knowing that the giver would receive the gift in this situation. Who doesn’t love to give from their heart? Who doesn’t love to feel appreciation for what they give?

The sweetness of life lives in both the giving and the receiving. Don’t take what isn’t yours, but you knew that already.

Be sweet, behave, and share the bounty every chance you get.

Marshmallows and merry-go-rounds,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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The unmistakable sizzle and pop of hundreds of bugs meeting their demise via a trio of heavy-duty bug zappers every night was sickening. The fact that they were being sacrificed because they were drawn to Christmas lights strung awning to rug upon the weathered 30-foot pull behind trailer next door was shameful.

The couple's EZ-Up sported both continuous light strands and a lit Christmas tree shape tied onto one leg. The glow of the full-sized Christmas tree and the wall-sized TV in their living room was evident through the open curtains, all meant to draw sighs of adoration and praise.

Since their arrival, our neighbors had left their air-conditioned tin castle every few hours to cook something outdoors. A gas grill, an electric griddle, a crock pot, and a bridal shower's worth of vintage Tupperware filled the picnic table and spilled out onto smaller tables here and there.

Gospel music blasted through the humid air when they did open their doors to retrieve a stick of butter or another pitcher of sweet tea. The doors didn’t need to be open to make out every word of program, note of music, or cackle of conversation coming from their camp.

When they went indoors at dusk, they left the lights to glare and the bugs to zap. Another camper down the way took over disc jockey duty and a wild variety of music bit through what might have been a nice, quiet evening.

While the noise was irritating, at issue was their roaring camp fire, in full blaze and left unattended for hours. Tiki torches blazed beside the camp fire ring that was stacked with heavy, hard wood that would burn all night.

Instead of beating their door down, paying a visit to the camp host trailer or calling the forest service, we chose to attend it. Seated in my camp chair with a gallon of water and a hose attached to a spigot within reach, I found myself in a state of overvigilant panic. Some people care if the forest goes up in flames. Others don’t want to miss their program this week or perhaps the yearly Christmas specials.

I had already been working hard to relax with my legs folded and hauled up high on my camp chair to avoid buggy invaders. Earlier, after a wasp tried to enter my ear canal and a mound full of fire ants made their way up my leg, I decided I was done with camping.

All day the wasps had circled my head, no matter where I sat, no matter what I did. They chuckled at the 14-hour bug killer lotion slathered on every inch of skin that saw daylight. They never once bothered Dan. They never do. Only me.

The thing is, you can’t be done with camping when camping is your life. You have to suck that up because the rest of the world is jealous so you should have no reason to complain.

Often, you can fix it by moving to another campsite in the same campground, hopefully a less ant-y one. We did just that. The cover shot of this post is the view of the little beach located directly across from our second spot in the same campground. Score!

Being plugged in intermittently while waiting on yet another house (trailer) battery to be delivered to the local Home Depot was part of road life during the pre-Christmas time stretch. Our solar panels could TAKE the charge, but one solitary battery could not KEEP the charge long enough for us to be able to boondock more than a few days. During winter when the sun is low and cloudy days are frequent it is more of a challenge to stay fully charged. It has been a challenge that has kept us anchored for a bit.

Here, we worked on making resources like Dutch oven in the campfire cooked potatoes au gratin with ham, grilled pork chops, and roasted baked potatoes that would last us for days.

Miss Liberty had plenty of sniff and romp time there. That wee one is doing very well being our one and only trailer-dawg, as long as she can spend most of her time outdoors. As we do our best to do the same, we are all thriving in the Florida sunshine (when we can get it).

During the week, we were mostly alone at the campground. Come Thursday night or Friday morning, the sharks would start circling.

People stop to ask when you might be checking out, when check out time is two or three hours away. One pair dropped the wife unit and lawn chair with book and walkie-talkie across the street from our site waiting for us to hook up and vacate while the husband shark continued to circle the campground, looking to land.

While I bustled around outside, she had the gall to holler how much longer til y'all leave? My husband is taking a shower, I hollered back. Instead of engaging, I went in the trailer and made a nice lunch, being now in zero hurry to get out on time for her convenience. We enjoyed it at a leisurely pace instead of stopping in an hour or so to make sandwiches somewhere out there. Sometimes, timing is everything.

The thing is, Ocean Pond has mostly first-come, first-served sites. During many of our recent stays, one would have to arrive at a spot, check for vacancy, then scan a QR code on a post to make the reservation. That worked until it didn't work.

Dan made friends with the camp host couple who were always friendly and never forgot his name, but weren't able to help with reservations.

We were over-charged and double-charged, but luckily, never double-booked. We brought our struggles to the attention of the local forest service office in person. We were the first to report an issue. The next day, the volunteer camp host held up a folder full of similar written complaints gathered from other campers. Understaffed, locked to visitors, and overwhelmed with complaints is the situation in many national forest offices, I am sure, given the recent budget cuts.

Moving back and forth between primitive free camping at Cobb Camp and paid spots at Ocean Pond required 3 actual miles of travel, but the same amount of packing up and patting down to move as we do for a several hundred mile journey.

The same basket of apples will launch airborne to land bruised in random corners of our house if not tucked in between the pillows on the bed before rolling out. The same campers who frequent the primitive sites will be our neighbors at the closest full hookup site when the batteries run low. Unavoidable facts.

All in all, I want to be clear that we are forever grateful for the chance to count on familiar places like Ocean Pond and Cobb Camp. We have not moved a lot lately, but we have enjoyed quite a bit of rest and have gotten some things done at these spots.

With a few memorable stops in-between, we are back at Dan's cousin Terry and wife Kim's place in Cottondale, Florida. Dan just installed a new charge controller for the two new house batteries. An additional solar panel plus adhesive etc and shrouds for the roof vent fans were waiting for us here, along with the pile of Amazon packages that they were happy to receive for us. Mail and deliveries on the road can be a challenge for nomadic folk.

One year ago yesterday, Memphis got a record 24 inches of snow while we were stationed there for Dan's job. The van was no longer rolling at that point, waiting to be donated to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Since it did not roll, we could say that we had met our ONE rule of road life: at no time will snow ever touch those tires.

We made it more than 11 years under that rule. One overnight stay in a truck stop parking lot while we waited until the icy roads were completely clear and dry years ago was a close call. Yesterday, we celebrated the eleven year anniversary of the day we met!

We are camped in the Florida Panhandle on this sunny but frigid Friday, awaiting possible SNOW (of all things) over the weekend. The solar panel and fan shroud installation will have to wait, with below freezing temperatures happening many nights this winter thus far. We are safe and sound, hanging out with family with no need to roll.

Whether Kim and I fling ourselves on the ground to make snow angels is yet to be seen. For that sweet Michigan girl, I would tolerate a sprinkling of the white stuff if it didn't hang around. We have really enjoyed being frequent visitors here in Cottondale.

What's next? Another little patch of the great in-between as far as next direction is concerned. I can't share what I don't know, so we ALL have to wait for another day to hear that update.

In the meantime, stay warm and dry wherever you are. If you get the chance to bring light or show love in the darkness, hurry to it and never quit that task. We must BE the LOVE to SEE the love, my friends.

Paper airplanes and porcupines,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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I watch as a bazillion unmade and unsharpened pencils, endless rolls of paper towels, low-budget furniture, and packs of looseleaf notebook paper in their simplest and earliest form stand with their bark still attached alongside most roads in Florida.

Mile upon mile of planted pines line up like soldiers in straight rows all across the Florida countryside, their unnatural uniformity broken now and then by those who refuse to meld to the pattern. A nearly dead tree leans against a healthy tree, bending it nearly in half. Both continue to stand. Another joins them, making a tree teepee. Still they stand.

Some twist and curve like corkscrews, gnarled by coastal gales. Others stand bald, topless, crowns ripped off by wind or hurricane. I applaud the ones that stand and lament every tree spirit that has fallen. I wish they could all become ancient members of the forest instead of resources used to create the “necessities” of human existence.

Trees fall all the time in the forest, especially here. When we can, we search for the oldest Standing Ones and bestow our affection upon them.

Cobb Hunt Camp is located in the Osceola National Forest. This primitive hunt camp holds a favorite tree of ours, this ginormous live oak. There are trees that one never forgets. The special ones draw us back again and again. Walking a short distance along a familiar trail and seeing this ancient one still standing in the clearing as it has for possibly hundreds of years hits us where we live, a primal tagging base of sorts. Here we are once again, all still standing.

The 1,500-mile non-motorized Florida National Scenic Trail, or Florida Trail, winds its way through this campsite. We often supply trail-walkers with snacks and water refills, a bit of duct tape, or a conversation about direction over folded maps. If you saw this guy sitting here, you would probably ask him a question. Most people do. Thereafter he might holler a “hey, hon”, and between the two of us we usually answer that question.

Some campers are here to rest between hunting forays, their camo clothing stretched out drying on picnic tables. Some stretch out and dig in like they live here. Some use this spot as a trusty wayside perch on their way to other places. We belong in that category.

This spot often houses us during “great in-between” moments, while we await clues for direction. We are currently living in one of those great in-betweens, but that is a story for another day. I’d share, but we are busy gathering clues.

We go on walkabouts to see which mushrooms sprouted overnight and to answer that necessary question: who are the people in our neighborhood? Situational awareness is key, in any situation. Also, if you don’t know what it is, don’t eat it.

This rusty gilled polypore drew my eye from the kitchen window. No, I did not fry it up like a pork tenderloin. I let that fungi Frisbee lie, I assure you.

Miss Liberty digs this spot. Never have I seen her trot so lively as when she is out on a stroll on the smooth white sand roads that surround this campsite. The desert dog meets sand minus rocks and cholla spurs. I get it. All Cordrays stroll barefooted on this stretch of road.

Liberty, at the limits of her leash and hauling tail, stops dead in her tracks. She tips her head one way, then the other, listening. She pounces like a fox, flinging sand and soil as she works to unearth whatever creature dares to live alongside HER road. Yesterday, she ran in the “flying a kite” formation several times on the same walk, spinning circles around me as I held steady on the leash. She was hopped up on the beach vibes. This is a favorite destination for Liberty Tallulah Jones, who loves the sand but not the water.

One fine boondocking day we were milling around outside doing chores and such when a vintage RV rolled by. I rolled my eyes as the driver waved. We weren’t expecting company and I didn’t recognize the rig. The RV made a circle around the camp and landed not far from us. Great, I thought. Who dat?

Out popped my birthday twin who bolted across the space between us, hollering, and hugged me up.

We were born on the same day ~ see, our hair color matches! Kim’s natural joie de vivre is much more evident than mine on the daily. She and good-natured, mellow husband Randy just bring the fun. Kim lost her dear mother recently. It was good to spend time catching up and goofing off, and also listening to and loving on this sweetheart who is part of a duo who do so much for others. I told y’all about Kim and Randy in my Tennessee Stroll post.

We spent some fine days together, with them wrapping back around after a visit elsewhere for yet another visit, just to make us all French toast.

Kim loves French toast, and peanut butter. My spidey sense screamed “make those travelers some peanut butter fudge”, so I did. I can’t say that I let it cool before I cut it, but I can say that both the “eat now” pieces and the “carry on down the road for later” pieces were divine. Oh, what a joy to find some in the freezer a week later while digging for veggies.

Cobb Camp is a place of rest and solitude for the two of us, and also a gathering spot where many of us nomads have camped together over the years. We have fond memories of gatherings held here and onesie-twosie handfuls of campers who have come together over the years to spend time together in the great outdoors. Tomorrow, our friend the musician and historical reenactor, Gypsy Jane (Buffalo Woman) will arrive to set up camp. That link will take you to her YouTube channel where you will find her albums and singles. We will miss Linda who might have joined us. She had to hurry home to take care of her daughter. We will more than likely see Kim and Randy again as we winter in Florida. It has been such a joy to see so many beloveds this trip around the sun.

Friends know where to find us. We are the old trees standing in familiar forests, hoping for some sunshine on our leaves (and our solar panels). We are the leaves on the wind, traveling here, there, everywhere, just being ourselves. We have more cousin-visit stories to tell, and touristy fun to share as we have traveled zig zags across this state and several others in the past few months.

Until then, behave yourself every chance you get, but don’t forget to let loose and frolic just as often.

Bubble wands and balloon animals,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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“DANCE!” she screams, and we all shuffle in the exact same floppy jr high school dance manner, bellies full of fresh local stone crab and libations. We are all piled up in the dark guest room, lit with a portable pink neon flamingo lamp that is flipped on once we all hand over our hand-written invites and are given our wrist bands for the impromptu gala.

This event is being held by two 10-year-old girls in oversized high heels, wearing borrowed women's dresses. Well, for the littlest of the two, a long fancy shirt is enough. That would have been me, back in the day. Might be me now, depending on the size of the woman loaning the duds.

It's all part of the big celebration. We were the first friends to come stay at Jerillyn’s place in Crystal River since it was flooded in a hurricane, then renovated, a few years ago.

We came, we saw, we feasted together and hung out with her friends who have become our friends as we have boondocked here over the years. We had a ball handing out candy to the kids on Halloween with this crowd. Jello shots and snacks for the adults, and a Solo stove campfire on the driveway was another layer of this celebration. We went out for chicken wings with this group of pals, and did the Tiki bar thing with Jerillyn another night, because you haven’t really been to Florida unless you have had a grouper sandwich. Here is the masterpiece available at Cracker’s.

You can follow this link to read about Jerillyn’s visit with us in Memphis, as well as the tale of another time we stayed at her place. She was also part of a blog post back in 2022 when she came to see us out in Quartzsite.

Since you may not (although you should) follow those links, I will insert the one little bit about our first meeting with Jerillyn:

“She loves to tell the tale of her arrival at this dispersed campground and her first impressions of this section of the Cordray clan. A smiling head popped out above the human-shaped log that was rolled up in a hammock as a tall, white-bearded lumberjack dude emerged from behind a white van, kilted, and ready to help. Minutes later this kilted creature was just about upside down and certainly sideways in her van, diagnosing the problem.”

Yep, she met the right Cordrays.

Jerillyn’s home on the marina is another spot where we can boondock or even plug in, if need be. She doesn’t have to be home for us to camp there, but we love it when she is! It was so nice that she was home this time so we could hang out and catch up. We have had some fun times both here, and also way over there in Arizona.

MY Dan was recommended as someone who could help with a solar panel installation by a mutual friend, Dan, whom we met while camping at Raccoon Creek. THAT Dan sent her up to see us at Cobb Camp, another favorite camping spot that will be featured in my next post. Lovely how all of these locations and people sort of string together to create this fine but sturdy web of friendship and opportunities to be of assistance to each other, allowing us all to go a little bit further down the road. Wait until you hear about that third Dan. He took us on a trip, but there were no roads involved.

Dan installed her solar set-up and fixed the neighbor’s golf cart, endearing himself to the lady of the house. We wound up staying three weeks that first visit. Since we come as a pair, we love to tackle her honey-do list in gratitude for the our stays over the years, and because we just love this sweet lady and how willing she is to help others.

I couldn’t begin to list all of the countries where she has been not just a tourist but a volunteer. Big hearts deserve friends who love them up and take care of them in the off-seasons.

Plus, my Dan knows what kind of mayhem ensues when short girls venture up on stepladders. I got as many lower hanging palm fronds as I could, but me on a stepladder balanced on a hill sloping down to the water is no-go. After that, I was just the sneaky photographer looking for a fun shot while Jerillyn removed another layer and waited on Dan for the high ones.

It is here that I will tattle on Miss Liberty. See these three birds? They hung out just the other side of the fence in the backyard and heckled Libby several times.

Liberty Tallulah Jones was NOT having it. While we were all sitting around having an after yardwork beverage, she launched herself into the air, growling, lunging, and plastered herself against the chain link fence like Wile E. Coyote crumpled up against a brick wall.

She scared the bejeezus out of all of us and bought herself a crease on the forehead that hung around for weeks but didn’t slow her down a bit. Scrappy doesn’t half describe her personality, even at 12 years of age. She learned how to use a doggy door at this spot. Layla was still with us then, but it would be her second to the last camping spot.

It is here that I will insert company who came to see us, while WE were company at Jerillyn’s. Old pals Rob and Karen, who would prefer to be called K (due to all the Karen slang insults that are flung around these days), came up to spend the day with us. We were overjoyed to see them and rolled out a taco feast in their honor. They primed the Halloween candy pump for us. We still have a large amount of candy corn around that they brought and I forgot to split with them, dang it.

We met Rob and K at Raccoon Creek (before they were an item) and have camped quite a few times with them at Tumbling Creek, Cobb Camp, at other places in Florida, and in a casino parking lot in Florence, Washington. We have seen Yellowstone National Park with them, and have an open invitation to camp at their west-coast homestead near Olympia National Park in Washington, whether they are home or not. After all of the flooding that is happening right now in that area, we were grateful to hear that their home is safe at the moment and pray that it remains that way. They are currently wintering in Florida.

They aren’t on the road as much these days, spending half their year in Washington state and the other half at their condo down near Tampa. K sent an email full of ideas for things to see and do when they came up to Crystal River to hang out with us. We wouldn’t be camping together this time, but we didn’t want to miss the chance to visit. Layla was struggling that day, so we chose to stay “home” instead of going to see the Weeki Watchee mermaids together. Home is where you park it, of course. We hope to wrap back around and see them again before we leave Florida. We sure appreciate them coming to see us!

In this spot, I will add that third Dan, although I am not sure that I can catch him.

THIS Dan, who surely has also been called “The Man” more times that he could count, loaded us up in Jerillyn’s boat and taxied us out to Shell Island.

Rob and K were overjoyed to be out on the water, as were we, so it ended up being a perfect day for all of us. On another visit Jerillyn motored us out just before sunset. The photo I took of the water while sitting in the boat is serene. It draws me in every time I run across it. If you follow those links, you, too, will run across it.

We planned to Weeki Watchee together, but it ended up being the week Layla passed so we canceled. Dan and I went by ourselves another time, and also went to see the mermaids at Mertailor’s Mermaid Aquarium Encounter. A post is bubbling up that will combine those two aquatic tours.

Believe it or not, today we are sitting out a rainstorm but gearing up to wrap back around to Cottondale tomorrow (for biscuits, not really but maaaybe really) to see Terry and Kim again, and Dan’s cousin Elaine (who recently came to see us at Ocean Pond campground) and her daughter Leah who is coming in from the Dallas/Ft Worth area. Then it will be time to check the weather and flip that where-next coin.

For now, thanks for shucking through this large pile of pictures and words on my behalf. My sincerest wish is to fling at least one more blog post before Santa eases down the chimney. If not, have yourself a Merry Little Christmas from all of us here at Camp Cordray!

Snickerdoodles and stockings hung by the chimney with care,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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The excitement during the call made to announce that we were coming to the gathering was not about the promise of the company of old friends joining those who had camped together many times over the years at a spot we all knew and loved. It was about whether or not we would be making something to eat.

When it was revealed that we would be camped at Ocoee, on the flat side of the mountainous road to the campground due to the length of our new “bougie” home set-up, the call fell flat. Alas, our kitchen would be too far away from those who weren’t planning to make the drive. Plus, ten bucks per head (hot showers, campfires allowed with wood already stacked and ready, fresh water available) was too much to pay to all stay together if you had already been camped for free for at least a week. Add in the anticipated homemade meal, and the catching up with old pals and it seemed like a bargain to me for one night. For old time’s sake. I think with my heart, though, and not just my belly.

The patriarch of a twice yearly nomadic gathering called the Southeast Get-Together had been a man we called Dyck, or Cuzzin Dyck, although everyone in the group was, in fact, a cuz. Later, we all became Hunyacks. You will hear that word again when I share the Florida stories, which we are currently living.

Dyck made friends with the locals who delivered firewood and hot plates of food to him. Dyck and his pup Lacey Sue were always camped there beside the creek in the fall, long before we arrived and long after we left. Cuz was our host, sharing the woodpile bounty and the homecooked vittles as well, when there was enough to go around. He was our elder, a man who then in his late 70's/early 80's had spent at least 15 years on the road. Dyck had suffered a stroke and had been in a nursing home for a few years, ten short miles from Tumbling Creek Recreation Area, a spot he knew and loved.

This group also gathered yearly at Raccoon Creek Wildlife Management Area in Stevenson, Alabama. The sunsets at Raccoon Creek are some of the finest I have ever seen, hands down. We were on our way to the Raccoon Creek Southeast Get-Together when a tornado tore off the lawn and garden section of the Walmart where we were camped for the night, but that is a story for another day.

I longed to ask Dyck if he had ever tried to escape. Nomadic folk suffer greatly when forced to stay still. I will admit to having a horrible soft spot for such folk. In the past, this trait has taught me some hard lessons about who is mine to raise, or save. I tread lightly these days but I am not able to completely turn it off. I am a freedom junkie who understands those who can’t help but roam. It is in our blood.

My plan was to gather as many old friends as I could, so we could ALL sneak up on him at once. As you know, I am a fan of that action. I thought I had talked half of the small group into joining us but on the way to meet, we learned that the scheduled time was just too early, or something like that. No one else would be willing to lift tail to leave camp for ANY reason once they landed some time ago, or so we were told.

So we snuck up on cuz anyway.

Our previously wind-and-sun browned friend sat half reclined in his hospital bed. Months and years without daily sunlight had removed his brownness. The pipe full of tobacco that usually hung from his lips was gone. He looked well-fed, healthy, relaxed. His complexion was smooth, skin white as new fallen snow, or at least as white as the sheets and blanket half wrapped around him. He looked comfortable, settled, and then shocked.

That look of surprise and the huge grin afterwards was something I will remember til the end of time. It was just the look I was hoping for. We had well and truly snuck up on him.

Two hours passed like 10 minutes as old friends caught up after years apart. We heard the story of how trusted caregivers had helped him get to the nursing home, and then helped themselves to his vehicles and belongings. That is not my story to tell, though, but this one is.

The nursing home administrator was overjoyed to see that our friend had company (bless our hearts). He doesn't get much, although some have claimed to stop by or will have by now if they kept their promise to go see him on their own. After emailing the shot records to her, Liberty and Layla were able to come inside to offer pup-smooches and cuddles to Dyck, who still doesn't know what happened to Lacey Sue after his medical emergency.

Our two roaddawgs recognized Dyck right away, adding to his delight and theirs as well. Dyck was sitting on his tail, but I am sure his was wagging as hard as theirs were wagging. They probably wondered where ol’ Lacey Sue was, making this both a heartwarming and heartbreaking moment. This was one of Layla’s last visits with an old friend.

We loved that our buddy was alert, sharp as a tack, and well taken care of, even if he didn’t want to be there. He had made the best of his situation and he was at home as one could be, if he and Lacey Sue couldn’t be lodged under a forest canopy. We were grateful to see that although he didn’t have his freedom to live life on the road, he was doing well and was safe and healthy exactly where he was.

I never did ask if he had tried to escape. My heart of hearts knows that answer. I know, too, that we would have sprung him and set him back out on the land if it was in our power to do so, or in his power to still live that life. Time marches on and delays its stride for no one. Seeing Dyck was a bucket list check for us. We wouldn’t have had it any other way.

After leaving the nursing home, we decided to head for the creek anyway. Maybe we could entice fellow nomadic friends with an offer of a meal at a local restaurant since our kitchen was so far away.

These kinds of get-togethers offer chances to either potluck, or to cobble together a group meal with everyone’s on-hand ingredients. It’s a well-known fact that at this and most other gatherings we have been to more than once, attendees can’t wait to see what the Cordrays will be cooking.

We have always kept a well-stocked kitchen with gear and basic staples to cook for a crowd. We arrived at these events in our van with the bed loaded down with grocery bags full of all we needed to cook several main dishes for as many as were present. That’s just how we roll. Not everyone can do that, so I guess we were considered sort of bougie way back then.

Not that it was ever steak and lobster, but more what we would call “farm food”, good ol’ Southern meals like hoppin’ John and cornbread, chili, or whatever we could make from what we had, plus a run to the farmer’s market or grocery chain on the way there. People say hi, how y’all doing, and will you make those Philly steak and cheese wraps again please please please. I looooved what you made last time. It had chicken, and rice, and some sort of herby, creamy, melt-in-your-mouth flavor that I have dreamed about since the last time I saw you. Can you make that? Oh, hey! Good to see you, too! You look fabulous! And, sorry, I have no idea what we made for you last time. We make people hungry. We did it to ourselves, all across this great land. So that’s the backstory of the phone call.

We would have been camped down by the creek with everyone else if it wasn’t for the road into the camp. It is a gravel road that drains flood waters and has in the past been hoopie-dee wallowed out in spots, with low hanging branches and mud bog divots even when things dried up. Road conditions through the small 8-site campground, as well as room to turn around with our new shebang of a home set up remained to be seen. We would drive our 4-wheel-drive truck out there before we committed to moving camp to this location.

To be honest, I was hoping we would be able to visit elsewhere. A disc had ruptured into my spinal column when we were gathered there years ago. After surgery, I was given a 50 percent chance to walk again.

On this day, Layla was struggling to walk and I was feeling less than brave about revisiting that spot. We had been there since the surgery, my body remembering the lack of feeling in my feet and legs that day as I stood in the icy creek water collecting rocks, and all of the trauma thereafter. Still, there were people there that we had camped with for a decade. We had planned to be here, now. I was ready to make some new memories with some old pals.

We could do the right thing, do what we had said we would do and go visit them where they were planted. We had already made the long drive through the switchbacks and tight curves of the road between us, blessedly, with our trailer parked west on the flatter spot on the map. Vandwellers were within 10 miles and we had to see them. We sent the message saying that we were on our way, and it was received.

As we turned off to head down the road into the campground, we heard a grinding sound coming from the tail end of the truck. After locating a repair shop that could help just two miles away, I sent another message saying we were suffering mechanical issues and were limping our way to the shop. Message received.

Silence. Haven't heard a word since. Maybe if I were settled into camp and didn’t want to lose my spot, I wouldn't have joined the group visit to the nursing home (although I would not have left the area without visiting Dyck), but I damn sure couldn't rest knowing friends who live in their vehicle were broken down closer to me than a fast food hamburger. But that's just me. I think with my heart, and not my stomach.

In the end, that ride down the mountain helped etch off the last bits of brake pads front and back, and chomped down hard on the rotors. Our travel trailer is brand new, but our truck is a used vehicle so we are left to replace and repair things as they break, not being the original owner with maintenance records.

These were not the first (or highest) mountains we have encountered on this leg of our journey, but they are the ones we are grateful to have traveled without our trailer home pushing from behind. Landing safely in an area that we knew well, even without local backup, was further proof that we are divinely guided and protected.

Many years ago in Glasgow, North Dakota, we were having brake pads replaced on the old van when the mechanic discovered the brake line hanging by a thread. We were blessed to be deemed trust-worthy enough to be allowed to camp inside the repair shop overnight in our van. This time, the shop owner dropped a vehicle from the lift and popped our truck up into the que right away, understanding the urgency of needing our truck back in perfect shape to pull our home, pronto.

I whiled away the time both indoors in the waiting room and out in the fields of greens growing behind the shop, chasing butterflies with Libby while Dan sat in the office with Layla.

I half listened while he chatted up the shop owner and all who came through the door, preferring to be out back with the dog and butterflies combo.

Parts were ordered via a parts runner. They arrived, and were sent back when they weren't the right ones. We became more or less a fixture there for an afternoon, immersed in the workings of this busy shop in a teeny Tennessee town called Ducktown.

The red truck in the cover shot felt like a hey-hey from beyond trailing memories of my 1966 Chevy truck, The Dinosaur. Our Chevy truck was Light Blue, officially, but Oiler Blue back then because we lived in East Texas at the time. The ephemera that decorated the shop and garage seemed made for a movie set, a dusty backdrop for our failed attempt at attendance at the get-together.

As we wound our way back up the mountain to our campsite just as the sun was setting, I considered our last stop. We had camped for the night at Yarberry Campground in Lenoir City, Tennessee, not far from Marysville. We had planned to stay at the campground for two nights, to see two batches of local friends. One pair wasn't able to meet us due to family stuff, but my high school friend Beth was happy to come share a campfire and a bowl of stir-fry. She didn’t mind a bit that we didn’t offer her a feast after a long day on the road, but was happy to enjoy our dinner leftovers fireside. When told that we might be heading through her area, she responded that all roads WOULD lead us to her. She would come see us where we were, no matter how far, if we could work around her work schedule.

As navigator, I appreciate and reward that kind of moxie. We had time, face to face, to talk about her brother's passing and how things are changing for all of us as we travel this road called life. Beth has caught up with us before, when we had a chat and a chicken salad feast in a park nearby a few years ago. Beth was my first official “road mama”, pinning my coordinates every night on the map above her desk, because she loved me, and she cared and wanted to know that I was safe. Miss Liberty and I enjoyed a week on the couch at her apartment watching the entire first season of Outlander in our early days of road life.

This time, she did her best to talk us into coming to our 40 year class reunion being held in Cypress, Texas. Nope. Pretty much everyone I care to see from that era has made time for me in the years since. People like Beth, who have busy lives but value the chance to spend time with us, are the ones we choose to see this lap around the block.

Thank you, Beth, for insisting upon being part of this season’s Jello mold. I still wish I had taken a recent picture of us. Can't beat these classic wayback shots, though, taken at Bear Creek Park, when it was just me and Liberty rolling down the road.

I think of Cuzzin’ Dyck first when I think of the Southeast Get-Together, which is the eastern side of the country equivalent to the yearly Rubber Tramp Rendezvous gathering held in the desert at Quartzsite, Arizona, where Dan and I met.

I think of Linda, who has taken the time to camp with us for a few days recently at Tillis Hill Equestrian Campground near Inverness, Florida. Again, I guess I am just not a fan of camera invasion when we are all in our loafing togs so I have no photographic evidence of this meeting. Linda drives a tour bus in Alaska for part of the year and travels both the country and the world during her off-seasons. She was once a lowly vandweller like us. Mayhaps she would be called bougie as well these days. I fling my vote based on her cool outside socks and lack of need for foot wear alone. She’s just too cool for shoes. I feel that deeply.

We treasure the time we have had to visit, and the time we will have when we catch up with our friend Gypsy Jane and we all camp together here in Florida. Rob and Karen (K) came to see us in Crystal River. You will hear more about their visit in my soon-to-be-released Crystal River, Florida post.

Trish and Lester have invited us to stop in and stay awhile, and we might yet as we wander around Florida. Brenton came for a nice visit in Memphis. What a fine day it was to have him sitting right there in our living room telling his travel tales to keep our pumps primed. We stayed with Brent and Denise at their homes in Vermont and Massachusetts, and have camped with Brent all across the country. He has also been to our place in Quartzsite, but stayed on the desert because we don’t have room to host anyone there.

Don invited us to stay on his land in Indiana anytime, and we planned to on our way to Michigan but time was tight since we got out late and we couldn’t. We honor the invite and plan to come stay at some point.

I caught up with Maggie today, sharing stories of her beloved husband and our dear friend John, who passed away recently. John had also suffered a stroke, but with Maggie’s care and attention, had lived his life his own way up until the very end. I have so much respect for these two, who were married 40 years. John was quick with a joke, a big hug, and a plate full of food made with love with both of their hands. We camped on their land in Maryland and also enjoyed many fun adventures in Florida and Tennessee together. John was the big cuddle bear of the Hunyack tribe. John and Maggie met when Maggie walked by and noticed that John was canning vegetables by the campfire. John and Maggie were cut from the same yard of burlap, just like me and Dan. John is dearly missed.

Kim and Randy were by Maggie’s side in less than 24 hours, staying a week to help with the unbearables and wrapping back around a month later to check on things and lift Maggie’s spirits. That’s what real friends do. We were lucky enough to camp with them recently, and will see them again this winter. I am still working on that post.

I bawled when I heard that they had stepped up to help, but I was not the least bit surprised. They are that kind of people, all of them. Maggie is held up and surrounded with love by her local community because she and John walked the walk of service in their lives. Love wears work boots and steps in when the going gets rough, and wraps back around often just to be sure.

We thought about Tricia with Katie-dawg, and Rich, who have all passed.

Ed, Scott, Lisa, Rita, Ginger, Duddley, more ~ many come to mind, names and faces, but by and large, we hear from very few. The old crowd has scattered, aged out, or have family obligations or less or no ability to travel at will. I don't know all of their current stories, but I honor where our paths have crossed. Without the yearly gatherings at Tumbling Creek and at Raccoon Creek Wildlife Management area in Stevenson, Alabama, none of us would have met. Most of us have camped together other places over the years and have lots more memories of each other, but we all have nomadic roots in these two spots.

Sometimes you are the windshield, sometimes you are the bug. Sometimes you are the muddy boots, sometimes you are the rug. Go swiftly to where open arms await, where you don’t have to wonder, or hesitate. Lean into what stands the test of time while honoring what once was. Even if there are no more Southeast Get-Togethers, there will be those who gather.

Great Spirit, as always, thank you for the clarity. It’s good to know where you fit, and where you go against the grain. When what Dan calls “the oldheads” exit the scene for any reason, what is true and solid remains, but only if it is true and solid. I will hold tight to the memories, and let go of any and all expectations of others, because this is where misery resides.

Down from the mountains and back on flat land, I am no longer trying to understand. What I cannot avoid is that I love bigger than some, and also that I err on the side of trying to drag others along with me on my fling-love adventures. Some are not made of the same stuff as I, but never will I change my urge to love big where I (we) are welcomed. I understand myself better in the ways I react to the actions of others. For me, there is only love.

Words, more words, and wonton wrappers,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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They were the kind of biscuits you would write home to your momma about, if your momma was still around to read a letter.

Beside them sat jars of Dan's cousin Terry-made pear and fig preserves, born from the bounty of this much-loved land, and a jar of local cane syrup. Dan and I were both raised in the land of sugar cane. The same flavors of preserves made with fruit of the lands and love of the hands of other places I have lived welled up in my eyes with each bite. Rolled and patted by Terry’s hands, we could feel the pride he felt in sharing his joy of baking with us. He was giddy to be in the process of curing a feral hog he had shot on property. Yep, we had landed firmly in the South, my friends.

The memory of sharing meals once again with family we make sure to see every time we wander through the Florida Panhandle still rests in the smiley crinkles beside my eyes. The surf and turf ~ crab legs, lobster, perfectly grilled steak ~ the scrumptious vittles we have been served have slapped a new tread on the spare tire growing around my mid-section. I cannot believe I did not take pictures of that feast. Look at the front yard view, though.

Cypress knees and old magnolia and oak trees everywhere, and a swamp that drew alligators when the state wasn’t suffering drought.

Dan and I are both in awe of how we have been fed on this section of our journey. I guess it's better to NOT have a photo of every feast, since we can't amble around drooling every time we scroll back and see it.

Terry and Kim's place has been a favorite boondocking spot over the years. We make sure to stop there anytime we are crossing Florida and are welcome, whether they are at home or not. We don’t fit in the driveway spot any longer, but there are plenty of yard spots to choose from.

These types of road-respite locations allow us to spread out and clean house and garage sections without half a campground watching. We get the chance to laugh. talk, cry, and learn about life and each other face to face. And maybe catch up on the laundry. So many of Dan’s family members have welcomed me warmly and made me feel like one of their own. I will am eternally grateful for that. Kim and I are like cousins ourselves, sipping cocktails and chatting curled up beside the pool no one wants to swim in this time of year. We are happy to just hang out bathed in the blueness and watch the water sparkle. I appreciated the girl time especially, since it can be hard to come by when it’s just he and I rolling down the road.

We stopped on the way this time to do about three weeks worth of overdue laundry, but still had a few things to hang out on the line, for old time’s sake. Dan’s crow was hollering as we unloaded at the laundromat. Dan chattered back, as usual., drawing a few stares from the people milling around outside the laundromat.

It’s nice to be anonymous and to constantly move our weird selves across the country as strangers in most areas. We try to stay outside the realm of dinnertime conversation between the locals, but we really don’t care about how we appear, somewhere out there. We all have laundry to do. I would rather not be folding our underwear when I am catching up with folks, but that’s just me, I guess.

Driveway surfing stops allow us to have a few days of quality time to catch up with friends and family along the way. Depending on how long it has been since we have made it around that particular block, we have missed events and updates in their lives, and they have missed some in ours as well. We haven’t been as active on social media, and many of them don’t even bother with it. Sitting around a dinner table laden with food made with love, or sitting on the screened in patio laughing at the bugs who can’t get to us, we spend what time we have catching up. Why call when you can visit?

We value the chance to stay here and love our visits with Terry and Kim, so we help every chance we get to pay the kindnesses forward. Kim’s dad needed to move in on one of our stays, so Dan ripped out the bathroom so a wheelchair friendly shower and bathroom space could be created.

Another time, Dan helped saw downed trees into logs after a hurricane rolled through and took out some of the ancient standing people on the property. I forbade him to shimmy up one such leaning giant, although climbing poles for the railroad is in his toolkit. Also, if he can, he will, so there’s that. While chainsaws roared I fed the troops and paid homage to the fallen ones, but I stay within the limits of what my body is able to do. He does now, pays later more than I.

Once, I turned around to see that man half-way up a 40 foot radio antenna. Like a bear climbing a toothpick he was, the structure listing slightly to the left and me at the bottom screaming at him to get down from there. I had to carry the worries for him because he had not a care in the world or any doubt that it would all work out, as usual. Mrs. Cordray must be the brakes to this man’s gas now and then, or at least keep an eye on him because he is in constant motion and plotting who knows what.

We have watched while this evolving homestead has gone from a vacation home to home sweet home for Terry and Kim. Terry tends an amazing garden, and Kim’s flowers fling color-pops from every corner of the porch and yard. A sparkling pool, pear and fig trees laden with fruit, azaleas covered in butterflies, and a beautifully restored home with rock fireplace. You know I love that part. It is a sweet little Florida paradise.

We left this year with a gallon sized bag of frozen home-grown poblano and jalapeno peppers and some habaneros that we have relished, and are still enjoying. We have slathered Dutch oven made campfire biscuits with those preserves, and have cobbled together meal after meal with the big bag of frozen pre-cooked Costco sliced bacon they shared with us. Such a thoughtful parting gift, and a valuable resource when trying to get a quick bite made after a long day of travel.

So with that, I will have flung one more story from the earlier days of this leg of our journey. Yes, we are still in Florida, although not in the Panhandle at the moment. We plan to wrap back around and see Kim and Terry before we leave the state. I am putting the finishing touches on a few posts about our stays in Tennessee, Georgia, and other parts of Florida. No big news on the Jello and how it will set.

For now, we are alternating between a primitive camping spot and one where we can plug in as the winter sun is playing peekaboo behind the clouds and our house battery is not holding enough juice, so another battery is on the way. Still, campfires, full moon nights, and friends and family stopping by have kept us happy while we wait. All is well at Camp Cordray!

Bathtubs and barnacles,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

***Oh, and pardon the flipping typo in the title as it was sent to your inbox, if you are a subscriber. Apparently, you can fix it on the title on the page, but once it's sent, it's sent.

I cannot for my life seem to spell FERAL correctly the first time around. This is, embarrassingly, not my first rodeo with that word or that issue. Kudos if you find (and like) my other botched “feral in the title” post as it slid between the cracks way back when. Grrrrrr!!!***

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I snuck up on him. He didn’t have a chance. Remembering that moment while writing this, I barely keep from spraying a mouth full of coffee across the room. Not because it was a funny moment, but because I recognized myself in his expression and it cracked me up.

Gary Honeycutt didn't have to take on the raising of the feral best friend of his oldest daughter, Tammie. He didn't have to give a flying red rat's backend about whether I had enough to eat, or if I learned table manners, or if I had enough jingle to pay to get in the neighborhood pool with the other kids. I didn’t, I hadn’t, and I didn’t.

He didn't have introduce me at the commissary or on base at Fort Hood as his third daughter. Everyone already knew who I was, having seen me there many times before. He didn't have to offer me seconds at family meals at his table, where I was considered family. He always did, though, knowing that money was tight so I didn't often get that luxury at home.

He and his then wife Kathy made sure I had what I needed, and what I needed was consistency and a fine example of stability. Kathy was kind, gentle, and approachable. I hoped to be that kind of mother as well but having my children at a young age made me less patient than I would have been, had I not carried to world on my shoulders so early in life.

I was honored to feel included, and learned to include those who were left out because I knew how it felt. I felt real love and concern from both of them, not just aggravation for who I was, the bonus daughter. Those lessons shaped me and taught me about compassion, and that family was more than who was yours by blood.

He didn't have to pull to the side of the highway and make me get out and run around the car a few times as punishment for incessant gum chomping and blowing bubbles bigger than my head, but he did. He taught me how my actions affected others, and how to tone down the natural monkey in me to stay just this side of real trouble. Mostly.

He didn't have to offer me safe space a short bike ride away at any time of the day or night, no questions asked, but he did. In all of these actions and so many more, he saved a young girl's life.

He let her see what a home without constant chaos looked like, and how adults are supposed to act when things don’t go as planned. He let her see that there were still honorable men left in the world, and that her teeny tiny life mattered. She learned what it felt like to be sheltered under someone's wing, instead of flapping in the wind like a sail with no mast.

He watched me grow up and marry the wrong man. On our wedding day he threatened to beat him within an inch of his life if he hurt me, after attending the wedding and hosting the reception at his home. A real dad knows kids have to live with their life choices to learn. When I broke free and struggled as a single parent, he carried me to the grocery store and filled my cabinets to shore me and my two year old (at the time) daughter Courtney up until I got my bearings. He never rubbed it in but he never let his guard down. He didn't get involved, but he didn't give up on me, either. He must have had faith that I would figure it out. I can’t imagine the restraint it took to see me suffer over and over as I learned hard lessons at the hands of those who claimed to love me.

He taught me how to give, and he taught me how to receive, and even how to ask for help, which was foreign to me as it was not allowed at home. He taught me that we all deserve to be cared for and considered. He showed me that I was a Child of the Universe, no less than the trees and the stars, and I had a RIGHT to be here. In the Honeycutt household, I was a welcome addition, not just another mouth to feed.

His military background gave him the flat facial affect of someone who was well aware of what was happening but was not going to let it show on his face. As a child who lived in a home where outbursts and drama were the norm but only the adults were allowed to act like children, I had no frame of reference for this kind of emotional reserve.

I couldn't pry up an edge on his solid poker face. Every now and then he may have cracked a crinkle around the eyes, holding back laughter. If he did, I missed it. His opinion of me mattered and I sure didn’t want to make him mad. What makes this all so hilarious is that I did the same thing with my own kids. Of course I did.

The flat face of oh no you DIDN'T could easily meld into a you wanna take this conversation elsewhere situation without a single twitch of an eyebrow. No drama, no dish-throwing, no stomping and crying and throwing a fit. Just the direct gaze and the slow realization that the results of your actions were racing towards you at an alarming rate.

I saw that poker face when I snuck up on him at his job, as docent of the Tecumseh Area Historical Museum. Flat, but the jaw drop gave him away. We had a chance to visit already but we had wrapped back around to surprise him, and surprise him we did.

He hugged me so hard I thought I might pop. MINE! He hollered, mine, mine, MINE! And yes, he was right. I am his, and he is MINE.

Great Spirit, I am thankful for my other dad, who was more real and more dad to me than the one who begat me.

I am thankful for his beloved wife Shirley, who helped me arrange the surprise visit and made an old-fashioned pot roast dinner that still makes my mouth water thinking of it. It was evident that it was a rough day for her body-wise, but she managed to create a feast while keeping it all under wraps. Shirley didn’t have to love me, either, but she does, and I love her right back.

Time spent catching up at Olive Garden with Tammie, her son Christian, sister Amy, and Gary and Shirley on another day was wonderful, but we needed a bit more Poppy, as Gary is called these days.

The thing is, I wanted him to get to know the honorable and decent man I married a bit better. I wanted him to know, really know, that I am happy, well-loved and taken care of, and still out living my dream. Every dad needs that kind of reassurance. I wanted to see his life through the same lens, and I did. We both turned out alright after all and married some pretty spectacular people.

Gary grew up in Tecumseh and swore the day that he left for basic training that he would never return. Now he spends his Saturdays proudly sharing the stories, photographs, and historical relics of his hometown with those who come to the museum. It is a fascinating place chock full of local lore that I wish we would have had more time to explore that day. If you happen through the area, don’t forget to stop in and check it out. I plan to return so I can sneak up on him again, some fine day.

Some roots bind us to responsibilities and obligations, but other roots remind us of our acorn years, and how weren't sure we would ever grow big enough to be called a tree. Poppy wrapped back around and found his roots still buried in Tecumseh, Michigan. Even though I didn't grow up there, some of my roots reside there, too. They are still growing inside a decent, strong man who didn't have to sign on to be my bonus dad, but he was, and will always be.

He was bigger than life when I was little, hard on the outside but with a soft spot for a little girl who didn't have much ease elsewhere. I can only remember seeing him cry once way back then, when he held Courtney, my eldest child, for the first time. I hid a lot of tears behind my ready smile when I was a kid. He encouraged my laughter and offered me a safe place to be a child. My own children benefitted from the example he set, as I learned ways to parent there that I wouldn’t have at home.

Poppy wears his softness on the outside these days, with unabashed tears of joy and emotion that are new to me, but welcome. We have both softened instead of hardened with age.

I have always worn my heart on my sleeve, openly showing affection in a way that often makes people uncomfortable. People require mountains more love on the daily than many of us realize. Squirm if you must, but I will never apologize for doing my best to let someone know how valuable they are to me, and to the world at large. Now, today, because today might be all that we have.

We all need to know how special we are, how worthy of consideration and of all of the best that life has to offer, regardless of upbringing or circumstance. I learned this both as a treasured child and as a beloved adult from two of the best men to walk this blue and green spinning marble that we call home.

So there you have another apple-pie slice of the early days of this particular road trip adventure that Dan and I are enjoying this go-round. If you know us and love us, we might just sneak up on you, too. Expect it when you least expect it, and don’t forget to BE love so you can SEE love.

Pinwheels and paper flowers,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose

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