It’s past time for my annual review of goals, but I’m going to do it anyway. I usually try to write this prior to Winter Solstice, but this year it’s been hard to focus.
My Mother had taken the time to reflect on the past year and commented that she had no idea how I had managed to get through 2016, little alone reach any of my goals. I thought about that and decided I should look back at the year first, then look at what I might have accomplished.
We started the year living in our 25’ travel trailer. We had sold our home in Escalante, UT and had purchased a new (to us) home in Enoch, but had allowed the sellers to rent back until February 1st. We put everything we owned in our commercial building in Escalante and went to Quartzsite, AZ for the month of January. Tracy was changing his hobby/craft one more time from photography to lapidary arts and needed some equipment.
It didn’t take him long to find an 18” and a 24” rock saw. The bigger problem was how to get them home. “No problem”, he says. “We’ll buy a utility trailer and run them home”. After driving nearly every street in Quartzsite, we finally found an old beater that would work. It looked like the devil, bu
t was of sound structure and had bigger tires than most. The saw dealer arranged f
or the parks’ forklift use and the saws were loaded in no time.
I took advantage of the opportunity and purchased an old mine car complete with rails for front yard décor. It just fit in the unused trailer space. We hooked that poor trailer to the truck and headed for Enoch. That was after we spent a whole day wiring the lights on the trailer. The ones there didn’t work and we couldn’t haul it 500 miles through 3 states without lights. 
It was a 3-day “adventure” to “run” the trailer home, park it and return. Sore rumps and wet weather made for a “just drive” trip. On the return trip, we got to the motel at Henderson and were greeted with a pack of big horn sheep. Not something you expect to see in the heart of the Las Vegas Valley. But all that lovely, well-kept grass was too much to resist for their afternoon nap in the shade of the city park trees.
We returned to Quartzsite for some beads, picks, signs, and the 6 buckets of rough rock we purchased at the Saturday Auction. Those and the 4 buckets of found rock were tucked under the trailer and we headed to La Mesa, Ca. to see my mom.
Her health has continued to decline and as trustee for the Family trust I needed to gather paperwork for the tax returns. We took her to Balboa Park and the natural History Museum. She had ever been. It’s a place I spent many hours as a teenager, meditating as the pendulum clock knocked over little wooden pegs that marked every 5 minutes, as it swayed back and forth in long arcs across the shiny floor.
Time to return to Quartzsite and retrieve the trailer and rocks. The sellers had left our new home the 15th of January and the house was ready for repairs. We were ready for our next major adventure – or so we thought.
Until next time – – –