Silver & Gold

Posted May 21, 2019 – Narrated by Carmen

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Make new friends,
    but keep the old.
One is silver,
    the other is gold.

The Scouting Song    – Boy Scout Woods in High Island, TX put me in mind of my scouting years which gave me stability throughout my mobile youth.

We’re okay! Apologies for being so late with this blog post.

We’re way behind because we’ve been binging on Game of Thrones. Haha. Just kidding.

But we could if we wanted to.

Our new Verizon data plan is now so hot that a series binge is finally within reach. So if you’re driving through Ohio in the middle of the night and spot a strange blue light in the middle of a cornfield, it could be us wilding on Game of Thrones.

Truth is, we just fell behind. Can it be a month since the Pink Moon got all tangled up in the telephone lines over the Cracker Barrel in Sulpher, Louisiana?

Now, here we are in Kentucky with the Blue Moon waning away. All this moonshine burning on both ends of the month made us loose track. Also, we’ve been reuniting with family and close friends.

Weeks of Texas solitude instilled a longing for familiar company. No one’s really a stranger in Texas. Still, navigating through unfamiliar territory is heightened reality. Stimulating, but exhausting.

Someday, we hope to travel with an organized caravan but for the present we find happenstance is a great friend-maker.

While camping on Armistad Lake I met Peggy – a former San Diegan and now a retired art teacher from Kansas City.

One misty day she invited me into her nifty Clam and beautifully restored vintage Airstream and introduced me to plein air with a painting lesson and showed me how to make an Altoids Box painting kit.

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All in one day: meeting a new friend, discovering a new hobby and a new mosquito-proof annex – all for the cost of a $5 campsite.

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And, now, when we finally go to Kansas City we won’t be strangers.

A fire burns bright,
    it warms the heart.
We’ve been friends,
    from the very start.

Family time is a major travel challenge. That’s no exaggeration.

My family members are widely dispersed and some live in extremely remote areas.

My father’s house in Mississippi and my sister’s house in Tennessee are more than rural – they’re wilderural. Places where know-how is worth more than money because a turn-around trip to the closest business district takes most of the day.

So, it was a big deal when Daddy and his sister, Sonia, from Alabama met us in an extremely remote place that neither had ever been – Grand Isle, Louisiana – where we celebrated my dear aunt’s birthday.

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Silver is precious,
    Gold is too.
I am precious,
    and so are you.

And, a few days later we met up with our golden San Diego friends. Sam and James Pascarella (AKA Funniest Man In San Diego and the jolliest too – book your Santa Video Conference before it’s too late!) flew into New Orleans where we immersed in the culture and indulged in some much needed joie de vivre … We can’t show you all the photos because what happens in NOLA stays in NOLA.

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At our campground on Lake Ponchartrain, we met LIB followers, Susan – a retired family counselor – and her engineer husband Ed.

We are now very close friends because I talked way too much about my personal life. Susan and Ed have been on the road for several months now and just a few days before we met them in New Orleans we were wondering how they were.

We are over the moon to have actually met them … and I can’t wait for my next session!

You help me,
    and I’ll help you 
and together
    we will see it through.

Later that week, we arrived to my father’s house in Mississippi …

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Dad’s house burned in February 2017, and now he lives in his new house – built on the same site – with my brother, Chris and his wife, Sherry.

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Anyone who dares to mess with Dad will have to get past my brother and his attack dog.

That afternoon we welcomed our friends Larry and Jacquie (Beauty’s former traveling companions) and their sweetheart of a beagle, Bailey, from Alabama, and voila … An Airstream meet-up is born.

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A circle is round,
    it has no end.
That’s how long,
    I will be your friend.

Whenever were in Dad’s neighborhood we’re sure to get our dental check-up with Dr. Harrison and my spine adjusted by our wonderful chiropractor, Dr. Miller who makes it all better.

Next stop, Cherokee Mountains, Tennessee.

Ears are Pico’s most prominent feature but lately he’s been exhibiting tooth pain, so in Tennessee he had a thorough dental cleaning which required no extractions other than serious tarter. So thanks to Notchey Creek Veterinary Clinic Pico is back to noshing on his chewies and next time he bites us, we will have less risk of infection.

The sky is blue
    The Earth is green
I can help
    to keep it clean

But, mostly, in the Cherokee Mountains I just hung out with my sister, Deborah watching a snake sun on the rocky creek in her back yard and trying to remember all of my big sister’s old boyfriends.

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It took a while because she had a prolific romantic life in her youth. And, between googling her oldies, I walked around the property while my niece played flute on the patio, wondering if Debbie and David’s real estate agent was a Hobbit in disguise.

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You have one hand,
    I have the other.
Put them together,
    We have each other.

Now, we are in Kentucky touring distilleries and picking our way through the gnarly remnants of the Second Great Awakening which still shapes our nation’s religious culture – and visiting The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemene in honor of Thomas Merton who’s writings have inspired me since I was in my 20’s.

Next, on to Alumapalooza10 to meet up with many more silver friends, Airstreamers and like-minded wanderers.

Till then,

Across the land
    Across the sea
Friends forever
    We will always be.