Night Shower and Hitting The Road

My time at the Slabs has come to an end.  I spent most of yesterday getting ready for my departure today.  I took breaks and time out to talk with people.  I didn’t want my last full day in Slab City to be nothing but a grind of packing and organizing, so I wasn’t as fast or efficient as I might have been.  But it’s ok.  It will all work out.

I had originally planned to leave yesterday, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to give myself one more day.  Nobody knows what next year will bring.  Will this be my last stay at the Slabs?  With that question in mind I’ve been paying more attention, trying to memorize the smell of the desert wind at night, the scatter of stars, the way the darkness makes the space out here seem endless, the sense of wildness and mystery at the edge of the firelight, and the feeling of safety in the little circle of my fellow Slabbers as we sit around the fire and tell stories.

One of the things on my to do list was to have a final shower, but somehow I never got around to it.  Then it was sunset and the fire had been started, and it was important to be there for my last night.  The last couple of nights there has been a furious firefight going on at the gunnery range on the other side of the canal as the Navy Seals train.  The chatter of automatic weapons fire is punctuated by deep, thumping booms and flurries of red tracers streaking across the horizon.  These came from teams on the ground, but there were also airships firing down at targets, streams of tracers aiming down and then ricocheting  up to make a V of flying ammo.  It was quite an entertaining show.  And it’s about time my tax dollars gave me some entertainment!   I’m told those exercises were happening less than 2 miles away from where we sat in our camp chairs, which was a sobering thought.

After most folks had gone in for the evening I excused myself and came back to KD to keep working on packing.  I’d already packed away most of the dishes and cookware.  I am concerned with keeping weight off the tongue, so I don’t leave the kitchen loaded up when I’m towing.  Those bins went into Goose, along with food I won’t be needing on the road.  I left some basic stuff so that I could still make coffee and a simple meal in the morning and on the way home, but much of it has been packed away.

I did some more work, packing my Crosley Trio stereo, and a set of multi-colored LED candles that seemed like the height of foolishness when I bought them but turned out to be loads of fun, entertaining everyone who sat at the table with improbable colors and goofy effects.  I got my clothes rounded up and put back in the duffles so they could be used as weight balancing ballast, and then I started regretting not taking that shower.  I really didn’t want to wait until morning.

Well, I didn’t have to!  KD has a light in her bathroom now, which is finally almost completely finished.

There’s hot water, and Mr. Heater will help dry me off if needed.  So I checked the water level in the tank.  Rut roh!  It was looking pretty low.  I’d already taken one shower using that tank and washed a couple loads of dishes along with the usual hand washing and random water running that happens every day.  But not to worry.  I had another 28 gallons in containers, although it meant I’d have to go out and put the aux water intake into one of them and turn the valve.  

I decided to go ahead and do it.  That way I wouldn’t have to deal with taking time to shower in the morning, as well as the time it takes to clean up and dry out the bathroom before putting it back together.  So I did.  It was my first nighttime KD shower, and it went swimmingly.  The light worked great and the water was hot.  I had 7 gallons to luxuriate in before the container was empty, but that’s more than I needed.  I feel so much better

The gunnery range is finally quiet as I write this and midnight slips by, but a long freight is rumbling off in the distance, blowing the horn at regular intervals and the sound is mournful and lonely.  There are so many posts I wanted to write.  So many things I intended to do.  I wrote some of them, some of them are still in draft form and hopefully will get put up in the next week or so.  Some of the things I wanted to do I did, but it’s a rare adventure where everything goes as planned.  But it’s OK.  I'm done packing and almost ready to hitch up, then hit the road for home.  And that will be its own adventure.