Final Good Bye's! and New Journeys

As my date for leaving the ranch got pushed back and back and back and then back just a couple more days. I said my ends to many, Byes to others, and till again for a few lucky people. I had planned on a week ago this past Monday. I decided to wait for one last day to see one person and make sure I could give the last bit of encouragement, words of wisdom, and just a great thanks and proud goodbye. Well I got to do that and after emails back and forth earlier that day from the gorgeous girl in Belize about tattoo talk. That second planned final night in Arizona i run into good friends Ive seen all over, in and out of the bar. Pinky and Long John. And they just so happen to own the only tattoo shop i know of in Payson. So after Sondra and I's talk about getting sleeves and this just fell into my lap. Well I will go with the sign and go with it. We had one planned out almost two years ago. well one and half ago. to go get together. She was able to find it over a day and email it to me. Sense she herself is a gypsy and I myself. It was perfect. and at perfect timing. So this added two days to the next planned day to leave. As Thursday came to get some ink. I came to the shop little to late. As Long John was in middle of putting in some hours into someones half sleeve. So new plan, Friday 3pm to get me out on the road to catch up with Rosie for his birthday. Well Friday comes and while Pinky starts tatting me John see my unfinished back and said that would have been perfect for his apprentice to work and color on for free. "if he was still there" he quit Thursday an hour before i came in. That close to getting this 5 year outline finished. o well i had only real thing to get down and have it finished and put in its place for the rest of my life. Now this is just the first piece to mine and Sondra sleeve. As I am one up on her, to getting finished. LOL. sorry Sondra we will get you started when get here.

Vegvísir
Icelandic meaning
"if this sign is carried, one will never lose one's way in storms or bad weather, even when the way is not known".^[

Well Friday's plan didn't work cause I never heard back from Rosie with his address. So I left Saturday. Just funny how this is my point of not making plans. As i have not had one this whole trip and when I try, I can tell you they wont work. As like the one that I'm to be in NJ the first week of August. and never planned on being in Arizona for so long, not sure just how long but thinking back it had to be sense beginning of April. So I got to see Rosie Saturday, give him his Harmonica that we had talked about getting and learning to play the crap out of. We did some drinking at the Skunk creek Flats, apartment pool, Buffalo wild wings, saw TED, lol well i saw Ted. Rosie had a rough night as he was in a roll over and got road rash all down his right side and nice scalp patch on top of the his head. words of Rosie "I went bald in one day, on my birthday" he has me beat on that one. It took me a few years. Well Ollie and I headed out late from Phoenix and get out to Yuma before finally calling it a night. Rest stop how I Love You. Well we came straight into San Diego. And WOW how I don't miss any city life at all. specially when it is 5 lanes of traffic, ramps every where. and signs you cant read due to graffiti all over. After we cruised the beach from San Diego all the way up past long beach. It was time to call it again. and well with the fried out brain i was having i totally forgot about popping my Walmart cherry. Thanks again Sondra, for always looking out. where would i be. well with that it only took three walmart stops and 66 miles driving around all the city to find one that was able to work. and work. that's what this one was under. The first walmart had no parking lot. just a parking garage. which might work if i wasn't 90' tall. and the fact that you had to pay to park and go shop. the other one had really bad reviews on google maps. and they werent kidding about what they said was around. as we sat there for twenty mins in the parking lot. i cant explain what went on and all security guards driving around was the ending to my staying at this one. we headed for the hills of Los Angeles. seeing that they did have one up there. it has to be nice. maybe like self warming toilet seats. a guy to hand me towels in the bathroom with a nice mouth mint. So we pull in and awesome its under construction. I can manage. We fall into the back. and crash out. as tired as i was on the road. i finally get to just sit and deal and go thru all my thoughts. Well great they keep me up till 4am. and thank about comes first thing with a building under construction. the work starts at 6am. Holy Crap cant catch a break. four days and about 2hrs of sleep each night. We take off to the national park of Mount Baldy were my buddy Dave i meet in Key West that's out traveling,doing the same thing. Told me to go. They have great views. come to find out they have a ski lift that takes you up the mountain even higher to a restaurant. well everyone that told me were it was and how to get there forgot to mention that they are only open on the weekends. On our way up to the ski lift two girls in front of me car just blows smoke. like cheech and chong just took a bong hit. sorry cant find a proper reference for how it looked. I pull over with them and to lend a hand. I knew already when we were pulling over it was the coolant. just that sticky smell was in the air. So i pull out a gallon of water,pop the hood, and start filling it up. as about half a gallon goes in while the car is running it just starts coming from everywhere. top, bottom, sides of the radiator. It seen its last day of keeping pressure. no seal or eggs could clog up the places it was coming from. Well I'm sure they made it the 3 blocks down hill home. we left the ski lifts and went to a pull off trail for lunch. and once again was sad. we sat on the big river rocks eating chicken salad sandwiches with chips just ashamed by all the things people do to there back yard.  Every tree all the way up 16 feet was carved to death. every rock covered in  graffiti even after the rangers attempt to repaint the rocks to look natural.How they got up that high to carve there name into the trees is beyond me. I wasn't the only, as a gentleman came down to take pics and hiked down the river and only found the same thing for a 15min hike.

We decided that we would take the nice crazy S turn pass road over to Crystal lake. Ollie and my brakes wasn't all to thrilled by it but i was having fun carving the corners. we went from 4400 elv. to 790 and then crazy turns back up to 6400. Crystal Lake is not so much Crystal like they said. due to the fires and its a self feeding lake "POND" that is feed yearly by the snow melt run and rains. this is the time when it is to be nice. Well we decided to stay at the top and camp for the week. I did one thing wrong for two people and that was just give a heads up that we were going to the mountains and might not have cell service. and this usually isn't a problem but it came as a spur of the moment. and going from talking to one person 6 times a day thru email and the other every other day. and then MIA and them two talking to each other just made things a funny mess. Sorry you two. I almost wish that I was in jail for them to come up.lol jk.. Ollie wasn't a fan to go back on his cable. and i think this could have been due to the Key west problem. once clipped up he goes crazy at all the people just walking by. even at a distance. like he goes into crazy protection mode. a can then take him off and on his leash to go walk or hike and does fine. that is till we came back down to the beach. we left the mountains today to get in touch with some people and pay some bills online. i surely knew  would have alot of people calling, messages,emails/text, and o wait facebook stuff. what really drove us off was the fact of the ugly deep mountains in such a shameful wreck. and every day at 6am or so a new Mexican family would show up and found it necessary to play there Cinco SI music load for the whole park to hear. Now the music or people don't bother me. but how they think we all care to hear it and specially way up here in the middle of know where. one family I did go off on one morning. this being the first real night of sleep i got and was just way to much enjoying my sleep and wanting it to last. but hey really its 545am and there are other people here besides them. It did how ever save me from playing mine and having to restart my truck ever so often. plus it added a nice back ground noise for me to do much needed catch up reading. I have come to hate the fact that I have started 4 books and haven't finished one. So i was trying to plan on finishing one before I left. Oops there i go again making the plans. should have guessed what was really going to happen to that. I have been told this month is to be my money month and great things are to happen in the finical world for me. And this special day is to be on the 26th. and i know how all the things are going to turn out and the future on alot. so hopefully i will pay attention to all this and play it right. So I did how ever get a nice dent into my book. Jimmy Buffet "Tales From Margaritaville". almost finished up and onto finish up my god and man book. and torn between finishing one that really isn't a book or starting a book my great Costa Rica friends gave me. Assholes Finish First by Tucker Max. who also wrote hope they serve beer in hell.

Buddy that stuck around my last night at the bar

First view and beach of the West Coast

View atop Los Angeles at Crystal Lake

Ollie's first West Coast Sunset

Getting dinner out for me

trying to chase the sunset

Manhattan Pier sunset
1ST real sunset on the West Coast