Deming > Parker

On Friday morning, I stopped by the Deming post office. At 11 o’clock, the sun had already warmed the air, and I hoped my general delivery packages were ready. In a cheerful mood and anxious to get some travel on the tires, I took the concrete stairs by two, arriving at the heavy door just as someone exited.

There wasn't even a line at the counter. Oh! Joyful day!

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said the Deming postal employee. The words muffled through her face shield, like a talking fish on the other side of a glass bowl. She wore a coviDShield, protecting the wearer from a virus with a huge recovery rate, but we weren’t supposed to talk about that. If we did, someone’s temper would flare. “If you want to give me your tracking number, I can check it for you,” she offered.

“No, that’s okay. Thanks. I can look it up on my phone. Thanks for your help. Thanks,” I over-thanked as I stepped away from the counter, just wanting to be out of Deming. I’d overstayed my time at the Walmart, the truck stop, the dog park. It was time to move on down the road before someone tagged me as “living in my RV.” As far as any of the locals knew, I was having dental work done down in Mexico and I traveled back and forth between Palomas and Deming, but now that the dental work was finished and I’d stayed many days extra, it was time to move on down the road.

Only, I couldn’t.

I needed to find my Amazon package.

A quick email search pulled up the tracking number, and I found the package had been waiting for me at UPS since Wednesday night.

Wednesday night? Ergh!

I drove over to UPS, which was across town by the dog park, and parked the RV just off the road, not wanting to pull the mammoth RV into the tiny lot made for Priuses, Jeeps, or pick-up trucks.

My Keens crunched on the gravel as I walked toward the sheet-metal building. As I drew closer, I saw the sign on the door: Open 4:30 – 5:30.

Ergh! I’d have to come back later!

I turned around, went back to the RV, and drove one more time to the dog park. I’d just continue working on school stuff. That way, I’d have more drive-time over the weekend and could maybe relax a little. I’d been working too hard and staring at the computer for too long with all the mid-term assignments pouring in from students.

At 4:04, I was back in the parking space beside the road near the UPS building. While waiting, I cleaned the RV while listening to talk radio. The sunlight streamed through the windows, warming the place to a mellow ambient temperature.

At 4:27, I stepped from the RV to retrieve the package.

By 4:35, I was back in the RV and leaving Deming.

The night air felt chilly through the small crack I had in the window, so I rolled it up and turned the heat on my feet as I drove the long highway westward. All that remained of the sun was a throbbing orange glow along the edge of the horizon.

With my arms getting cold and my jacket in the back, I flipped a few switches to blast the heat through the mid-level vent.

Stopping for the night at a truck stop in Lordsburg, I found a well-lighted spot at the edge of the lot for RVs and other non-semi parking. The plan was to go into the Flying J and take a nice, long, hot truck stop shower.

“I’ll be right back, Buena,” I said, using the lights in the lot to help me find my shower and pajama items. I didn’t care. It was bedtime. I’d take my shower, dress in my jammies, and hurry back to the RV.

I turned the water all the way up to the hottest hot setting to let it warm up the cold tile a little, while I got undressed and put on my public-shower water shoes.

Only…

When I got into the shower, it was lukewarm.

Hugely disappointing.

Now I see why the Lord doesn’t want lukewarm believers, per Revelation 3!

Two days later, I parked at the Love’s truck stop in Eloy, Arizona, and stayed for two nights.

There’s something about the hum of diesel engines that ensures a good night’s rest. Beyond the sound, there’s a deep resonance that echoes through my body, lulling me to sleep. Despite wanting to stay another night, I dared not to push it. The serious, middle-aged employee, a balding man with long hair and a potbelly threatening to distend just over his belt, eyed my RV while collecting trash from the bins lining the lot. He looked at the RV, then over to where I stood outside with Buena, and then back at the RV.

I’d been marked.

This wasn’t the truck stop for slothful, hippie types to hang around. This was a working lot, and I knew it. Trucks pulled in and out swiftly here, not like the lazy lot in San Simon, or Lordsburg before that. No, this was a working lot between two major metropolitan cities: Phoenix and Tucson. There’d be no lazy hippie days in this lot, which was okay. I had work to do before seeing my friend David, who lived near here.

Next, I traveled to the Walmart lot in Casa Grande and waited for my friend David to show up. While I waited, I decided to check the oil and the radiator since the vehicle had sufficiently cooled.

With the hood propped up, I leaned over the engine, enjoying the warmth of sun on my arms. All morning, I'd been inside grading papers, trying to stay ahead of the grading.

“Um…yeah…so if you see an RV broken down…we’re right behind that!” the woman shouted into her phone.

Who's broken down, lady?

She stood next to a little white pick-up truck. A tall heavyset man with a golden-brown shiny head spoke into another phone. “No, we’re on the side of the Walmart. Over by the online pick-up area.”

I’m not broken down, Lady, I thought with a growl in my brain. I’m just adding more fluid to the radiator and the reservoir.

But…whatever. Maybe my old rig looked broken down to her reality.

With new fluid added to the radiator, I replaced the cap and checked the reservoir cap.

Later in the afternoon, David showed up and wanted to know if I wanted to camp over at his house for the night. “I’ve got a big lot. We can get your RV plugged in. Plus, you’ll get to meet Jeff, and his son and his wife.”

“They live with you?” I asked as I stood on the Walmart lot shielding my eyes from the late afternoon sun.

“They don’t live with me. I stay in my travel trailer,” he said proudly. “I’m renting the whole place, but I let them stay in the house. Jeff is a good friend from a long time ago. I never knew what happened to him, but when I needed a mechanic for my truck, these two guys got to work on it, and the one said, ‘Hey, aren’t you David?’ and I said, ‘Yes, sir, I am,’ and he said ‘I used to know you when we were young men.’ I honestly didn’t recognize him because he has a big grey beard now. He turned to his son and said, ‘This man doesn’t owe us anything for this repair.’ It turned out he needed help, so I’m letting him and his son stay there for free.”

That night, Buena and Fatboy ran together on the desert and played beneath the mesquite trees. She was in heat, and I knew what this meant.

“Oh, he’s got eyes for her,” David commented.

“I just don’t want her running into the street,” I said, craning my neck to watch them as David lead me out onto the desert for our own desert walk at dusk.

“He won’t let anything happen to her. She is his woman now.”

We walked around the perimeter of an area cleared of desert creosote bushes and mesquite, an area where the hard-packed, light brown earth felt like clay. It looked as if it had been prepped for farming or maybe a field at rest. Digging my heel into the ground, I tested the ground. “How’s the soil?”

“Oh, you can grow anything here,” David said certainly. “You can grow alfalfa.”

“Can you grow pecan trees?”

“Oh, yes, you can grow pecan trees.”

I looked at where the sun went down, noting the orange had shifted to a deep yellow line at the edge of the earth. It seemed as if at this latitude in the dry desert, pecan trees were the things to plant, but David had spoken of alfalfa before because it is an eight- to ten- year crop. Trees were the same way, producing year after year.

We talked some more until both dogs ran up to where we walked in the fading light. Fatboy clung to David’s side as Buena leapt around him, teasing him into more play. They leapt back and forth at each other as we walked toward David’s house, I to my RV and he to his trailer.

* * *

I woke up to the sound of dogs barking outside.

Buena, growling hopped from where she had snuggled with me beneath the covers. Racing to the front of the RV, she began barking. A moment later, I heard her toenails thumping against the glass as she pawed against it, still barking.

A large golden-retriever-ish dog and a black dog.

Looking over their shoulder as they trotted across the street, they disappeared off into the mesquite trees and out onto the desert.

As I made my tea, I felt strongly like I needed to leave that morning. Something compelled me away from here—a strong push toward Lake Havasu City and seeing Laura and Rigo.

So I left by eight, heading through Phoenix, westward on I-10, and north to Parker, stopping at the Blue Waters casino and parking in the overnight RV area. I still had lots of grading to do, and I wasn’t ready to roll up to Lake Havasu yet. I needed some time to decompress between places.