Leaving Havasu

March 17th, St. Patrick's Day. Travel time once again. I had breakfast with Dave, the gentleman who has been so generous with letting me camp on his back porch. Then we both were something of a whirlwind as we packed as quickly as we could to try to get an early start, me to Bandon, Or, him back to LA. Fail on both accounts. Neither of us got out until after noon.

Funny thing about when I leave a place that I sense what I came for is finished, I had no problem at all, emotionally, in leaving. I'll miss a few of the people, but the town has no appeal for me now. I rode the 20 miles to the freeway and filled the tank and headed on to Vegas to visit my daughter.

The sun was quite warm while I headed West, but as soon as I turned North on 95, the wind picked up; dust blowing everywhere. In passing from Arizona into California, there is a traffic stop on the freeway where they check for something or another. They usually just wave motorcycles through but this time, there just wasn't anyone there. Everyone got waved through. The gas was $3.429, and nine miles from California. Twenty one miles from where I filled up at, and at the first Needles, CA exit, gas was $4.769.

Passing from California into Nevada, the road changes abruptly from a 2-lane to a divided double lane highway. Big change in the quality of the road. Nevada obviously has more money to spend and they want to show it off.

Got to visit with my awesome daughter and spend a couple hours with her and my furry grandsons (cats), punctuated by a brief appearance of her boyfriend. Then it was time to go. Hope I get to see her again before too long.

It seems that Las Vegas city has an ordinance of no overnight camping. After almost running out of gas - the bike has a 5.4 gallon tank and I put in 5.198 - I found that even Walmart can't let someone camp. So, I looked online for free camping and found a rest area 80 miles away. So, I rode there and had a good nights sleep.

Travel...and jealousy.

Hello all! I'd likely get a lot more subscribers if I were to be a little more diligent about writing posts. Oh, well, such is not presently within my power. This is the first time I've had the computer charged in quite some time. Unfortunately, my power cord burnt up a couple weeks ago. I ordered another one and hopefully will get it soon.

So, yesterday was quite humbling. I'm presently back in Lake Havasu City, AZ. I'm camped on the back porch of my friend's (Dave) second home. Usually he is in California, but he showed up out of the blue the evening before last. Well, he was leaving to go on a ride with the local Goldwing club and he locked the front door. I had pulled my bike into the garage to plug the battery into the charger for a bit and I shut the garage door. I had told Dave that I would make sure I locked the sliding glass door before I left for the day, which I did...and then I remembered that my bike was locked inside the garage. STUCK! For the day, until he got back. After I finished laughing at my own silliness, I posted it to my FaceBook.

A lot has happened since I last updated this blog. I had my young friend, Alexaray, come to travel around with me for a bit. It was fun, having her youthful energy around. We get along well. We rode around the state of Arizona, just seeing what we could. Got to say, Arizona is a very beautiful state! Between Sedona and Flagstaff, especially. WOW! Seriously, wow!

We stayed at several Couchsurfing locations (see couchsurfing.org), one each in Yuma, Tuscon, and Flagstaff. Had an interesting experience when the police was called on me for "accosting a teenager" in a Walmart parking lot. (She and I were horsing around while taking down the camper and had gotten into a tickle fight.) To put your mind at ease, she's 20. There were no teenagers around,as far I I know. The cop smiled, after checking our IDs and giving us an odd look, and then wished us a good day and safe ride.


She's now back in Bellingham after having seen the Sate, including the grand Canyon, Oak Creek Canyon between Sedona and Flagstaff, and many other awesome sights.
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 Later in the week: Had an interesting experience a few days ago. I found out that it was a friend's birthday here in Havasu. She's 64 or 65, I think. I won't go into too many details but because she is such a great dancer, I have often gone to where I knew she'd be so that we could dance together.  Well, she got into a relationship with a guy since the last time I saw or talked to her and it turns out that he suffers under the tyranny of the Demon of Jealousy. I showed up at her birthday party at a public venue to make her a balloon and have a birthday dance but was accosted by her boyfriend's demon. He came up and told me that he "had my number" while having a smile pasted on his face to not let on that he was basically threatening me. He also had a hand on my shoulder. I was shocked, even though I have been under Jealousy's sway before. I had had no thought of doing anything that would give him a reason to be jealous, even to the point of not even knowing it was going to be her birthday. A mutual friend had come up with the idea of my going to make her a balloon. Oh, well.

Here's something I've learned about jealousy: it makes the person you are with do EXACTLY what you don't want them to do...look at every other member of your sex in the room and judge them against you so that they will know where NOT to look. I must say, I thought it was a compliment that he thought that I was so much better than he was that she might want to leave him to come to me, even though I only want her as a friend. I really feel for them both. I've noticed that her demeanor has greatly changed, no longer the happy, bubbly woman she was the last time I was in town. Now she almost always looks sad, doesn't often look guys in the eye, especially me. All the signs of being emotionally abused by a jealous partner. I hope that he is able to excise the Demon in time to save the relationship. Or, if he can't, I hope she is able to break out of the prison she has allowed him to put her in.

I think that I will write a blog post about what I know of jealousy. Having been on both sides of the fence of that particular hell, I've learned a thing or two.