Imagination

I grew up listening to radio. When I was little boy in the 60s I listened to a little battery powered transistor radio for hours and knew all the words to all the popular folksongs that made the early 60s so damn annoying.

Then as a teen in the 70s I discovered real old time radio. There was a station in Cleveland that would play the old radio classics from the 30s and 40s for one hour each week. I waited all week for those show on Sunday night. I would get good and stoned and put on headphones in order to not disturb anyone and loose myself in stories from a different time.

Listening to radio drama takes imagination. I think we are lacking in imagination, with excellent movie special effects and music videos predigesting our ideas for us so we don’t have to use our brain for anything more complicated that trying to decide which useless thing to buy next.

Lately, I have been listening to Radio Classics on satellite radio. I listen for about 3 hours a week and still am amazed at how much I enjoy the cheesy dialog and the transparent plots. One of the things that I hear now that I don’t remember ever hearing before are the commercials.

Smoking was REALLY big back then, when even doctors would recommend their favorite brand of cancer stick. Oil companies that no longer exist were sponsors of very popular shows, and automobiles were becoming fashionable and stylish at the same time, creating a trend that we are still trying to recover from.

Today commercials are still selling the same old concepts started in the 30s like “New and Improved” and “Buy our stuff for just one week” and “Keeps a cleaner engine”.

A lot of the old radio personalities went on to become movie and television stars. A lot of radio shows went on to TV, like “Twilight Zone”, and “Gunsmoke”.

The heyday of radio was the formative years of modern entertainment, like a child growing into a teen or a dog learning what it means to bark, teaching those that would entertain us just what we want and how to get rich giving it to us.

Those were the days.

Suckey

Due to the truly suckey nature Internet in “America’s Campground”, I have been out of contact for a while now…

The network in Rawlins, Wyoming blatantly refused to let me in, while the one in Boulder Colorado was slower than hell when it worked at all.

The one in West Yellowstone would only give you access if you walked down to the laundry room and logged on while you listened to the dryers running. You could sit outside the laundry room, but in the rain it was cold and wet, not the best way to play with electrical devices.

My park in Pojoaque, N.M. has no Internet at all, as I have commented on before.

I am too damn cheap to buy one of those broadband wireless cell phone services. It would be nice, but I already pay for 4 lines of cell service with bells and whistles and don’t want to add another $50 to $60 a month to that bill.

I am hoping that soon I my project will start and I will have internet access from the other office. I have been told that it will have a phone and DSL, so maybe if I am a good boy I will be able to use my computer after hours.

Geekings and salivations from Boulder Colorado.

We left West Yellowstone on Thursday morning. It was a beautiful day, with the fog on the river and the sun trying to peek in on us and help us on our way.

We went from Yellowstone to the Teton National Forest. It was beautiful as well, with the leaves changing and the road taking us to new and more beautiful places after each turn.

After that, things went downhill rapidly.

Wyoming has to have the dullest scenery of anywhere I have been. Even the cracked lands were better than this. No self respecting tree would live in this windblown land. I endured about 5 hours of this, so anxious to leave that I damn near ran outta fuel before stopping. 30 mile an hour winds did nothing to help us.

Ol' Faithful

The first day in Yellowstone was mostly looking and driving. The Mrs. was driving because I need a break. I was looking because I like to look.

It’s interesting how different she and I are. She is fascinated by every bit of wildlife and I am more interested in the geological things that make this place so unusual.

She wanted to get photos of bison, and at one point hiked a way just to get a shot of one that was alone in a meadow.

Less than 30 minutes later there was another one 30 feet from the road, posing for the cameras and showing off. We saw many, many more, making for a happy Mrs. Troll. She soon became bored with the bison and wanted to see a moose. She was forced to settle for an elk and his harem.

Let me just say that I still think I smell hydrogen sulfide from the geysers.

I was quite surprised at the amount of people at Old Faithful. The development around the geyser is impressive with at least 2 huge gift shops, feeding places and huge hotels build around the landmark.

It seems like it should be The Town of Old Faithful.

Today I plan on letting Mrs. Troll sleep in and taking it a bit easier.

We have decided on a different route back which will effectively give us an extra day in this lovely place.

Driving Miss Breakfast

The third day of driving was pretty damn uneventful.

The highlight of the day was a decision to stop at a casino for a late breakfast and a much needed break.

I ordered steak and eggs, which shocked the Mrs. I am not a fan of steak and it is seldom that I order it, but at less that seven bucks for the meal I figured that I had nothing to loose. I often pay more than that for Huevos Rancheros, and there is no steak in that.

It was damn good, that breakfast. It got even better when we were undercharged.

That breakfast held us both well until we got to the park just six miles from the West entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

This RV Park is only open for a couple of more weeks. It is the end of the season and things are quiet and cool. The staff are busy little park beavers shutting everything down and putting things away for the winter. It’s like I died and went to Trollheaven.

This is my first time in Montana and I think it is beautiful.

Can I keep it?

The Cracked Lands

Leaving Ouray was much less stressful than the previous drive. The roads were wide and smooth and gently downhill. A wonderful thing for me because I had not slept well at all due to dreams of falling to my death down some mountain valley.

We left Colorado and entered Utah on I-70. I learned that this part of Utah is nothing but miles and miles of…..miles and miles. I soon dubbed this “The cracked lands” because something was always cracked. Landscape, roadway, signs, all were cracked in some fashion. We quickly became cracked ourselves, passing the time by telling bad jokes and generally having a good time.

We did not stop unless necessary until Provo.

Provo might be a nice town. I would not know. We seemed to have ended up in the more industrial area with a train that made its presence known at 4 AM and sounded like it was passing just feet behind me.

We left early.

The Drive from Hell

How I Thought I Was Going to Die on My Summer Vacation

The Mrs. arrived at my trailer site at about 11AM on Friday, yabbering on her cell phone at her work and making weird gestures at me from the safety of her car. (Some people can’t seem to talk without hand gestures.) We were both excited about our first vacation in years.

We actually got off to a good start. The weather was fine, we were both in good moods just to be getting on the road, and life was good.

We were taking a route that she had taken before with her Mother and Grandmother. She guaranteed that the scenery was the very best and that it was a lovely drive. She forgot, however, that things can be perceived differently when you are dragging four tons of portable home behind you.

We were going from Santa Fe NM to Ouray Colo. What I did not know is that this route (550) takes us through three mountain passes and that the road in places is not very wide at all. At times this road was just barely two lanes, no shoulder whatsoever, and a sheer drop of what seems like miles.

I am scared of heights. I am not making things up when I tell you that there is NO shoulder and no guardrail and a drop of literally many hundreds of feet just inches from the wheels of the car. A stone falling from the edge of the white line would easily roll/fall for a fifth of a mile in some places. I was scared shitless. My seat now has a permanent imprint where I was gripping it with my ass cheeks.

We drove past a monument to the lives lost in the making of that road. It did not make me feel any better.

The last twenty something miles was seriously downhill, with warning signs that look like they are sideways because there are so many turns and switchbacks in the road. When you are towing a large something that is rather top heavy, you pay attention to those yellow suggested speed signs, and I do not recall seeing one that was faster than 15 miles per hour.

It was a long and very stressful drive that I will not repeat.

Of course we did not find the campsite that we had planned on, but I just happy to get out of the truck and decompress. I was still shaking after dinner and a beer. Then I discovered that I parked too close to the signpost and we could not make use of the slide out room.

We left very early the next day.

Destination; Provo, Utah.

Don't Give Up!!

I am alive.....

As I type this, I am six miles from Yellowstone National Park in Montana.

What a long strange trip it has been.

I have tales to tell, but this is the first Internet access I have had in a long time.

I will be here for a few days, so I will be able to post my adventure soon.

Hugs to some, nods to others, and a single finger salute to all the rest.....

Passionate

I drive past a sign twice a day and every time I see it I wonder just what it really means.

In huge, bold, red letters it says, “Passionate for Jesus”.

I think that this concept can be taken many ways; far too many ways to for me to leave it alone.

Are they really passionate for Jesus? Do they offer themselves sexually to a person dead for two thousand years. Do they lay awake at night fantasizing about carnal knowledge of their Lord and Savior?

Creepy….

I can imagine using this concept to create some kind of sex cult, throwing huge orgies in the name of Jesus and having public deflowering of virgins on the stage for all to see. Giving yourself to God takes on a new meaning in their eyes and the truly devout offer themselves to Jesus in ways that we don’t want to think about. The ‘inner church’ performs sexual screenings and devotions on alternate Wednesdays, and bingo prizes are sex manuals and silly rubber adult novelties.

They exorcise venereal diseases with a bath of holy water mixed minister spooge. The orgasm is considered the holiest form of worship and a sure sign of a person’s commitment to God.

But this is just my imagination.

I think that this congregation might want to consider changing the sign to something a little less enthusiastic and maybe just say, “We Love Jesus A Lot”. As soon as you use the word passion, it makes things seem a little weird, like taking upskirt photos of seven year old girls weird.

There are already enough religious deviants in the world. We don’t need to give ‘em ideas.

There are enough weird things in the world already.

Like my imagination.

Scrotum of the Goat Eater

There are a lot of weird tales of New Mexico, but some of the strangest are the tales of the Goat Eater.

The Goat Eater is a creature known to most New Mexicans. He is used as a cautionary tale for young children and wayward husbands. He is most commonly called “Chupacabra”.

Here is a tale of the Goat Eater (We will just call him Chewy) that is lesser known but still is heard now and again when young women are looking for love with all the wrong species.

Chewy was a sad and lonely soul. There is not much company for fictional creatures in New Mexico and the creatures themselves tend to stay away from one another because they all suffer from differences of opinion about whether the other actually exists. (Needless to say, these creatures could really benefit from some intense therapy.)

All the animals were afraid of him and would run away as fast as possible when he was around. This made Chewy feel sad and alone. It is his own fault, however, because he has this tendency to break apart and eat all manner of creatures.

That’s why, when a moth started living in his pubic area, he did not chase it away, but helped the flying critter settle in and made a pet of it. Chewy called it Morth and fed it things that moths like to eat and would lay still for hours at a time in order to not disturb his new friend.

Soon, Morth the Moth told his moth friends about his new place, and they came over to check things out and see if he was making up tales of such a swell deal. He was not. The other moths began to hang out and soon were having drunken moth parties and living it up in Chewy’s pubic hair.

We all know what happens at drunken parties; all creatures great and small get a little wild and fornicate, and fornicate they did. Soon Chewy had a whole new generation of little hungry moth mouths to feed. The young ones, not knowing what a sweet deal they had and being voracious as well, soon began eating the flesh around Chewy’ scrotum, and before you could say, “What in the name of all that is holy to moth mouths” they had eaten completely around Chewy’s scrotum and it fell off!

Now, fictional creatures are not like us, and when something falls off their bodies it can continue to live and can begin on a life of its own, creating mayhem and confusion. That is exactly what happened to Chewy’s scrotum.

To this day, tales of the crotch of the goat eater are used as excuses why women become pregnant. They blame it on the wandering scrotum and say that it molested them late at night. Many a marriage has been saved by Chewy’s wandering groin.

Chewy still lives on in the minds eye of many New Mexicans. He is needed by all those lost souls that suddenly need a father for their unborn children or a reason that all the money is gone.

The Lottery

The Lottery is a terrible disappointment for me. I never win. Ever. Nothing.

It is just like I am giving my money to someone that I don’t know and that doesn’t like me. (Kinda like child support without the satisfaction of getting fucked in the first place.)

To me it seems like a scam that some bad person might play on stupid people, “If you give me $5 every week I will give you a million dollars sometime. Maybe. (Snicker)”

The Lottery makes me feel like I am just a sucker, and to them, I probably am.

But there is still the possibility; however slight, that I might win big and suddenly become terribly rich and never have to worry about money again.

Right. And monkeys are gonna fly outta my butt.

I think that I would stand a better chance of winning big if I were to stand on my roof during a lightening storm in order for the wife to collect my insurance.

The odds are certainly better.