I spent most of Sunday washing and doing minor fix-its on the trailer.

That trailer, I love it to pieces, but what a hassle sometimes.

And it’s not the actual vehicle that’s the problem. No, it’s the dealer I bought it from. Googlers, watch out for Dan Gamel RV. They can’t find their ass with both hands; why I expected them to be able to, you know, register my trailer is beyond me. It’s not like that’s something a dealer does every day now.

I bought the thing in October. It’s used, a ’95 model, and I think I got a decent price for a dealer. Only shafted a little versus a private sale, but they do financing, and I wanted that.

So about in April, I started to wonder where in the hell my registration was. That thing was sitting in front of my house with expired tags. So I checked the paper temp registration they taped in the window, and it said it was only good for 90 days.

Oh, that’s not good. I called the DMV first, to see if something was pending, and they said no action had been taken to register it in my name.

Crap. So I started calling Dan Gamel. Couldn’t get competent help to save my life. After I finally got transferred to their corporate offices, I thought everything would be fixed. But no. Apparently they had lost my paperwork, and had no idea what to do. They wanted me to bring the trailer in so they could do a VIN verification. Uh, no. I’m not taking a whole day off to drag that thing down to a dealer two hours away from me to fix their screw up. I suggested that they could just send someone up here to look at it.

Well, that never happened, and they never bothered to call me and tell me it wasn’t going to happen, so I started to get a little pissed. I finally got someone to agree to let me read off the VIN over the phone. I don’t think that’s legal, but what the hell? They should have had it done when the trailer was on their lot.

So another month or two go by. I’m giving them time to get the registration through the DMV. Then I started getting suspicious again, and called the DMV myself. Still no action. By now, not only has the tag expired, but the actual registration, which was for one more year than the tag said, has expired too. So I’ve got a truly useless trailer out on the street in front of my house. I can’t take it anywhere; why am I paying the big bucks for it?

I got pissed. This damn company will refer you all over their phone system without actually giving out phone numbers or full contact names. I finally got a sympathetic operator to forward me to what I hope is a general manager, and I laid my story on him, emphasizing the uselessness of the trailer, the lack of help on their end, and my general state of pissed-offedness.

I think that may have had some small impact, because later that day, I got a phone call (finally!) from some person in charge of registering vehicles. Of course, she claimed to be new on the job, but had tracked down some of my paperwork. Seems the previous moron had thought my trailer was an out of state vehicle, which it’s not, and the whole VIN verification rigmarole was completely useless. Oh, and they may have found some paperwork, but apparently not the actual registration. So this new girl has overnighted something for the previous owner to sign to release it (boy, I bet he was surprised when he got the DMV bill for it this year!) and with any luck they can push it through.

They better, because I have every intention of going camping next month.

My old trailer was more useful than this one, even if I could see the ground through the bathroom wall. What’s a little dry rot compared to incompetent boobs?

The boys just called, and they’re almost home.

Good time for coming all the way from Eureka. They’ll have no problem getting home, swapping horses, and making the Firebaugh roping.

It’s been a long couple of days though; eight hours up there last night, sleeping in the trailer, roping in the morning, and getting out of there and hauling ass home. And all for nothing; Cowboy missed his steer and Chris broke out.

I think they’ve decided to quit trying to hit those far northern rodeos. It’s not like they’re fighting for one of the top spots. They’re in something like 26th place in the team roping, and they haven’t been doing any good. It sucks up a lot of money to keep doing without winning. They’ll go to the closer rodeos, like Merced, Turlock, and Mariposa.

Now, at a roping, their luck is different. Usually one of them comes home in the black. But they can go more times per pot, and there are several pots per night. I think this one is a pick one—draw two, which means they designate a roping partner in each pot and the computer draws the other two, usually based on their roping numbers. And I think there are at least three pots tonight, so I expect they’ll go a minimum of nine times each, and not necessarily together. Sometimes they’ll go in for more partners, especially Chris, since jackpot ropings are usually a little short on heelers.

Anyway, I wish them luck, but I’m not going to drag the kids down to watch tonight. It gets a little boring for the short attention span set, and it will be too dark to play with the camera.

One more north state trip though, and that’s next week. There’s a major jackpot roping up in Taylorsville, a town where Cowboy spent a lot of his youth. They’re going up on Thursday, and Dennis and I are driving up to meet them on Friday.

Dennis has really got into the roping. He’s been working really hard on throwing a loop correctly ever since I met him, but hooking him up with Cowboy was the best thing for him. We have good horses there that will teach him to rate, and he’s been out there every night with us. He started just chasing them out of the box—I’m not even there yet myself, but I am starting to chase them from the side lines. Then he started roping them, but not dallying, then with dallying, and now he’s starting to turn them. It’s all coming together for him, but then, he’s put a huge amount of effort into it.

Jeff had wanted to learn to rope, and came out a few times with us last year. Cowboy said he’s willing to teach people as long as they are willing to pay attention and learn. He’s not out there for his health, and teaching someone cuts into his own roping time.

Well, it became clear pretty quickly that Jeff didn’t want to spend the time to learn it right. I took him aside, since he’s my friend, and told him that if he doesn’t listen, nobody’s going to waste the time on him. And then what does he do the very next time, but take a rope into the box with him when all of the experienced ropers told him that he wasn’t ready for it. He didn’t come back. He’d rather get into something that doesn’t take effort to be impressive—the motorcycles are a good choice for him.

But Dennis has given up all the partying in order to spend time roping. The guys really have a lot of respect for him, and say he’s doing really well. He’s passing on the traditional 4th of July lake trip to go just watch a roping, although I do know that he was getting as tired of the party crowd as I was when I met Cowboy and left it. He and I had been talking already about just knocking it off already.

So now he’s got himself hooked into a hugely expensive sport—expensive in time and money. But he can use our horses and JR’s all he wants; probably even to rope in a jackpot when he’s ready for it. And he’s doing something he loves; not just faking it for the image like certain other of our friends. I’m proud of him. I’ve always thought he reminded me of Cowboy (well, more like Cowboy reminded me of Dennis, since I knew him first;) they’re both good people.

I’m incredibly lucky to have two men like that in my life. Well, no, three; my Dad has a lot of the same qualities. I’m lucky to have found a man that much like my Dad too.

We roped until past dark last night, and it was very eventful, what with assorted horses throwing fits and kids running around and all.

But what was really interesting was sitting around at the barn after we put the horses up, drinking beer and telling stories.

Now, I’ve heard some of these stories before, but they’re good enough to hear again. As I was sitting there, I kept thinking that I might not be the only one to get a kick out of them. I’m going to have to ply the main players with beer and set up a tape recorder so I can capture their language, which is half of the flavor.

For a little background, these friends of mine pretty much all grew up together in our small town. Roughly 20 years ago, they used to go hunting practically every weekend. Most of them ran dogs, and hunted varmint and bear at night.

Here’s a little player introduction, to keep them all straight:

Dennis: He’s one of my closest friends and hunting partners. He doesn’t have hounds any more, but used to, and used to work as a paid hunting guide. He’s currently learning to rope with us, and tells the best stories.

JR: An ex-marine, JR’s a respectable construction foreman now. He used to run as wild as the rest of them. He actually owns the place we keep the horses at.

Randy: Randy’s the only one of the bunch that still runs dogs. He’s got a septic tank service, and hunts varmints almost every night, and bear in season. Randy’s a kick; a typical slow-talking good ol’ boy, but as kind as you could ask for. He’s got three kids, one grown and hunting with us now and two little ones.

Big Owen: Now, Big O’s the subject of most of these damn stories. Strong Body; Weak Mind could be his life’s motto. I haven’t actually met Big O, since he’s currently a guest of the 0klahoma State Penitentiary system. Big O was somewhat less than literate, strong as an ox, and had an odd sense of humor.

Charles: Charles is Big O’s brother, and was almost as wild. He’s settled down with a daughter and a wife, but still has a crazy streak. I don’t actually know him very well.

Anyway, sitting around last night, the conversation turned to Big O stories. I’ve heard one often enough to relay it from memory.

One night Randy, Dennis, and Big O were out hunting bear.

They didn’t happen to have a strike dog at the time, which is a dog that rides on the hood of the truck and can catch the scent of a bear.

So they had a lawn chair arrangement stuck out from the front bumper. The only lights on the truck were the downward-pointing fog lamps, and the truck was just crawling along one of the dirt roads up in the mountains.

Dennis was sitting out on the chair looking for bear tracks crossing the road. If they found a fresh set, then they’d stop and turn out the rest of the dogs and see if they had a chase.

It was cold and dark, and Dennis had been out there a few hours. Your mind starts to go a little numb at that point.

Apparently, Owen’s little wheels were a-turnin’. He very quietly (and that was a feat itself, since Owen was almost 300 pounds and usually crashed through the brush like a rhinoceros) opened the truck door, while it was moving, and snuck out of the truck. He tippy-toed his big ol’ self up the side of the hill to ahead to the truck.

When he got in front of the truck (remember, it’s dark), he leaped out into the center of the road with his arms waving in the air, and let out a huge “Groarhhh!!”

This scared the bejeezus out of Dennis. He levitated up out of that strike chair straight up onto the truck hood. Next thing he knew, he was spread-eagled on the windshield of the truck, clutching his heart with one hand. He knew Owen and Randy were in the truck, so had no idea what that monstrous thing was. And Owen looked pretty monstrous on a good day, but in the dark waving his arms out of nowhere and screaming, he looked like some sort of Sasquatch.

Randy and Owen were laughing so hard they pissed their pants. Dennis, not so much. But the rest of us do every time we hear it.

Look what I found yesterday:

I pulled up to the well, where a construction crew has recently dumped some road base material. I saw this:

I knew something was up, with her doing the broken wing dance, so I looked really carefully where the two of them had been when I got there.

I found this cleverly camouflaged in the rocks.

I looked them up, and I think they’re common Killdeer. They certainly sound like it. We have them all over base, but the nests are just depressions in the gravel, and the eggs match almost perfectly, so they’re hard to find. And being in gravel leads to getting run over. This nest is out of the way and on a pile. Only three of us go out there, and I don’t think the other two will be doing any four-wheeling. So unless the construction crews decide to grade the road, the eggs are safe.

On the rare occasions that I’ve seen them before, someone has marked off the edge of the nest to keep people from driving on it, either with rocks or a traffic cone. We’ll all be careful if we see them. Silly birds are all over the place, but we like them, and it’s really special to find the nest.

Happens maybe once a year.

I was having a photography-filled day yesterday.

I’ve been seeing incredible green colors on my drive, and wishing I had my film camera with me. Yesterday at lunch, I remembered to pick it up. So on the way home, I stopped and took some pictures of a rice field and an alfalfa field. The greens are calling to me. There are so many, and they’re so intense right now, that I can’t resist them.

I used up the rest of the film at the arena. I got a good picture of Angus being a cowdog, and maybe some of the boys roping.

I really need to find a good quality digital that I can bring with me everywhere. Mine is pretty old for a digital camera, and it doesn’t hold very many pictures. It’s fine for work, and comes in handy when I want to snap a picture of eggs real quick, but it doesn’t put out anything that I can print with a decent resolution.

I can’t have too many cameras, can I?

Oh, how cool is this?

This site has USGS aerial photos and maps for much of the country, and it’s searchable.

Here’s Cowboy’s house.

It’s the funny foot-shaped plot in the middle. Straight north of where the buildings are shown will be the little pasture, and that’s where my garden is now. The bare area in the photo is already equipment yard. The dark spots are the eucalyptus trees. South of the buildings is where the arena and horse barn are going. The west side of the plot is in cotton now, for the last year, and will be fenced pasture next year.

Here’s my house, although it’s marked wrong. I’m the next one to the east. Yes, it’s a little town, but I’d rather live in this one.

This is where I grew up. None of those roads on the far west side of the photo were there when we were kids. That park was just barely a park, and west of it was a giant abandoned vineyard that we used to play in.

And here’s work.

Marci sent me the photos from our Great America trip last week. One or the other of us is usually prepared; this time it wasn’t me, as I forgot the camera.

Seamus and Jam showing off the results of their snack (pure sugar, but blue to make it interesting.)

John and Thomas having a blast. I love that those two boys have become such good friends. Just because their moms are, and they get thrown together a lot, doesn’t guarantee that they would. We just got lucky. They buddied around the whole day, and went on most of the rides with each other.

That’s Seamus in the foreground, and I think it’s Jam in the back. The big boys didn’t want to have anything to do with this picture. Why, I don’t know. What’s not to love about Cosmo and Wanda?

We had to coerce Jam and John into this one too. Thomas is apparently a bit of a ham, and Seamus is just fascinated with cameras.

And the final picture before they all got tired and wouldn’t take any more.

I do wish I’d had a camera with me. I would have loved to get Seamus’ face when we got soaked on the water ride—he just thought that was the greatest. Or the kids in the candy store, or Thomas on the scary rides.

They had a great time, and I may have to revisit my philosophy of one theme park per ten years.