ADJUSTED & UNDERCOVER IN THE TRUMP FEVER TENT

New Horizon

    There was more than one left turn as our friends Bruce and Judy drove us beyond scenic Jerome Arizona into Verde Valley Wine Country!  Yep, Arizona Wine Country! Who'd thunk it?!

   Their good recon work put us outside Cornville at scenic Page Springs Cellars.

    Judy is the undisputed queen of the picnic. Lana has been emulating her since an incredible repast in Red Rock Canyon country on a first visit many seasons ago.

    In cooling shade and near the Page Springs flow just off the nearby Oak Creek, the culinary magic happened again.

 Green white soup accompanied the cheeses, pate's, olives, fruit and more.  

    Arizona Wine Country offered up its own special charms as well.

   After a previous tasting we settled on a bottle of Vermentino as we sat near the budding crop.

   OK, full disclosure here. I was skeptical. After about a decade of living in the Paso Robles appellation, I guess I have become a "California snob," but winemaker Eric Glomski does a fine job. He did his training at a California winery and is helping to establish a burgeoning wine culture in Arizona.

   Page Springs Cellars is a lovely spot, featuring menu items grown in their nearby garden. It has lovely views and even a massage tent near the vines and the flowing Oak Creek.

    I belong to the school that believes wine is one of the great socializers of the world. Through history wine has been a source of collegiality. Most states now boast of wine growing and Arizona's adds to the virtues of The Grand Canyon state.

UNDER COVER IN

THE TRUMP FEVER TENT

    He and a couple of his pals decided to check out a Trump Rally in their Utah town. They were there to see the spectacle and to let someone know their sentiments, should the occasion arise. He's a sharp young business man, the son of dear friends. One of his buddies was a former newspaper colleague who we were told is uninhibited in his political expressions, especially his disdain for all things Trump.

    As fate would have it they were in the right spot as the  Trump goon squad began syphoning in a couple hundred folks from the some 3 thousand who had gathered in mass. In a moment they found themselves face to face with secret service and other security, being patted down and frisked before being ushered into a tiny theater. These would be hecklers were front and center. Our friend said his first impression was "Hate and racism are alive and well in Utah." 

    Clearly the trio was outnumbered and since they were not wearing cowboy hats and football sized belt buckles they were immediately targets of suspicion.  That is when his heart started to pound bit more rapidly. It ticked a bit more when the Trumpeters began handing out signs and banners as they spewed their Trumpisms. He said of course he needed to take one of the signs, not to do so might have landed him on the front page as another Trump protester being pounded by the Trump true believers.

    A few Utah right wingers and political sorts came to "warm up the crowd." This is when our friends son thought he might just end up pulp.  As a Congressional candidate began extolling the virtues of Utah and a piece of legislation he had backed, the young man's uninhibited friend began to heckle the speaker with a sign he had turned into a megaphone.  He said he could feel the force move, that would be the dark side. He sensed they were being surrounded by the Trump cowboys. His friend continued to heckle the speaker saying he was a sell out, a member of the establishment, part of the problem in government. He challenged him as not being a true Trumpeter. This was when the young man detected a significant shift in the vibe. Now the Trumpeters were giving the razz to the earnest Utah Republican who was eventually jeered off the stage as being an establishment lackey. 

     Ah, the poetry of it!  True Trumpeters, being led in the insurrection by a guy who had turned up to protest the Donald himself. Instead he was able to whip up this Trump Rally into booing out one of the few republicans willing to show up.

     As for Trump himself?  They decided just to listen. Our friends son said in his 20 minutes on stage it was more about show business, a kind of call and response. "We're going to build that wall!"  Massive response! "We're going to make American great again!"  Massive response!  And so it went.

The young man said he can't recall Trump completing one full sentence, or for that matter a full thought without jumping into some line that drew a response.  He said it was clearly performance.  But the rabble loved it. 

     It makes for a great dinner story. But it also makes for great insight. And so the Trump movement-moves.

     See you down the trail.

SPECIAL PLACES, PEOPLE AND TIMES

CATCHING THE CATS

    At home with the Catalyst and his buddy Blackwell. My longtime pal and mentor Bruce looks right, as his beloved Blackwell looks left. It is a special moment, being with dear old  longtime friends.

    

    The evening made even more special with this Indonesian feast prepared by Judy, aka SWMBO. We've been stealing recipes and food prep tips from Judy for a few seasons now. We are adding another page to the book.

     Bruce has blogged about our get together and you can find that to the right of this post in the Rich Blogs roll.

PRISTINE

      You are looking at a rare "pristine" culture of native species. This ledge, Arroyo Del La Cruz, is on the Pacific coast north of the Hearst Castle on route to Big Sur.
       It is one of the last patches free of non native and invasive vegetation. The shelf overlooks a secluded beach hidden to those who travel the famous Highway 1.

    It is an alluvium deposit patch of California begun in Lompoc some 95 miles south. Silt, clay, sand and gravel compressed and was moved by natural forces some 150 thousand years ago.

    Someplace near Lompoc there is chunk of earth that is a body double for this alluvium deposit.

    That mound in the frame below is a midden, a kind of refuse pile left by native residents centuries ago. Theories vary as to what tribe left the deposit-Salinan, Chalon, or Esselen. 

    See you down the trail.

BOLD MOVES

SIX YEARS ON

    A rest stop outside Bakersfield six years ago yesterday was the setting for our first sunset as transplants in transit. 
    Friends and associates were incredulous when a couple of boomers, rounding 60, pulled up roots and stakes and rode into the sunset, headed west where we knew no one.  Things like doctors, dentists, new driver licenses, where to shop, how to get there, finding friends, new climate and all the details of life were riddles.  It seemed natural to us, not as big a deal as seemingly everyone else wanted to make it. After all when we married we left for a spring and summer to explore Europe-two green kids on a mission of discovery. Later we built a cabin home deep in a rural woods despite my boss's warning  "every day can't be a picnic." Six years ago settling in California read well on our gyroscope.

     Six years ago today, when this frame was snapped, she was ready to begin what has been a creative renaissance. I have watched with pride. Art shows, awards, collectors and buyers, productivity and an artist's emphatic embrace of life.  Mine has been so much richer because of Lana and our exploration of the last six years. She has grown more confident and more beautiful.

     I suspect most of us are inclined toward habit and routine, following the path that is known and comfortable, allowing few, if any, surprises.  Settling in a new home in a village on the California central coast half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles is a guarantee against the routine of the previous life. 
     Please excuse the obvious self absorption of this post but we celebrate our "bold move," convinced it has provided renewal. The other night as I soaked in our spa, watching a meteor shower, hearing the buzz and zip of the cosmic sky show, overwhelmed again by thousands of light pricks in  the velvet depth of space, I thought of myself as a "Californian." I have become what my father did as a young lad, only to leave it to return to Indiana as his father began an ailing journey to death.  Dad always held to that piece of California in his youth, longing for the time when he could return.  That was to be the work of my generation.

      What sweetens this "celebration" are other people.

Notably, a couple of mentors who are coming for a visit this week.

    Bruce and Judy.  He was the experienced broadcast journalist who broke me in when I joined a metro news team.  She was to become his gracious wife who opened a world of sophistication, literature and kitchen magic to us.

    Free spirits, travelers who have taken life on their terms, they were "encouragers", "inspirations," certainly by example.

    And we note those we celebrate with-- frequently-

   Griff and Jacque.  They came for a visit in 2007.  They came back. And they came back.

    And now they live but six minutes away, just through the shire and a mere 100 steps from the Pacific.  They too, packed it up, abandoned mid western winter and what they knew. As Griff says frequently, "I get it!"

    None of us are kids.  We've reached a time when many seek the shelter of certainty, knowing pretty much "all there is to know," being confident "that is just the way it is, and so there."  But something in the transformation of the last six years has kept the dials moving, the channels open, the exploration underway, the learning as daily as breathing.  

    Attitude, lifestyle, examples, and much more conspire to make this bold move a good thing for us. I think a lot of it has to do with the fresh air and light.  I asked an artist/ neuroscientist if he thought the renaissance could have begun anywhere else but in the light of the Mediterranean south, which is the same as the light of California.  After much rumination he offered that "light works on the brain in wondrous ways, unlocking, perhaps, forces that impel or even compel creativity."

    A case in point is perhaps the ringleader.

    Doesn't this look like a pied piper capable of luring aging mid western boomers to the land of the Beach Boys, Eagles, Grateful Dead and Manhattan Beach Blue Grass, even if a few years on?  He did start early.

    High school friend and Ball State fraternity brother Jim began longing for California in 1968.  He made the bold move when we were still kids and quickly became a magnet that drew us for repeated visits, holidays, vacations and the birth of our own longing.

     On one of those early visits he drove us up the coast to Big Sur and the rest is, as they say, history-removed of course by rearing two daughters, careers, aging, and rounding 60! But he finally landed a couple more. And there is no way to say thank you, emphatically enough.

     Bold moves.  It just takes some of us a little longer to get there. But what a great place to be.  

     See you down the trail.