There are subcultures out here on the road that might be opaque or even invisible until you become part of them. At times, folks join these subcultures willingly. We did when we sold our home and most everything we owned and hit the road in Nell. We became “Full Timers” in the parlance of the retired RV owners who travel the country. The “50 Amp Vision Quest” that we embarked upon two years ago placed us smack dab in the middle and right on ground zero within the subculture of folks who live on the road. It’s a huge umbrella subculture that includes many other sub-subcultures of people who, though you can plainly see them, are moving parts of what otherwise are invisible planets of folks rotating around this brilliant sun called 21st Century America.
Labels help us file information in our heads. I guess it’s easier to have folks lumped into nice convenient categories we can pull up from our random memory brains. But what’s easier for the brain to assimilate also masks the infinite library of stories America creates all around us. We have the luxury now of time to observe and to participate in these sub, sub sub, and sub sub subcultures. (how deep should we go here? HA!) We are now members of a few of these subcultures. We fit neatly into these files while several more are immediately available to us:
Migrant Workers...you say you’ll pay us how much to push those Sugar Beets?
Camp Hosts...Hey, pick up after your dog, please!
Forest Service Volunteers...Here’s a pole saw, we need you to trim these Honey Mesquite trees. here’s your hat and Volunteer vest. Thanks a lot!
Musical Jammers...Come on down to Charley’s Corner this Thursday night from 6-8PM. Get there early to set up your amp and mic. You’ll like the players.
Allegro Bay Motor Home owners… So, after you replace the gasket in the toilet bowl, be sure you rotate and secure the lower Jimmy Socket...not too tight, though. You don’t want to cause a vacuum buildup. Then, you’ll have to hand bilge the black water over to your gray water tank and that can...well…
And there’s a few more we are members of.
There are also folks out here who live on the road not by choice. Mostly, but not entirely, they are older...50’s, 60’s, even 70’s in age. Some cannot afford to live any other way. They set up camp wherever they can for as cheaply as they can, utilizing Wal Mart parking lots where they can camp for free on their flights in between longer stays at their next camp site. Some work at an odd job here and there while others are not in shape to work mentally or physically. Some have no social security and no savings, no 401K. They move around the country when they have to and scrounge out a living somehow. There’s a lot more these folks out here than you might imagine. They say that there are going to be a lot more of them in the not too distant future. Somewhat invisible, they are here nonetheless.
One of the “permanent” campers here at Windy Hill camp site (during the winter months you can stay here for up to 6 months) told me an interesting story the other day. She was living here with her sister, but her sister left and has not been seen for months. She apparently has a gambling addiction and from time to time just disappears, apparently sleeping in her car and scrounging for food. Once in a while she reportedly shows back up in the dead of night seeking something, anything, she can sell for cash to support her habit. Once she won $20,000.00. Diane says that is the worst thing that can happen to you. The flush of newfound cash addicts you instantly. Few walk away without giving it all back plus over time. The last time I checked, Casinos were doing great business and the lights were all still on. The odds are not in your favor. Anyway, back to the story.
This person, let’s call her Betty to protect the identity, told me the entire story of here sister that I just relayed, but then she added to it. Betty told me that last year on a cold winter night over at Apache Lake her sister was out walking alone along the bank. Now, Apache Lake is a very narrow lake that is formed by the run-off of Roosevelt Lake as water passes through the dam. It’s officially the Salt River, but because it is also dammed up it has the name Apache Lake. These are the Superstition Mountains, ancestral home of several Apache tribes. In many places the banks of the lake are vertical cliffs several hundred feet high. It’s very dramatic, very beautiful, and a great place to canoe or kayak in the daylight. You travel a dirt road to get there and this same dirt road traverses the shoreline for at least ten miles that I know of. There is one campground there that I know of, but getting a motor home like ours down there might not end well. It’s too rough. This is black sky country. Few lights pierce the night sky. Stars are almost as brilliant here as they are in Big Bend National Park. You can see billions of years of creation everywhere you look in the night sky. The Milky Way pulls you in. You can almost feel its gravity.
While Betty’s sister was out strolling by the lake side, orbs of light began to appear. Curious at first, the sister was amazed at what was taking place before her. They seemed to be dancing, almost playing tag with each other. I’ve seen orbs of light like this in Texas that I mentioned earlier in this blog. They’re called the “Marfa Lights”, located near Marfa, Texas. What was first a curious and entertaining, if not non-threatening show, began to change. The orbs started to come at the sister. They were “attacking her”. Though silent, they flew purposefully at her, zinging ever closer to her while amazement turned to terror. She broke and ran. All the while she was running the orbs chased her like angry bees from a violated hive. Though she was never touched by them they flew close enough to her that she could feel...sense them all around her. It was a menacing feeling. The sister made it to her car and drove pall mall down the dirt road back to Windy Hill (where we are hosting) all the while the orbs chasing her car dodging and weaving down the rutted rock and dust filled road. Did these alien orbs cause the sister to suddenly develop this unshakable penchant for gambling? We’ll leave that to the therapist to decipher.
Betty tells me that she believes there are aliens who live beneath Roosevelt Lake. These are the self-same aliens who chased her sister that lonely night on Apache Lake. “Where else could they be hiding?” she asks me. “They say there are a species of aliens who prefer to live in water where it’s easy to hide from prying eyes.” Betty tells me. “Look right over there. They are probably down there in the deepest part of the lake. It’s over 100 feet deep right there. They’d have plenty of room to hide right there.” she rationalizes to me. I just stare at the water. I’m speechless.
Time travel with me to yesterday, three weeks later after my conversation with Betty about the aliens. Diane and I are out with Cindy and Dusty fishing in their pontoon boat on a brilliantly blue January day on Roosevelt Lake. Sometime in the early afternoon as I am looking up at the few wispy clouds that flit by I spy an orb of my own. This one is silver and it’s not moving. It’s hovering way up in the sky at some indeterminable height. I pointed it out to everyone on board and we all saw it. It was cylindrical like a can of soda, with a short, stick-like antennae thing coming out of the bottom of it. I could only determine this much when I looked at it through our binoculars. It wasn’t moving that we could figure. It seemed to just hang there in the sky. Was it a drone? Was it a weather balloon? We don’t know. What I can say is that it was there, we all saw it, and then, in one moment, it was gone.
I guess we can now add another subculture to our list that we belong to.