Heading South instead of North

The hill that we camped under, in the early 1970s broken-down RV, on the little plot of land owned by the same friend who owned the RV, reflected the bright sun when covered in snow. I loved Arizona the most in the snow and it snowed its silly dry snow a lot that winter. Even in March, after a trip to Phoenix, we enjoyed more than a dusting of snow in the Eastern Arizona White Mountains.

The more it snowed, the more I longed to see the mountain that meant I was 'home': Mt. Rainier.

A trip north with a cat and a dog 

Since we had added Pringles the cat to our entourage, it became a bit more of a challenge to travel. Athena had always gone anywhere I went, having grown up during my travels and never having known a home (just like her owner). I was home to her, and she after the adventure when she was under a year, she never ran off. Pringles was another matter. That male cat kept the other male in the family running and I can't say that I was less than amused. After all, it was the husband who kept taking the funds I saved up to have Pringles fixed and buying energy drinks and cigarettes instead. I guess I figured that he could use that extra energy to run after his cat.

Pringles did make it up to Washington with us, thankfully. I did love that puffball of a cat.

Electricity is a Good Thing - So are Friends

When we reached Washington, we enjoyed a dinner of a pot roast with several local types of potatoes. Not only was the luxury of an indoor slow cooker appreciated, but I loved the potatoes so much that I kept the eyes from all three types to take to plant at my relatives house. Reluctantly she had allowed us to come back as the husband poured out promises once again that he had no intention of keeping.

Baking up a Storm

Thankful for the trust that my relative had placed in us, I was quick to snatch up an oven to add to her kitchen. Not only would it add to the usability of the house for her, but it was nice to have the opportunity to use it ourselves. To be able to bake and have refrigeration in the half of the house that had electricity was a luxury that I didn't realize how much I had missed.

Even when we had spent time at the house the previous year, there had been only a microwave. The oven was a new luxury that this grandma had not had access to for several years. I made the best of it.

A Surgery and a Sudden Trip South

The husband had been complaining about pain in his knee since before we left for Arizona. While we were up in Washington, he finally had it looked at. While they did surgery, I held his wedding ring and contemplated all of the arguing that continued to get louder and louder after we had moved to Washington.

Later that month, drama exploded and the husband decided he needed to go back to Arizona right then and pick out land for his mother to buy for him. I was unaware of much of the dealings between them and believed him when he said it was for 'us.'

We suddenly packed up and headed south again without much of an explanation to any of our family and friends. I didn't really know what to say.

In Concho - Picking out a Plot of Land

When we arrived back in the White Mountains of Arizona, the landscape was a different color than it ever was in the winter or fall. It was green! Everything was green! In a strange way it was beautiful. But neither the landscape nor the sunsets could tame the contention between the husband and me.

When I left for Washington on a train, alone, I wondered what the future held. I left the animals with the husband while I returned to my brother who was having spinal surgery and desperately needed my help and assistance. The husband said he was buying the land we had picked out and would be purchasing a half-destroyed but larger RV to place on the land. He had grandiose plans that he said would be finished by the time I arrived on my birthday in October.

I trusted him to fulfill our dreams.

Caretaking My Family Alone in Centralia

My brother's first granddaughter was born while I was in Arizona, but as soon as I arrived back in Washington, I was thrilled to have her and her parents as well as my brother visit. The relative who had previously allowed my husband and I to stay at her house was allowing me to care for my brother there while the husband stayed in Arizona.

The husband would never end up returning to that house and my relative was happy about that fact. He never did complete any of the repairs he promised her.

I nursed my brother through spinal surgery and we packed all of my possessions as well as my brother's in preparation for a trip to Arizona. This time I was bringing my brother with me...Packing with two broken backs would be fun.

Harvesting the Fruits of a Summers Labor

The purple and red potatoes that we had enjoyed in the spring with friends yielded their "found boundy" in the early fall. I looked up ways to preserve our tomatoes and potatoes out of the garden where we had planted the remainders of our spring meals.

Covering the tomatoes losely and in dark wrapping, I preserved some of the crop we had carefully farmed in Washington to enjoy with the husband in Arizona. I wanted to keep the genetics going, keeping parts of the potatoes that had tasted so wonderful in Port Orchard and Centralia, and hoping to grow them again in Arizona. People buy and waste far too much reusable and regrowable food. It's a shame when it is so easy to do.

Heading to Arizona with my Brother

When my brother and I arrived in Arizona, the husband presented the slightly-refurbished-but-still-burnt-out-fifth-wheel as my "birthday present." It was "my new home" according to him.

My brother helped unload the Penske truck that he and I had loaded alone, with two broken backs in Washington before he drove us down to Eastern Arizona. The husband loaded up my brother with more and more promises and suggested my brother spend the winter in the RV we had spent the last two winters in under Spring Mountain.

Pipe dreams sound good in the warmth of the sun...but the warmth of the sun doesn't keep the cold away in the hills of Eastern Arizona during the winter.

A Collapsed Lung for Thanksgiving

Three days before Thanksgiving, I was diagnosed with a collapsed lung. Partially. I felt a massive pain in the right side of my chest after taking a dose of my new inhaler. The prescribed treatment was to use my oxygen 24/7 while it healed.

I had been prescribed nocturnal oxygen therapy when I was in Washington and had to transfer that prescription down to Arizona with me. But not having a reliable source of electricity meant that I had to have liquid oxygen tanks delivered our property in rural Eastern Arizona.

Once every two weeks, an oxygen man would meet our friend who would transport the tanks from our place to the library near the highway, where he would fill them up and then our friend would have to bring them back to our land. All so I could breathe. It did make adjusting to the elevation of 6,300 feet a bit easier on me. The headaches the previous winters had been awful.

A White Christmas

The landscape of the 37 acres that the husband chose were much different than the hill and scattered juniper surrounding the acre we had spent the previous two winters on, even though they were only five miles apart. My brother walked those five miles sometimes multiple times a day, going back and forth between our campsteads as I called them. They were like homesteads, only we were just camping so far. Camping with all of our worldly possessions in an area where it would dip down into the single digits in the winter. Seventy-mile an hour winds were not unheard of and those cut right through the thin walls of the RV.

We weren't the worst off though. Our friend's tiny house, built by members of our church, was blown down a hill by the high winds. Luckily, she was about a week from occupying it. Her travel trailer, at the base of the same hill remained undamaged, but her dreams took a beating.

Recovering from Failure

In November I had started a planned online college program, with a dream of finishing my Bachelor's degree. I had accumulated over 120 college credits throughout three different community college programs while in my youth, but had quit each program before finishing them. Life got in the way and there were children to be raised.

My youngest child was now grown and had researched Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) with her husband and they both had decided it was the best place to continue their education. I had watched from afar via social media for about a year before my curiosity got the best of me and I called up and began investigating what it would take to complete my own undergraduate degree. I wanted to focus on writing.

My first term was absolute hell. The husband had promised to make sure that I had a ride into the library for internet a few times each week, but it never came to pass. My collapsed lung and other health catastrophes combined with my lack of access to the internet to equal a failing grade for my first term back at school. I had nowhere to go but up.

A puppy for our Second Anniversary

My friend's dog had thrown a litter in the middle of a New Year's snowstorm. One didn't make it before she pulled the litter and mama of the livestock guard dogs into her travel trailer to keep the rest from freezing to death. True to their natures, the little puffballs wanted back in the snow nearly as soon as they could walk.

Since my friend had initially promised my husband one of her previous litters (before Athena and I came along), she wanted us to have one. Camo was presented on our second wedding anniversary, but our campstead wasn't a happy home. 2016 had blown in with a nasty wind and a cold air that never seemed to leave our little fifth-wheel.

As I studied my brains out, trying to make up for the failing grade of my first term, the husband spent his time making excuses for not fixing the pickup truck that had been inoperable since November 11th. All the time he bragged to church members about his mechanical prowess, I begged each week for my friend to give me a ride to church.

A Grandson visits Arizona for Easter

The sunsets enchanted me, and I had wanted to share that beauty with the children I love. My grandson's mom, a young woman who had separated from my son a year after his son's birth, brought my grandson to Arizona for Easter 2016. We had a blast.

It gave an entirely new perspective to camping in an RV in the middle of nowhere Arizona when I could share skills and tips of survival with my eight year old grandson. He was the perfect age to enjoy rocks and look for snakes.

He was a bright light in a dark spring full of anger and drama and me missing my people from home. Unfortunately, I soon found out that my grandson's visit to Arizona was without the knowledge or consent of his father, my son. They returned to Washington as quickly as they came, leaving behind the tie I bought him for Easter and memories I will always treasure.