Jerome to Page & New Boots

We started atop a pass nothwest of Jerome leaving camp at an unheard of 9:45 a.m. I usually have breakfast around then. We arrived Williams at 2 pm.

I shot from the car. I didn't want to get any closer.

In Flagstaff I picked two thriftstores to look for boots & discovered, after feeding the meter, the first was closed. The next had nothing but there was a nearby Goodwill. Goodwill's prices seem high to me, but they had the goods. Timberland Mt Maddsen size 13. Big enough to handle the edema. $25.00 for a $120.00 shoes; twice what I wanted to pay. 

The 125 miles acrosst The Rez can be intense. The highway, paved a few years ago, is already worn out. Even when it was spanking fresh there were alot of Whoop-de-dos and bumps. It's the traffic though, that does it. It's a constant stream until you get north of The Gap; and everyone's in a hurry. The speed limit is 65 and you take your life in your hands if you go any slower; people will try and get ahead of you at the least opportunity and even when there's LESS.

But at 5 pm in Flagstaff I could feel the effect of having gone from 4400 feet to 7,000 in elevation and decided it had to be done.

I got to camp a few minutes after 8:00 at a BLM site just inside the Utah state line. 3 hours tuh go 125 miles. A veritable land speed record!

Ankle support, fairly stiff sole for stability and waterproof! We'll see how they wear.

Utah!

HUURRAAAYY! cried the children (excerpted w/o permission from Dav Pilkey's *Captain Underpants* series.

Kaleohano - IZ

I refer you to this post on *Lady Margaret's curlers.* But the link (on her blog) that caught my eye was to this video...

The description below was written by the fellow who put the video on Youtube, MrSrabago.

if anyone is interested.. this was IZ's last live performance. The 3 who came up on stage to his right, was Moon (brother-in-law), to his left were members of the Makaha Sons (the Koko brothers). They were on no speaking terms since IZ's departure of the band and start of his solo career.

The Hawiian in the audience that was shedding tears that they kept panning to is Keali'i Reichel. This was a historic night in Hawaiian music as the Makaha Sons of Ni'ihau finally reach reconciliation with braddah IZ.

I'm too young to remember this, but my pops, a Kanaka, 3rd generation, born and raised Lahaina says that this night was more memorable than his wedding night.

           ------ END -------

Kealiʻi Reichel, is a popular and bestselling singer, songwriter, choreographer, dancer, chanter, scholar, teacher, and personality from Hawaiʻi. He has spent his life educating the world about Hawaiian culture through music and dance.

Kanaka - Native of Hawai'i

Lahaina - The largest census-designated place in West Maui

Translations of IZ's songs. Kaleohano is #4.

https://web.archive.org/web/20091026161743/http://www.geocities.com/~olelo/iz-themanandhismusic.html

WSJ - April

There was a time, at the beginning of my career as a marketeer, that I tagged myself as an Ad Man.

I learned paste-up and layout (using hot wax adhesive), design, copywriting, editing marks from a female master.

To this day I admire the art of attention getting. The ad for the DBX707 drew me in, but it was the online presentation of the Valhalla that held me.

Have FUN with the various color schemes, the rotating view and watch what you get when you tap the small icons in the lower right of the image.

https://www.astonmartin.com/en-us/models/valhalla#

And then, three pages over...

Cliffs of Sedona

What with the Boomers trading their homes for RVs, the myriad van-dwellers, people living in their cars, truck-campers, Overlanders and other assorted flotsam, the hills are alive like carrion w maggots.

Thay's them, the cliffs,

in the background

Airing the Quilt

Forest Road 525 takes the brunt of the onslaught. Two years ago I slipped into a bumpy little slot in a junction from where I watched the parade. See blog:

https://newmexnomad.blogspot.com/2021/11/sedona.html?m=1

This year they, the Forest Service, outlawed dispersed camping and created large holding areas where everyone is forced together cheek-to-jowel.

The hippie buses are trapped between forty-foot motorhomes that're wedged between pannier-laden overlanding moto-guzzis that're stuffed betwixt sedans of varying vintage, some with missing windows, no plumbing, not even psuedo, and throughout are all the rest in their AWD cars w rooftop tents out for a weekend or short vacation. It's ALMOST worth charging admission.

I've been at this long enough to have my own places. But they too are getting crowded. Today I drove 40 minutes instead of twenty and came home to a hilltop with a view of the main attraction, but far enough to obscure the swarming teems.

As always, the picture just serves as a reminder. There's no camera that can do it justice. A beautiful nail-paring of a moon gleams from nearly straight up.

Secret Benefactor

Food City in Cottonwood, Arizona has panela cheese, block-cut monterey jack and beef heart. Most of its patrons are Spanish speakers and the conversations in the aisles and the mothers' directives to the children are in that language. There's a calmer "vibe" to the place compared to Fry's, another grocery chain where mostly English is spoken; people shop instead of grab-and-go.

Returning with my purchases of all of the above, I noticed an anomoly on Phoebe's window sill; it looked like money.

Sure enough! Two five-dollar bills tucked in. Their multiple crinkles across the short side suggests they may have come from a change purse rather than a billfold.

Kindness and largesse elicit deep feelings of gratitude in me. I'm reminded of those summer days decades ago, when, out in the middle of Kansas on I-70, a car would pull alongside, I was driving my 1950 Buick hearse, and someone, with a smile, would hand out a lit joint. 

Resistol - $15

My maternal grandfather was a surgeon at Ft Bayard Hospital down the road from Silver City. When he died

of a heart attack at age 55 it was said you could've eaten off the motor of his Cadillac.

Suddenly without income and quite poor, my grandmother, my mother and her brother went to Memphis, Tennessee. 

I never found out why they went there, but Mom told how they, Catholics, were turned away by one charity after another until finally St Vincent D'Paul helped them.

Now, over seventy years later, the legacy of their largesse prompts me to go to their thrift stores first. In need of shirts and boots, I couldn't pass up this Resistol "cattleman" in my size for $15.00.

This is the third application of the Meow Wolf logo. Using my best British accept to mimic Ringo in Yellow Submarine, I go around saying, "Eye've gawt a hōel in me head."

They, St Vincent D'Paul, are in Cottonwood, Arizona.

Dominion Wins Suit Against Fox News

In a break from my stance of apoliticalness, here's a link to a National Public Radio article about Fox News settling out of court with Dominion Voting Systems. In so doing, Fox avoided a media frenzy and further loss of credibility...as if they ever had any.

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/18/1170339114/fox-news-settles-blockbuster-defamation-lawsuit-with-dominion-voting-systems

Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos, third from right, leaves with members of his legal team, including Davida Brook, left, Justin Nelson, third from left and Stephen Shackelford, right, from the Leonard Williams Justice Center in Wilmington, Del., shortly after Dominion reached a $787.5 million settlement with Fox News.

Alex Wong/Getty Images
As you may be aware, defamation is RARELY litigated as the laws are such that it's extremely difficult to prove. The fact that the judge recognized several counts against Fox should give the reader an idea of their level of egregiousness.