After too much time cooped up in the boonies in my camper, I get back to civilization.

I woke up to another beautiful Arizona day. The storm that had soaked and snowcapped the state the previous week was long gone.

I checked the map and realized that the road I was near — Bush Highway — wasn’t really close to the one I needed to be on — Beeline Highway — to get to Fountain Hills. Oops. No matter. Instead of having a 20 minute drive, I’d have a 40 minute drive. It wasn’t like I was in a hurry. My destination was the big art show in Fountain Hills where my friends Janet and Steve were showing and selling Janet’s paintings. They’d been just about rained out on Friday but Saturday had been a good day for them and that day, Sunday, looked like it might be good, too. As long as I got there before 10 AM, I’d likely find a parking space for my rig. Other than that, I was in no hurry.

Mother Nature treated us to a nice sunrise. That’s Four Peaks again in the distance.

After a light breakfast, I packed up my grill, which was about the only thing I’d taken out, and headed out. My biggest challenge was getting my camper pointed down the narrow road I needed to be on; it took several moves to make the turn.

At the gate, I had to unlock it and get it opened to leave. Someone was waiting right behind me and I was very happy to see him stop and close the gate once we’d both pulled through.

Wild Horses

Rather than double back toward Phoenix, I decided to continue east along Bush Highway until it met up with Beeline and then head west from there. It was a very pleasant drive with great views of Four Peaks and other snow covered mountains.

It wasn’t long before I started seeing signs indicating that I was in a wild horse area. From road signs to signs painted on the road itself, I was repeatedly warned that there were wild horses around. I looked. I didn’t see any.

Until I did. About a mile or two short of Beeline, at least a dozen horses in all horsey colors grazed on a hillside near the road. People had stopped with cameras to take photos. If the parking situation had been a little better, I probably would have stopped, too.

Wild horses have become a bit of a problem in the west. You see, unchecked, their populations explode, with herds all over the state. I knew from flying in Arizona for so many years exactly where I could find them: along the Gila River west of Chandler, along the Verde and Salt Rivers east of Phoenix, west of I-17 not far from Prescott Valley were just three places. I’d also flown over them in remote areas of Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, California, and Washington. I’d even been hired by the Yakama Nation to help them round up horses the previous spring.

While there’s some sort of romantic notion that wild horses belong in the west, there are clearly too many of them. In Washington, on the Yakama Reservation, their populations grow beyond available food supplies, leaving them to die of hunger during the late summer and through the winter. They’re also competing with cattle for grass and water, which isn’t a good thing for the cattle industry. Although some groups are able to round up and auction off some of the horses, that’s an expensive proposition and there aren’t too many people who want a wild horse.

What’s the answer? In my opinion, population control through sterilization. I’d hate to see the horses shot — although there are apparently people who think this is a viable solution. But because all solutions cost money and money can be really scarce to fight problems like this, it’s more likely that nothing sufficient will be done and the problem will continue to plague the west.

Anyway, I didn’t stop so I don’t have photos. Sorry.

At Fountain Hills

The community of Fountain Hills seemed to be still asleep when I arrived at around 9:30 AM. I drove into town on the main road until it ended with a road block for the Art Show. Then I turned right and slid into some curbside parking on an otherwise empty street. I figured I was about 3 blocks from where I had to go.

Penny and I cut through a few parking lots until we homed in on Janet and Steve’s rig parked in a private parking lot right off the fair area. Steve was inside, getting ready to go. Janet was already at the booth. Steve pointed. We went.

Most of the booths were still closed up, although a few showed some signs of opening. The event started at 10 AM but Sundays are usually a slow start day because so many people go to church.

I watched Janet finish opening her booth. She had a single booth at this show because of its high cost. Rather than fill it with both her acrylic paintings on feathers and oil paintings on canvas, she’d stuck with her feather art, which seems to sell better anyway. Her booth, as usual, looked incredibly professional with its solid gray panel walls and other display components.

When Steve joined us, we walked the show together. It was huge. About 75% of the booths were open at 10 AM; they were all open by the time I walked it a second time more than an hour later. In general, the quality of the work on display was pretty darn good, although there were a few too many buy-and-sell vendors. (Honestly, I counted four vendors selling the same damn ceramic garlic grater under different names.) I should mention here that there were actually three shows: the main show Janet was part of and two much smaller “scab” shows that set up nearby to grab the same crowd. And there was quite a crowd; by noon the place was really buzzing with shoppers.

Here’s a look down the Main Street of booths. You can see the fountain in the distance.

I came very close to buying a mobile of fish made from silverware but controlled myself. I did, however, buy a refrigerator magnet of a Volkswagen Beetle for a bug owner friend of mine. I got some ideas about displaying my own jewelry at shows and a few ideas for making various jewelry pieces.

After walking the show twice, Penny and I took a walk around the “lake.” Fountain Hills is famous for its fountain, which is one of the tallest in the world and goes off every hour on the hour (weather permitting). I used to take my helicopter passengers to see it if the timing was right on one of my Salt River tours out of Deer Valley or Falcon Field years ago. I saw it shoot off twice that day. The walkway around the lake — which is really just a big pond holding water for the fountain — was 1.2 miles long and we did it at a brisk pace.

The fountain at Fountain Hills around midday on Sunday, February 24.

Penny, by the way, had become quite a celebrity. Several people wanted photos of her. Others called her Toto. Too many asked what kind of dog she was. I finally told them she was a Quincy Terrier and let it go at that.

It was nearly 2 PM when I was done with Fountain Hills. I said goodbye to Janet and Steve and headed back to the truck.

Back to Gilbert

Meanwhile, I had been in touch with Jan and Tiffani, my friends in Gilbert. Jan was recovered from his cold. They wanted me to visit. Tiffani put out two carrots: a shower and laundry. How could I resist?

On the way to their house, I stopped at Sprouts and Trader Joe’s to stock up on a few items I was unlikely to find elsewhere. Sprouts had those Cutie oranges I’m addicted to for just $1.99/bag. I bought two bags.

When I got to their place, they weren’t there. They, like so many of the people who lived in the Phoenix area, had gone for a closer look at the snow. Now they were stuck in rodeo traffic in Apache Junction. They texted me the combination to their door. I went in, checked on their dogs and cats, threw in a load of wash, and then retired to poolside where I very nearly fell asleep in the sun.

When they got back, we relaxed together and separately while watching and not watching the Oscars. Jan had gotten the 16-inch telescope we’d gone to look at during my January visit. He’d had his backyard observatory modified and a mount installed for it. Now he was working on calibration. Tiffani liked to spend evenings on the back patio, reading on her tablet. While I watched the Oscars and followed it on Twitter, the two of them came in and out, mostly to refill their wine glasses.

When it was all over, Jan bought The Favorite on Apple TV and Tiffani and I watched it. I agree that the actress who played Queen Anne deserved an Oscar. But what a disturbing movie!

The next day, Jan went to work and Tiffani and I ran errands. We started off in Jan’s Corvette, which Tiffani told me to drive since she doesn’t like driving on freeways. We dropped Penny off to be groomed at PetCo. Along the way, the car was making a weird rattling noise, like something was banging around by the front driver’s side tire. Tiffani said she thought they’d had that fixed.

So we took the car home and she called an Uber to take us to Scottsdale. We picked up medicine for her cat, than walked a half mile to a restaurant I’d eaten in the previous year, The Mission, which is in touristy Old Scottsdale.

Along the way, Tiffani explained the difference between tourists and tourons. They were easy to distinguish; tourons act like idiots, blocking the sidewalks so they can get photos of themselves in front of things like cactuses.

We had an excellent lunch at the Mission, eating outside on the covered patio. I highly recommend it, especially the guacamole made table side by someone who apparently makes guacamole all day. Tiffani tried to get the server to give her the check, telling her it was my birthday. I denied it and begged for the check since Tiffani was Ubering us all over the valley. The server compromised: she gave me the check but also gave me a free dessert for my birthday. (For the record, my birthday is in June.)

From there, we took another Uber to PetCo to pick up Penny and then back to Tiffani’s house. I promptly went into the bedroom for a nap and managed to sleep through their Chinese takeout dinner, which was okay because I was completely stuffed from my huge lunch.

I should mention here that the main reason I was staying a second day is because I had applied for an art show in Litchfield Park and the woman who was in charge kept promising she’d be in touch to let me know if she had room for me. This had been going on for two weeks now and the show’s setup date was the upcoming Friday. I’d called and emailed her several times and although she never replied to the email, she made only promises of future contact on the phone. I didn’t want to nag her, but I also didn’t want to be 100 miles away when she finally called and told me she had room for me. So I was delaying in the Phoenix area just in case she got her act together and called. But it didn’t seem like that would happen and I was pretty much done waiting.

We had another relaxing evening together and apart. Jan showed me the Orion Nebula through the telescope and I couldn’t help but wonder how incredible the view would be if he had darker skies. Tiffani read her book on the patio. I watched jewelry making videos on their ginormous TV.

In the morning, I stripped the bed and threw the sheets into the washer with the last of my laundry. Jan made us breakfast. By 9 AM, they were leaving. By 9:30 AM, the guest room bed was remade and I was stepping out the front door with my laundry. I locked up and headed out for the next stage of my travels: more roughing it along the Colorado River.