Their drive was a nice one from Denver and back. My good old (younger!) Friend Tomash (proper spelling…) and his better half Marianne arrived three nights ago to rekindle the years past. Truly wonderful times and much conversations along with some sightseeing and a bit of hiking for them. Being the perfect "image" of Love Birds I decided to let them go on by themselves on the 6 mile round trip hike to a waterfall near by. This has to be the perfect location for exploring and at the same time enjoy the peaceful vibes from the town unobtrusive from any true crowds. The weather? another big reason for being here, the heat barely makes its mark a bit in the afternoon and the nights are almost cold, refreshing I would say with a total lack of humidity. Such little time however and so much to experience. Once the "volume" of it all is put aside the quality of the time spend remains, quantity should really never matter and as they said departing this morning… their batteries are again charged up.

As I put my head out yesterday morning, the profile of the near by mountains had not changed, but as it has been a daily reoccurrence, Mother Nature had her palette out again with I think this time some freshly mixed paint. I could not let them miss this first of the morning chapter and my calling did wake them up for them to also get a good start on our day ahead. Tomash and I go back a few years. We met in North Carolina at a Motorcycle Adventure meet, a while after, breaking down in the little town of Netherlands, Colorado, he was the only person I knew to call on a Sunday afternoon with a broken clutch cable. That was the day I learned to carry a spare as today I have spares of just about everything in Spirit’s sidecar trunk. No problem the voice on the phone said, I am working but I will leave, go borrow a truck and will be right up… a couple hours later, sure enough, after 50 miles or so of twisty roads, Tomash, truck and ramp showed up! I end up staying about a week at this place…

The Friendship was never lost. A true Friendship always remains regardless if there is a lack of phone calls or emails. Months can go by, but the heart knows we are here for each other in times of need, times of pleasure as it was these past days… for any reason for that matter. Before our departure a couple years ago, we had many conversations relating to our own Journey. Funny fact that we even talked about him joining us at some point to document our experiences through his camera as he is an avid Photographer. I did not take many pictures at the time… my knowledge was more of a point and shoot! It did not happen, and with no offense toward my Friend, I am glad it did not happen as Photography today has become a big part of my Life. Another interesting fact… as at the time when I decided to keep a Journal for myself I did not have a name for it. Tomash is responsible for naming this "The Oasis of my Soul", a title dear to me for reasons that most of you know. Life can be so interesting and filled with so many unexpected smooth curves…

And where did we adventure ourselves at yesterday?… well, again Burr Trail! One could live in that Canyon and yet never have time to see all the intricacies the erosion has designed. There are the beginning of an arch at every bend of what was once a wide river with strong current carrying much rock and sand. Bouncing against the cliffs, under water at the time, the hard materials one day at the time have created what we are now admiring.

This hole below I noticed while we were leaving an area after a very short hike, made us do a U turn. The softer sandstone inside of it had not eroded quite as fast and it was like characters from a foreign language that Mother Nature had left us maybe to try to decipher. We could only wonder what the message would be…

We did not adventure ourselves all the way to the switch backs, but of course did stop at the slot canyon. The skies were not too conductive for good photos, but including Spirit we all had a good time. I am glad that they left this morning, the weather today has totally changed, heavy dark clouds, much lightning and thunder. Looking at the forecast it is the same pattern for the coming three days! Definitely not use to it and even being totally waterproof while riding the thought of getting caught in flash floods is not pleasant.

No Burr Trail ride is complete without stopping at my little secret hide out! The little shallow creek that runs through some lush green vegetation at the end of a road passing through a campground. We finally discovered that the creek itself is the continuance of the road for about 100 feet before another dry road bearing to the left. Spirit did really good in the water as he has this big fear from it. He was abused with water, I have no doubt about it, and three years later he is still shy around it.

For a long time he would not even drink in front of me. I might have my back turned when he does or maybe out of his sight or even sleeping as I leave him a full bowl at the end of the day. He won’t eat either if I hold his food bowl in front of him as he will turn his head and gets nervous. I have been working at it lately however as I would really like him to get over it. Mainly because when we hike or ride I know he is thirsty but will only drink while I take a few steps away from him. So I have increased my efforts toward this dilemma of his, always praising him when he drinks, now in front of me, stops, looks at me and continues with more praising. He is intelligent and I know that he will come around as he has slowly shed carrying the remains of an abused childhood. Little did he know he would be riding in a sidecar the rest of his Life!!!

This is our little peace of Heaven amongst the red rocks. This is where we spend some time away from being away, Spirit taking a nap and myself reading on my folding chair. There are no bugs, no flies for some reason and it is always cool under the shade. Yesterday my objective was to take pictures of the many different surface structures of the rocks. It did not quite turn out that way as I was spending also some time waiting for the sun to show up in between cloud bursts, which did not happen quite often enough. I am sure we will go back one more time before we move on soon. Well, this weather is going to give me an opportunity to finish sorting out my Galleries on SmugMug and reply to many e mails and comments that are patiently waiting. I will be trying a speech recognition software soon which will be much faster replying, it does trouble me not having the time or sometimes the energy to type replies to the many Friends and Readers that write to us and have helped us in so many ways.

I have 24 T-Shirts left, they are at my cost each $20 including shipping… but please e mail me first to make sure I still have the size you need.

With the "ADV" (Adventure Rider") logo: 3 XXL ~ 4 XL ~ 4 M 

Plain:                                                       2 XXL ~ 4XL ~ 5L ~ 1 M ~ 2 S

Gail and Lisa… looks like you are having too much fun! The T shirts look great… Kevin?… Hummmm… OK… you are taller than me, I won’t say anything.

Till next time….

We are truly always under deep appreciation toward the readers that have send in a contribution helping this website’s expenditures which needless to say have gone up. For those who have not, continue enjoying the site, pictures, recipes, and if you feel it is worth $1 a month, the contribution button is above, snail mail is below… PayPal can even set you up with a ONE Dollar a month contribution…

Ara Gureghian   853 Vanderbilt Beach Rd #245   Naples, Fl 34108

Ara & Spirit

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 4:43 pm and is filed under travel, spirituality, pit bull, sidecar, motorcycle, cooking, photography, riding, homeless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.