WE'RE GOING LOONY TUNES!

Driving down an Arizona desert highway I saw an honest-to-god real-life roadrunner.  About ten minutes later William saw a desert fox.  We chose to believe it was a larger cousin and named him Wile E. Coyote.  Beep, beep!!


www.ConnorsArmy.org
To make a donation go to https://www.wizevents.com/register/register_add.php?sessid=1809&id=1056
Check out Gene's blog at www.ConnorsArmy.blogspot.com

IF IT’S GREEN IT MUST BE A VEGETABLE

The one of hardest things about traveling for two and a half months with an entire family in tow is keeping up the healthy diet we’re used to at home.  The temptation is eat the way you do on vacation when you throw caution to the wind, indulge your every culinary whim, and eliminate the words ‘healthy’ and ‘diet’ from your vocabulary.  Big restaurant breakfasts on warm oversized plates complete with hash browns and toast, fries with every carb-rich lunch, and Thanksgiving-size dinners every night.  Not to mention lots and lots of ice cream.

For the first week I let everyone revel in the summer vacation feeling.  After all, we were spending most of our time stuck in a minivan on the interstate.  We needed something to look forward to every few hours.  But now I’m faced with nine more weeks of living on the road in places where if vegetables even make an appearance on the menu it means canned green beans cooked to mushy perfection.

Last night I worked hard to keep my children, who love green beans from the farm stand, from making faces and calling the green mass they received at my insistence disgusting.  Although I have to admit that it was.

Today I was told about a great grocery store here in eensy-weensy Salome, Arizona that had wonderful produce.  Since this recommendation came from the New York ex-pat  who owns the funky motel we’re staying in, I allowed myself to get excited at the thought of broccoli or spinach or (dare I hope) asparagus.  By this point even the kids are excited at the thought of fresh vegetables.

We walked into the tiny all-purpose grocery, liquor, general store with hearts high and mouths watering.  I found plenty of onions.  Potatoes, too.  A few wilted stalks of celery.  Over-ripe peaches, green bananas, and some apples.

“Where are the vegetables?” my disappointed taste-buds wailed.  “We want cauliflower.  We want Brussel sprouts.  We want dark green leafy things rich in iron.”

“Be patient,” I cajoled them.  “We’re in the middle of the Arizona desert.  Fresh produce has a very different definition here.”

I put two bags of frozen mixed vegetables into my basket and dreamed of Kansas farmland.

I’M THE THIRD WHEEL ON THE BICYCLE

I’m feeling superfluous.

Today was probably the day we were most worried about.  Only three days out and Gene would be riding through some of the most barren, arid, sun-beaten desert we’ll pass through on our whole trip.  And even more distressing, there was that forty-five mile stretch between Brawley and Palo Verde with absolutely nothing, not even a rest stop, for him to get water.

He had the bladder, which holds a liter, filled with ice and three large water bottles.  But the way he’d been sucking down water on the first two days, we knew they’d never last the whole stretch.

We carefully planned.

He rose early to beat the desert heat and was on the road by 5:45am.  We were to follow at 7:15am so we could catch up with him around the thirty mile mark, after about two hours on the road, with three gallons of water and a cooler full of ice.

Imagine my panic when we awoke at 7:45am, a full half hour after we were already supposed to have left!  The kids ate breakfast while I loaded the van, but it still took me 45 minutes to get us all out of the hotel and driving down Route 78.

My stress level built with each mile of deserted sand dunes and each hour of unrelenting sun that had passed since he left.  The only thing we went by was a Border Patrol checkpoint, where the guards held back their contraband sniffing dog and assured us that my husband hadn’t looked dehydrated when he’d gone through there forty-five minutes earlier.

I breathed a sigh of relief but raced onward nonetheless, picturing him hallucinating and heading out into the desert on his bicycle to wander aimlessly until finally succumbing to the heat and leaving us to find his bleached bones months later.

I’m very good at creating vivid doom-filled fantasies.

When he finally appeared in our windshield view, there was much cheering and gathering of cold water bottles.

We jumped out of the car expecting an exhausted and water-craving man.  Instead we were met by good spirits and the information that he had plenty of water because he’d found a small place to refill his bottles, and his bladder was still contained half its icy water.

I was both relieved and disappointed at the same time.

I mean, if he didn’t need us today on this most grueling of rides where hydration could really mean the difference between life and death, why were we here?  We were supposed to be his support team, his link to water and sustenance, his spirit lifter when it all seemed too much for him.  Instead he was well equipped for all the obstacles that had come his way so far – mountains, desert, long distances, heat.  I’m very proud of him for how prepared he is for this journey.

Now I need to find my purpose and reason to be here.