On the move

Yuma, Arizona to Buellton, California on Sunday. It was a long hot drive but we made it. We stopped at Anderson’s Pea Soup where we had their famous pea soup and a salad then spent the night in their parking lot. The pea soup was too salty for my taste and in the morning it sat heavy upon my stomach. Anderson’s soup in the can is much better than what is served at their restaurant. The bread they served, a cheesy white bread and pumpernickel, weren’t very impressive either.

In the morning we headed up the coast toward Santa Cruz where we picked up a friend going to Marin County. We also stopped at a couple of roadside veggie stands and bought some Swiss chard, sweet onions, and garlic to sauté and toss with pasta, and some sweet corn and artichokes. From there we hit the 17 to 101 again and made our way over the Golden Gate Bridge and into Marin County. We dropped our friend off downtown and made our way to one of the small boat docks in Loch Lomond to park and sleep for the night. We stayed in Marin for three nights while we rested, took care of some business, hit the county library for some books, and planned our next route.

From Marin we traveled through Tahoe and Carson City and at the time of this writing we are outside of Lovelock, Nevada. My partner, Mike, is taking a nap before we head off again, north toward our next destination, Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho. That is where Mike’s father lives. Mike hasn’t seen his farther for fifteen years or so. They both moved around a lot at that time and somehow lost track of one another. They reconnected a year ago and have been talking on the phone regularly and now it is time we traveled to see him. He is 81 this year and it is important for Mike to make the trip and spend some time with his father.

While in Yuma, Mike saw his mother. They have been estranged for the last year and he was hoping that a visit would bring them back together but it didn’t, it only served to complete the break. His mother is a manipulator; she uses her money as a way to control people in her life. She is also an alcoholic and sometime drug user. She is also clearly bi-polar with very distinct and rapid mood swings. She will control you or she won’t allow you into her life. She treats Mike as if he was still twelve years old and would prefer that he stay single and by her side the rest of her life, or the rest of his, whichever comes first. She gives gifts to others only to take them back if she doesn’t get her way and she can be vicious in her attacks, even when she has another do the attacking for her. An example of this is a message left on my cell phone recently. She doesn’t do her own calling but has friends call for her demanding that Mike call immediately. As I already mentioned they have been estranged for a while now and Mike calls much less frequently than he once did. She wants him to call at least twice a day, every day, and when this stopped she grew furious. She considers it my fault that he doesn’t call, she blames me saying that I am controlling him and keeping him away from her. The message on my cell only reinforced this thinking of hers. She had her friend call to threaten me with bodily harm if I did not have Mike call immediately. My phone hadn’t been on in a month so I didn’t hear the message until after Mike and I got to Yuma and stopped in to see her friend. This woman was all sugar and sweetness while we were there and telling us all the rotten things his mother had been up to lately. She was on the outside of Mike’s mother’s circle this week because she refused to do her bidding the week before. Once the visit was over and we were back at our motel I turned the phone on and listened to the messages and this is when I heard the threat. My blood ran cold at how menacing and calculating his mother could be. I could hear her voice in the background feeding words to her friend who spouted threat after threat at me over the phone. Mike listened to it and tried to assure me that it was all just words with no intent to back it up but the damage was done. Whatever happens in the future between Mike and his mother there can never be a truce between his mother and me. I have saved the message to my phone and will record it onto my laptop to save. Should I receive another one of these messages I have told Mike that I will make a police report.

So, now I am up to date on our travels and what is happening with us to date. I will continue to post as often as possible given the absence of ready internet access. We will be in Idaho sometime tonight. We will stay a week or so before we head south and east toward Kansas our next planned destination.