People I've met

He's livin' in the '60s! 

This is Thomas. Thomas and his sweet son Claude, my husband and son and I, spent a day together at Great Sand Dunes National Park. I had to get a picture of his trailer. I look like a doofus because I'm telling my husband how to operate the camera. Have you ever seen such a trailer? I love it! Thomas worked as a radio show host (he has a fabulous deep voice) and now he's a farmer. His wife is a belly dancer and so he and I had plenty to talk about. Would you believe, he decorated that there trailer himself! What talent. You can't see all the wonderful symbols on every side, but they're all genuine ancient southwestern Indian symbols. The spiral for example means life.

I post this particular photograph because I realize how miserably I have failed at keeping any record whatsoever of all the unique people we've met between California, Alaska, and Tennessee. I have snapshots of them in my mind but I know I'm going to forget too many.

We've met other full timers who have been helpful and full of information. At Anza Borrego a couple rolled up our awning for us when we were brand new to trailering. We didn't know you should put the awning up when you leave for the day because winds can come up any time and pull it right off. There was a French lady in the Yukon Territory of Canada, about eighty years old, who took a liking to our son and hugged him a lot and taught him some French words. There was George White who helped us get our satellite dish working.

One woman stands out in my mind. She and I were taking pictures of our families in front of a welcome sign. I don't even remember which sign. Now this is bad! But we got to talking and she said she was on her way to Montana to be in the place where her father grew up. They had been extremely close and now he had died and she was lost without him. She was hoping to feel close to him, to feel better, if only she could go to the place where he was born and grew up. I remember now. We were in Utah. And we talked about the media and I said I was surprised to hear God mentioned on the radio as his name is not usually mentioned on the radio waves in Southern California and she said, well, the language on television in Utah was as bad as she'd heard anywhere. She said she was in such disbelief she even took notes on it! I told her I didn't know that as we have no television. We parted. She walked to her truck and we to ours. But she turned around and came back and hugged me. It's something that I cannot put into words, but we were connected. At that second, in that space and time, we were defintely connected.

I climbed into the truck and immediately wished I had something more. Why am I so slow? But I'm bad with words and I said nothing. My husband said "What did she do that for?" and I said her dad died. She was wearing a blue summer dress and had medium length blonde hair and she was my age, maybe a little older. I hope she found what she needed and what she was looking for. She stands out so much in my mind.