Category Archives: Days in My Life

I don’t just sit around and watch TV.

I Made It!

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I arrive at Howard Mesa for my summer vacation.

It was months in the planning. And, near the end, it didn’t seem as if I’d make it as scheduled. But on Saturday, June 25, I flew up to Howard Mesa with whatever gear I could stuff into Zero-Mike-Lima. Mike, with his pickup filled with purchases, Jack the Dog, Alex the bird, and the horse trailer with two horses, came up the slow way.

I left Wickenburg about forty-five minutes after Mike. I wasn’t in a rush. The idea was to get there before him, but with an estimated flight time of about an hour and an estimated drive time of 2-1/2 hours, I had plenty of time. It was a relatively smooth flight, but the sky was quickly filling with cumulus clouds. Unusual, given that it was only around 8 AM. I was sprinkled on just east of Paulden, but it wasn’t enough rain to get the bugs off my cockpit bubble.

There was also enough sun during the flight for me to sun my legs. I was wearing a pair of ratty gym shorts with my Keds. I hate getting a Keds tan — that’s when your feet are white and there’s a tan line across the middle of your foot. So I took off my shoes and rested my heels on the tops of the pedals. I was pretty surprised that I still had good control of the pedals, even with my legs stretched almost straight out. Not that I needed to do much pedal pushing. At 110 knots, it isn’t tough staying in trim.

I stopped for fuel at Williams, where the 100LL price is currently $2.89/gallon. That’s 40¢/gallon cheaper than Wickenburg. I took 38.3 gallons. The Airport Manager, George, and his wife came out to look at the helicopter. He wanted to help me fuel, but I insisted on doing it myself. It was cool and breezy and quite a pleasure to be outside.

George wants me to offer helicopter rides from Williams airport for the summer. I told him I probably wouldn’t because I only planned to be in the area 6 to 8 weeks and I had lots to do at my place at Howard Mesa.

I took off after 20 minutes and headed north. Valle’s Planes of Fame museum was having their semiannual War Bird Fly In and I heard the pilots doing fly bys chatting on the radio. Things got a bit tense when one of them called a Mayday, but he evidently resolved the problem because he kept flying. (Hell, it the word Mayday ever comes out of my mouth, you can bet I’ll be on the ground as soon as possible.)

Since I had time, I decided to do a little fly by of my own. Zero-Mike-Lima isn’t a war bird, but kids like helicopters and I figured that if any kids were there, I’d give them a little bonus. I got into the pattern behind something slow — slower than me — and had to cut power and pull back to avoid flying up his butt. He did a low, slow fly by on Runway 14, which is closed, and I followed him, trying to hang back so I would steal any of his thunder. Then I dropped down to about 50 feet AGL and, as soon as he was out of the way, pushed my nose forward, increased power, and zipped past whoever may have been watching. Then I headed south to Howard Mesa, anxious to get away from slow-flying airplanes.

Alex in his cageI landed on my gravel helipad near the trailer and shut down. Then I proceeded to do chores. Unlocking the camper, turning on the power and refrigerator, tuning in the stereo (presets get lost when you shut power), hooking up the water, setting up the pump, opening the gate, putting out the carpet. I was just staking down the awning when I heard Mike’s truck pull in. He unloaded the horses and other critters and I made him lunch. Then we put away all the things he’d brought: Alex’s big cage from the coffee shop, the cabinets I’d bought for the shed, and the tools I’d need to work over the summer.

It was after 12 PM when we headed down to Williams. I had a radio interview with Inside Mac and they had requested that I call their toll-free number from a land line. Since there’s no land line at Howard Mesa, we decided to take care of it in Williams, where we had some shopping to do anyway. I found a payphone in the Fray Marcos hotel, spent exactly 12 minutes on the phone with a guy who mentioned the title of my Tiger book, using the wrong title (“virtual” rather than “visual”) about ten times. Then we hit the hardware store and Safeway supermarket and headed back up to the mesa.

We have forty acres at Howard Mesa and one of the first things we did after buying the place was to fence it all in. It took about a mile of fencing and $8K to get the job done. It was done by Grantham Custom Fence of Wickenburg and they did an incredible job. The straight bits are perfectly straight and the fence is good and sturdy. We do need to make repairs now and then when the top wire gets damaged by an elk jumping over. My only complaint is that the corner posts are coming out due to the annual freeze-thaw cycles. Although Ty’s guys used concrete and dug each one in at least two feet, the earth squeezes them up a little every year. The fence is still sound, of course, but it looks a little weird in the corners.

The reason we fenced it all in was so the horses could run free. We call it the “salad bar” because as soon as they step off the trailer, they’re grazing. They love it at Howard Mesa, although the first night they were up here this year, they did get snowed on. They have a round pen here where we put their food and water, but the gate is always open. They come and go as they please. Right now, as I write this, they’re about 100 feet away, grazing.

Somewhere along the line, Jack the Dog decided that it was his job to keep the horses away from us. He’d wait until they were about 50-100 feet away, then tear off after them, barking. Cherokee, who is afraid of rabbits, would take off and Jake, not quite sure why Cherokee was running, would start running, too. It look a lot of yelling and rock throwing — yes, at the dog — to get him to stop.

Cherokee at CageMike spent the afternoon hooking up the camper to our septic system. It was a good thing he did, because the camper had been used for three short trips without being dumped and it was beginning to get stinky. I took care of things inside — putting away groceries, making the bed, cleaning things up. Two hot showers later, we had dinner at the picnic table outside the camper, with our horses and the San Francisco Peaks to admire while we ate. Cherokee decided to stand on the other side of the bird cage while we ate dinner. His head was about 2 feet from Alex. Alex was very quiet while Cherokee was there. Then Cherokee decided to sample the corn cob litter I’m using at the bottom of Alex’s cage. I think he likes it. We had to scold him and chase him off. Jake came over and watched us eat our corn. I think he was begging. It was very weird having the horses so close to us — less than five feet away — while we ate. I’m not sure how much I like it. Meanwhile, Alex has already learned to imitate the squeaky screen door. He makes the sound every time we open the door. I’m waiting for him to learn how to call Cherokee.

We watched the sun set and it immediately cooled down. It had been in the high 70s all day, with several isolated thunderstorms that had missed us by a few miles. Nice rainbows. When the sun set, the temperature dropped about 10 degrees in less than 30 minutes. We went in for the night because we were cold.

Sunday dawned with a beautiful cloudless sky. For a while, there was very little wind. We had a light breakfast and set about our morning chores. My job was to take the new weed whacker and whack weeds. I started with the horse’s round pen, which we use to feed them. The weeds were knee high in some places, but I made short work of them. Then I whacked around the camper and went after the tumbleweeds growing on the southeast side of my helipad. The tumbleweeds were young and fleshy and they splattered me with green stuff. Anyone who uses a weed whacker without eye protection should have his head examined.

Mike worked on the shed’s roof. Some of the shingles on top were loose and he wanted to seal them up with glue and special nails. he finished before me and spent a lot of time watching me go after the weeds. I finally stopped when the engine was out of gas. I was out of gas, too. And my right arm was so weak I couldn’t lift a glass of water to my mouth.

We decided we’d go to Flagstaff for the rest of the morning, but changed our mind halfway down the mesa. Instead, we’d go to either the Grand Canyon or Williams for brunch. We decided on Williams because we didn’t feel like dealing with weekend traffic at the canyon. Bad decision. We wound up in a terrible restaurant in downtown Williams. The food was only partially edible, the service was terrible, and the waiter was skeevy. And it wasn’t cheap. A learning experience, we agreed. We wouldn’t go there again.

We went for lattes in a coffee shop and I discovered that they had free wireless Internet. I’ll probably have a latte there tomorrow morning while this is sent to my blog server and I collect my e-mail.

Zero Mike Lima at Howard MesaBack on the mesa, we relaxed for a while before doing our final chore for the day: surrounding the helicopter’s landing area with a “fence.” We had some plastic fence posts designed to hold electric tape. We’d bought the whole system — complete with solar fence charger — as an option for when we went camping with the boys. But we’d since used the fence charger and some of the tape to surround the chicken coop and keep our neighbors dogs and coyotes out. We had these posts and plenty of tape left, so we used them to make a perimeter around the helicopter. The idea is to keep the horses out of the landing zone when the engine is running. Our horses respect fences, so we knew it would keep them out. We just weren’t sure how well the posts and tape would hold up to rotor wash.

We got to try it out a few hours later. I was keeping Mike’s truck with me at Howard Mesa, so I needed to take Mike home. Let’s see…two hours round trip by helicopter or five hours round trip by truck? Tough decision, huh? Mike waited outside our little fence while I started up, warmed up, and brought it up to 100% RPM. The fence held. Mike climbed aboard and we took off. The horses watched from 150 yards away. Cherokee looked very confused.

We had a quartering headwind for most of the trip home, so it took us the full hour. Mike offloaded his stuff and put a few things from the hangar on board for me. I took off for the return trip with a quartering tailwind that brought my ground speed up as high as 144 knots. Yee-ha! I got back to the mesa in about 45 minutes.

As I came in for my landing, I looked for the horses. They were about 100 yards from the landing zone. When they saw me coming in, however, they took off running. Unfortunately, they decided that the safest place was their corral, which was about 50 feet from my fenced-in landing zone. They stood by the gate and watched me set down. I think Jake recognized the big red thing that had been parked there all weekend and had left just two hours before. I waved at them. When I killed the engine, I got out and talked to them, then got them some alfalfa. They forgot all about scary loud red flying machines.

I’ve done my chores for the evening and taken a walk “around the block” with Jack the Dog. The sun set about 20 minutes ago and it’s starting to get cool. I’m wearing long pants, a long sleeved shirt, and a sweatshirt. Mike, who called a while ago, says it’s in the 90s back home. He’s watching the Mets/Yankees game on television and says the house is weird with no animals or other people.

To me, Howard Mesa is weird with all these animals but no Mike.

On Old GPSes and New Activities

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I discover geocaching and plan to take it to the extreme.

Years ago — I really don’t know how long — I bought a Garmin GPS 12Map. At this time, it was hot stuff. It was one of the first 12-channel receivers, which means it acquired satellites quickly and managed to hold enough of them in transit to be useful. It had a grayscale screen with a moving map. It had about 1.4 MB of memory, which you use to store detailed maps, so that detail would be available when you were using it. Although it didn’t talk to my Mac, it did talk to my PC. I downloaded Garmin maps into and uploaded waypoints and routes from it to another, more detailed software package.

I used it a lot. This was before I seriously got into flying and I had my Jeep, which we used to take on back roads once in a while. We’d load up the maps for where were were going and take a drive. We always knew exactly where we were and could consult the map to find our way in or out of a location. We also knew the names of all the land forms and other named places we passed.

I also used it for horseback riding. The GPS had an automatic tracking feature. I’d start it up, clear the track log, and attach it to my saddle, antenna side up. It would faithfully record every twist and turn in the trail. When I got to a gate, I’d mark it as a waypoint. Then, when I got back to my office, I’d upload the route information to the mapping software and display the horse trail on a topographic map. Do that a few times on all different trails and, before you know it, you’ve mapped all the trails on a topo map. Cool.

Although I stopped using the GPS regularly, I never really stopped using it. (Not like I stopped using my Palm or my Newton. But let’s not go there, huh?) Most recently, back in September, I pulled it out, loaded a few topo maps into it, and took it on a driving trip on the north side of the Grand Canyon. (I’m pretty sure I wrote about that trip in these blogs somewhere, probably in the “Travels with Maria” category.) Basically, any time I plan to take the Jeep off pavement, I bring the GPS, loaded with appropriate topo maps, with me. I have mounting hardware in the Jeep and a cable that provides power to the GPS. So as long as the engine’s running, I don’t have to worry about batteries.

For the record, I don’t use the GPS to drive from point A to point B on paved roads. If you need a GPS to do highway or city driving (“Turn left here.”), you really shouldn’t be driving. Take a cab or hire a chauffeur. Or ride Greyhound, and leave the driving to them. Or learn how to read a damn map!

Now, five or more years later, my GPS is outdated. Sure, it still does what it always did, but there are so many more GPSes out there with so many more features and so much more power. Color screens, more than 50 MB of memory, more waypoints, etc. For the past year or so — actually, every time I take out the GPS and use it — I think about how nice it would be to store 100 topo maps instead of just 4 or 5. That would certainly save a lot of trips to the PC in my office, just to load up maps. I could load all the maps I normally need and have that detail every time I went out.

But I don’t use it all that much and I can’t really justify the expenditure of $400 to $500 for the latest version of a “toy” I already have. (Hey, at least I could write paying articles about the iPod Photo.) So I haven’t replaced it.

Then I discovered geocaching. Wow, what a silly sport. Person A takes a weatherproof container that can be as small as a film canister or as large as an ammo can and fills it with trinkets like tiny stuffed animals, keychains, stickers, and beads, adds a small notepad with a pencil, marks it as a geocache, and hides it somewhere. He then takes the GPS coordinates (several times, to make sure they’re right) and publishes them on a Web site like www.geocaching.com, along with a name for the cache and a description or hints. Person B, having nothing better to do with his time, gets those GPS coordinates off the Web site and looks for the cache. When he finds it, he removes one relatively worthless item — perhaps the keychain — and replaces it with another relatively worthless item — perhaps a pin-on button. He also makes a note or two in on the notepad and then, when he’s back in front of his computer, he logs his find.

It may sound easy, but it isn’t. I went in search of one yesterday, just to see if I could find it. Named “Airport,” it was on the side of the road, not far from Wickenburg Airport. We zeroed in within 40 feet, stopped the Jeep, and got out to look. Unfortunately, our wet winter had resulted in tall grass and weeds that are now dead and likely hiding places for snakes. We arrived not long after sunset, while it was still dark, and cautiously searched the brush. At one point, my GPS told me I was within 4 feet. But I just couldn’t find it and I wasn’t prepared to push aside dead grass to look harder for it. So we let it go. I’ll try again another day, when I’m better prepared with a stick, a gun full of snake shot, boots, and gloves.

What I like about the idea of geocaching is the challenge of it and the fact that it forces you to go outdoors and explore off pavement. This alone is a good reason for people to do it. Think of all those mall walkers, trying to get exercise by walking in the mall. Now take off their walking shoes and replace them with hiking shoes, give them a GPS, and tell them to find a cache. They’re still getting exercise, but they’re breathing fresh air. They’re also seeing trees and bushes and grass and sky and maybe a few animals rather than whatever’s playing in mall shop windows. And there’s no Starbucks to lure them in for a mochachino. The terrain may be a bit more rugged and not suitable for some of the less steady folks, but I think it could work for lots of people. And even if they don’t find it, they’ll still probably have some fun.

I can imagine it now: five women and a man aged 60 to 75, out in the desert on a trail. They’re wearing sweatsuits that they bought in Wal-Mart, one of them has a sweatband around her head, and another has a walking stick she bought at the Grand Canyon. One woman, the tallest, is holding the GPS up, looking at it through the lenses of her half-frame glasses. (She got the GPS away from the man early on, when it was clear to her that he couldn’t program it.) “It’s this way,” she announces, pointing to her left. The group starts walking.

But seriously, it seems like an interesting activity and a great excuse to get outdoors.

Of course, I’ve started thinking of making it really challenging, not by hiding the cache in tall, potentially snake-filled weeds at the side of the road, but by placing it in a location that’s difficult to get to. A location with no roads or trails. A location that — you guessed it — is accessible by helicopter.

I call it extreme geocaching and it’s for people who need an excuse to go beyond the boundaries of civilization, to places no one ever goes.

All the cache locations would be within a mile of a Jeep-accessible road, but there may not be trails to get to them. It would take real skill and determination to reach them. But it would be worth it, not only for achieving a difficult goal, but for the destination itself. You see, the GPS coordinates wouldn’t take you to a bush or hollow tree. They’d take you to an interesting site with ruins, abandoned buildings, swimming holes, or hot springs. Someplace to explore. And you wouldn’t find dime-store novelties in the caches — there would be stuff with value, like current maps, books, flashlights, CDs, and gift certificates.

There would, of course, be a safe helicopter landing zone within a quarter mile of each of the caches. That would make extreme geocaching the perfect helicopter sport.

Of course, I feel pretty silly talking about extreme geocaching when I can’t even find a metal container on the side of route 60 just outside of Wickenburg.

Anyway, if you have an interest in geocaching, visit the Geocaching Web site. You can enter a zip code near the top of the Home page window to search for caches near you. I was amazed to find that there are about 6 of them within half a mile from my house. (We’ll take the horses out to find them when the weather cools down a bit.)

And if you live in Arizona and want a real challenge, keep checking in here. I expect to establish my first extreme geocache later this month. Use the comments link for this entry if you have any suggestions for what the cache should include. Keep in mind that my budget is $100.

Return of the Toyota

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My 1987 Toyota MR-2 returns to Wickenburg for an oil change.

“The oil pan is damaged,” the oil change guy in Prescott said. “I can’t change the oil.”

“Can I see?” I replied.

He escorted me to the secret underground chamber where the oil change guys who do the under-the-car stuff perform their magic. Everything was covered with a thin coat of oil that slicked up the bottoms of my Keds. I looked up at the underside of my 1987 Toyota MR-2 and marveled at how old, rusty, and dirty it looked.

“There,” the oil change guy said, pointing.

Pointing was not necessary. The oil pan was clearly bashed in. The bash was at least six inches across and four inches wide and probably reduced my total oil capacity by a pint. I was lucky it hadn’t bashed about two inches farther back, where it would have bashed off the drain bolt. Or that the rock that had done the damage hadn’t bashed right through the metal.

I pulled out my digital camera and tried to take a picture, but the battery was dead. Figures. How often do I get a chance to photograph the underside of one of my cars?

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to get the plug back in,” the oil change guy explained. “Sorry.”

We climbed up into the garage and he pulled the car back out into the Prescott sunshine. He took out the paper floor mat and plastic seat cover and left the car there for me to take away.

I went for a second opinion, pretending I didn’t know anything about the bashed in oil pan. A few minutes after they pulled the car into the garage, the shop manager came out looking upset. “I hate to break this to you,” he started.

“My oil pan is bashed in,” I told him.

“You know?”

“Sure.”

“Well, we can’t change the oil.”

“Because you’re afraid you won’t be able to get the plug back in,” I finished for him.

He looked stunned. I was a mind reader.

I drove off, now just about out of time. I’d gone up to Prescott to drop off my helicopter for service and had spent the day shopping, filling the Toyota’s passenger seat with all kinds of things. The oil change was my last task of the day. It had been over a year and 1,000 miles since I last had the oil changed and I didn’t want the car to feel as if I was totally neglecting it. (I got it washed last time I drove it, two months ago.) But no one would change the oil and now it was time to go back to get Zero-Mike-Lima.

I’d have to get the oil pan fixed. I wasn’t about to do that in Prescott. I’d bring it back to Wickenburg to the only mechanic the MR-2 loves: Dan.

But not that day.

I offloaded my purchases at the airport and stuffed them into Zero-Mike-Lima, then flew home.

This past weekend, Mike and I drove up to Howard Mesa to drop off our camper. We were supposed to have our shed delivered (again) but the holiday weekend made that impossible, so it was postponed (again). But on the way home, we had to drive right past Prescott Airport, where the MR-2 lives. Mike dropped me off and I hopped into the MR-2.

“Surprise!” I told it, as I removed the sunshades.

As usual, it started right up. I love that car.

We had dinner at a new Asian fusion restaurant in Prescott that I can’t recommend. The scores, based on a scale of 1 to 10, are as follows: Atmosphere/Decor: 8; Service: 3; Food Quality: 4; Value for Dollar: 5. We can cross that one off our list.

Then we drove home.

Now there are two ways to get from Prescott to Wickenburg. We call them the curvy way (White Spar Road – route 89) and the straighter way (Iron Springs Road). Mike wanted to go the straighter way, but we were in town, closer to get to the curvy way. It would have taken 15-20 minutes just to get to the other side of town. So I voted for the curvy way, presented my logic, and won. I led the way.

Now the Toyota may be 18-1/2 years old and it may have 132,000 miles on it and it may also have its original clutch, but it was born a sports car and it hasn’t forgotten how sports cars are supposed to perform on curvy roads. And I certainly haven’t forgotten how to make that baby perform. We took off on White Spar Road, settled into second gear, and screamed around every one of the curves. Fortunately, there was no one in front of me — I hate passing on double yellows (just kidding, officer!) — so there was no real reason to use the brakes. Just keep those RPMs up and let the engine do all the work. I had a blast. And I beat Mike to Wilhoit — fifteen miles down that curvy road — by about three minutes.

God, I love that car.

I waited at the side of the road in Wilhoit for him, then let him pull out in front of me to set the pace for the straight part of the drive. He set a quick pace: about 75 mph. The MR-2 handled it nicely. I’m glad he kept it below 80, because I’ve noticed a serious increase in fuel consumption when the speedometer needle moves past that 12:00 position on the dial. (Yes, 80 mph is straight up on that car’s dash.) The stereo, which had been tuned into a classic rock station based in Prescott, stopped picking up a signal, but the Scan feature locked in on a Dewey/Humbolt-based station that was playing late 1970s disco. I’m talking about We Are Family, Kung-Fu Fighting, Copacabana, and other big AM-radio hits from my early college days, when my tastes in music were somewhat confused by the Top-40 thing and my job at a retail clothing store. Although the stereo’s two back speakers are dead and I have them turned off, I still cranked up the volume so I could reminisce while driving 75 mph into a high desert sunset.

For the record: I don’t like disco. But listening to it for short lengths of time does bring me back to a simpler time of life, when I only had one car to worry about (a 1970 Volkswagen Beetle that would never be reliable) and having $20 in my pocket made me feel rich.

I started smelling something weird at Kirkland Junction. Engine smell. Now the MR-2’s engine is behind the passenger cabin — it’s a mid-engine car — so I don’t usually smell the car’s engine problems. I figured it was the car in front of me, which was Mike’s truck. I got a little worried about it, but there didn’t seem to be a problem because he was keeping up his pace, probably listening to some blues music as loudly as I was listening to disco on crummy speakers.

On one of my glances in the rearview mirror, I noticed some brown splashed on my back window. Shit. My MR-2 was bleeding.

I checked my gauges. Everything was fine. But the smell was still there and there was definitely some kind of fluid splashing up from the engine compartment’s vent onto my back window.

I flashed my lights at Mike’s tail end. He was grooving with the blues band and didn’t see me. I slowed down. I wondered if my cell phone would work up there. Then I came around a bend and saw that Mike had also slowed down. He started to speed up, but I flashed him again and pulled over. I came to a stop behind him on the shoulder and turned on my 4-ways.

“My car is bleeding,” I told him, stepping out. “I’m afraid that if I shut off the engine it won’t start.”

“Pop the engine lid.”

I did as he instructed.

“Oh, shit,” he said. “Turn it off.”

I turned it off. “What is it?”

“It looks like those guys who were going to do the oil change didn’t screw the cap on tight,” he told me.

The engine had been spitting oil out the filler cap, probably for the past five or ten miles. There was oil all over the top of the engine.

Fortunately, the cap had wedged itself on top of the engine. He got a paper towel from his truck and came back to the car, then pulled out the cap and screwed it on tight. Then he closed the lid.

“Start it up.”

I started it.

“How’s your oil pressure?”

“Low, I told him. “But it wasn’t low when I was driving.”

“Rev it up.”

I revved. The pressure needle climbed.

“It should be okay,” he said. “Keep an eye on it. And keep your RPMs down.”

We continued on our way. He kept his speed down to just around the speed limit. My oil pressure looked good. The radio station switched from disco to 50s rock. Ick.

I left the Toyota in the parking lot next to Dan’s place. Dan has a gate at his place that he locks at night.

Let me tell you about Dan.

Dan used to run a car fix-it place in Wickenburg called Dan’s Automotive. Mike and I took all our cars to him. He’s always been able to fix them and he doesn’t charge an arm and a leg. More than once I went to him with a stupid little problem when Mike was away — the kind of thing where someone knowledgeable about cars will just look at or listen to, adjust one thing, and the problem goes away — and he worked his magic on it without charging me a dime. He’s a laid back kind of guy, the kind of guy that Mike and I can deal with.

Then Dan sold the place to someone else.

I won’t mention names because I don’t have anything nice to say about the buyer. I continued to bring my cars to him. The Toyota was first. I had a nasty vibration at around 55 miles per hour that couldn’t be fixed with a tire balancing. He did something to it, and it seemed to be better. Then he asked if I’d ever had the timing belt replaced. The car had over 120,000 miles on it and I had to say no. He told me that the belt could go at any time and then it would be a costly repair. Changing it now could save money down the road. I bit and told him to change it. I also asked him to fix my air conditioner, which hadn’t worked right in about eight years. Four hundred plus dollars later, I got the car back. The air conditioning worked. But the car didn’t drive right. It had no power at all until I got to about 4800 RPM. Then the power kicked in. It was very noticeable in the lower gears. I brought the car back to him and told him about the problem. He had it for a few days and claimed to have fixed it. But he didn’t. The car now drove like shit and I was heartbroken.

I took it back up to Prescott. Every time I flew up to Prescott and drove the car, my heart ached. It had always been a sporty thing, one that was such a pleasure to drive. Now it drove worse than the VW Bug I’d had in college. And when I had a passenger on board, the added weight made things even worse.

To further add insult to injury, the air conditioner didn’t work very well, either.

Then we discovered that Dan had taken over the car fix-it place across the street from his old place. The guy he’d sold Dan’s to was not only a poor mechanic, but he was a poor businessman. He didn’t include a Covenant Not to Compete in the purchase agreement for Dan’s. Now Dan was back in business.

I brought the Toyota back down from Prescott to Dan at his new place and told him my sad story. “It’s breaking my heart every time I drive it,” I told him. “Please, please look at it and see what you can do.”

He did better than that. He fixed it. It appears that the timing belt was off by two notches. He set it the way it should be and the car was back to its fun-loving, tire-screeching, curve-blasting self. Woo-hoo!

So it was to this wrench-wielding hero that I brought the Toyota. I stopped in this morning to tell him why it was there.

“You know my Toyota loves you, don’t you?” I began.

He just smiled at me, probably wondering how such a wacko could be left roaming the streets.

“I tried to get the oil changed,” I said, “But they told me the oil pan was bashed in.”

“It’s been bashed in for a few years,” he told me. “You just have to work a little with the plug to get it back in.”

“Well, then can you just change the oil? And give it a look-over to make sure there’s nothing else wrong with it?”

“Sure.”

We talked a little about “restoring” it. It’s a kind of dream I have. Fixing it up so it looks like new. After all, it’ll be a classic car in just another six years. He was very non-commital, probably because he was wondering how such a wacko could be left roaming the streets.

“No rush,” I told him. “I’d like to have it back by Friday. It’s spending the summer in Williams.”

He promised to have it finished by then.

Now I’m thinking about the family photo I want to take: all my red cars and my red helicopter, together on the ramp at Wickenburg.

I’d better call the detailers. The Toyota and Jeep can really use a good cleaning.

As for the Toyota’s air conditioning, it doesn’t work at all anymore and probably never will.

June 3 Update: Apparently, the oil pan’s condition is worse than Dan thought. (I guess I bashed it a few more times since Dan last saw it.) He had to order a new oil pan from Toyota. Special order — can you imagine? So the Toyota will have at least one shiny part this summer. And this will be a costly oil change. Guess I won’t be driving it to my place on Howard Mesa anymore.

Where Would YOU Rather Be?

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A quick comparison of temperatures.

I’m a Mac OS X 10.4 user. Dashboard, a new feature of the operating system, enables me to display, with a push of a key, “widgets” that look up information on the ‘Net. I’m a weather nut, so I have the Weather widgets set up to display when I press the F12 key to display Dashboard.

Here’s what two of my Weather widgets look like right now: Now can you see why I prefer to spend my summer at Howard Mesa, just 35 miles south of the Grand Canyon, than in Wickenburg?

Weather

It’s 103°F. In the shade.

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The “indoor season” begins in Wickenburg.

In most places, winter is the “indoor season,” the time of year when you want to spend most of your time indoors. But not in Arizona’s Sonoran desert.

I remember my first New Year’s Day in Arizona, back in 1997. I’d gone “down the hill” from Wickenburg to a K-Mart in Glendale to buy a pair of cheap bar stools for the apartment I was living in. I wore a T-shirt that day without a jacket and wasn’t the least bit cold. This is great, I remember thinking, conjuring images of the folks back home.

Cold winters were the reason I left New Jersey all those years ago.

Will hot summers be the reason I leave Arizona?

It’s a dry heat. Sure. But it’s still heat. 103.8°F (that’s about 40°C for you metric folks out there) at 2:35 in the afternoon is killer, no matter how dry it is.

And — for Pete’s sake! — it’s still only May.

I don’t remember the heat affecting me this badly years ago. Back in 1997, in May, we were just starting our house hunt. We’d finally sold our home in New Jersey early in the month and Mike and Spot (now deceased) had joined me in Wickenburg. The other half of our belonging arrived by moving van and we rented a second apartment in the Palm Drive complex to store it and set up our offices. Then we started making the rounds with Connie, our Realtor, who spent the entire summer showing us every home available for sale, no matter how poorly it matched our list of requirements.

I still remember walking up driveways and walkways and around houses in the summer heat, getting more and more depressed with every outing, but not really feeling the heat. Was that a mild summer? Or had my thin blood welcomed the warmth after so many fickle East Coast summers?

To give you an idea of the mindset of people where we’d come from, when we told people back home that we’d bought a new house, their first question was, “Does it have air conditioning?”

What the hell do you think? I felt like replying. Do you think we’re idiots? That we’d buy a brand new house without air conditioning in a town where summer temperatures routinely get into the triple digits?

Phoenix temperatures make big news in New York. New Yorkers love to hear about how hot it is in the summer here, the same way people in Arizona love to hear about how cold and miserable it is in New York in January. Of course, I’ll take a 103.8°F on a May day in Wickenburg long before I take an 80/80 day in New York. (That’s 80°F with 80% humidity.) A typical forecast on a summer day in New York would be the “3 H’s” — that’s hazy, hot, and humid. Ick.

But if that first summer wasn’t bad, things changed. It seemed as if every summer became hotter than the one before it. We bought blinds for the three big 8 x 4 windows on our second floor and they stayed closed every morning (and most of the afternoon) from equinox to equinox, just to give our air conditioning units a fair chance at keeping up. I made the fatal error of leaving my purse on the dashboard of my car one day while it was parked in the driveway. My credit cards, slipped into their individual slots in my wallet, melted flat and would no longer make an impression at the store. Thank heaven the magnetic stripe still worked.

Two years ago, it was unbearable to me. That’s when I realized that any outdoor activity had to be completed by 8 AM (at the latest) and the rest of the day had to be spent in air-conditioned comfort. Air conditioned house to air conditioned car to air conditioned office to air conditioned car to air conditioned store to air conditioned car to air conditioned house. Get the idea? The windows go back on the Jeep in mid May and it’s sealed up tight, just so the air conditioning worked better. Better yet, don’t go out at all. After all, it takes at least ten minutes for the air conditioning to cool down a hot vehicle. And heaven help you if you have black leather seats or fail to shade the steering wheel when you run into the grocery store.

Last summer, I had some relief. I worked as a pilot up at the Grand Canyon. My schedule was 7 days on and 7 days off, although I normally worked a 6 on/8 off schedule. I lived at our Howard Mesa property while working. It’s about 15 miles north of Williams (as the helicopter flies) at an elevation of 6700 feet. The heliport at the Canyon was at 6300 feet. High altitudes make a big difference. I don’t think I experienced a day above 95°F while I was up there. And when I came home for my week off, I spent every day in my office, cranking out the books that pay the bills. The summer seemed to fly by (no pun intended).

This summer, I’m going back to Howard Mesa. I have one more book to write and it’s due on June 15. With luck, by June 20, I’ll be up there with my camper and my horses and my bird and my helicopter. I have a big project to work on this summer — converting a 12 x 20 shed to a cabin with a bathroom and kitchen — and a book project to work on in the evenings. I think this is going to be a killer summer and there’s no air conditioning at Howard Mesa, but I think (and hope) I’ll be able to deal with it for the two and half months I plan to be away.

I’ll cheat Wickenburg’s indoor season the right way this year, using the same cop-out the snowbirds use: I’ll just leave town.