We finally finished our tax return! Did you know, that the IRS is even taxing thieves? Really! No joke. Here is a blurb I stumbled over when I was reading the Tax Cut help:
“Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner.”
Sure… I guess it takes one to know one. The IRS must know something about thieves, that I somehow missed.
Well, how can you withstand these Puppy Looks? This one was running around at the school and somebody had obviously dropped it off at the chapter house across the street. I, being a cat person, protested somewhat, but was easily outvoted.
However, I’m usually giving the names to our pets, and I thought Muddy would be cute. The puppy was muddy when we found it. We have now idea what breed it is, but it seems to be a mutt (mutty -> mudblood (from Harry Potter) -> muddy). And its fur looks muddy too.
Amy likes Mischa (mee-sha) better, which was an early candidate I developed out of Mischling, the German word for mutt and Misha the Russian name.
So, the fight is on. What’s it gonna be? Muddy or Mischa? Please leave a comment. Thanks!
- THE END -
The path after the gate in the razor wire fence got better and better, and eventually led to a two lane dirt road. On it we suddenly had oncoming traffic: a string of wild horses! Well, they could belong to somebody, you can’t always tell here. Luckily, they went up on the side of the road and looked at us from a distance.
The road now ran straight west, but despite some smaller paths going south we stayed on the big one. The mountain range to the south did not look like it would get us to Dilkon. After a while, the road bent left around the mountains and we saw a navigation help (for small airplanes) on a hill in the distance. Once we were close enough to read it, we found out that we were a few miles northwest of Dilkon and ended up on a paved street in Tees Toh.
Admittedly, this was not a shortcut, but you have to have an adventure drive now and then! The next time we’ll bring the GPS and pay more attention. If not time, we could save a few miles, if we know where we’re going… With these gas prices it should pay off.
That said, we took the highway back home, to spare our kids and the groceries a second desert odyssey.
- THE END -
After church today, Amy wanted to get some groceries. We had to drive to Dilkon (about an hour south of us), as the store (yes, there’s only one) in the metropolis of Keams Canyon is closed on Sundays. Usually we stay on the paved highways, which are rare on the reservation and, in almost any case, means going out of the way. Why not take the shortcut through the desert this time? Of course!
We recently had traded our two small Saturns for a bigger one, as that agrees more with our new budget, and out in the country we only need one vehicle, and the bigger one had higher clearance, too. Well, it is actually not that big, at least compared to the armored troop carriers some people drive. We wanted to get something that can drive on the occasional dirt road, which, softened by the rain, can develop deep ruts here. The SUV from Saturn, the VUE, seemed a good compromise between a sedan and an off-roader.
[In the German text I explain that “Jeep” is not a smart translation for SUV. Not sure how that became colloquial in Germany…]
So, what a great opportunity to try out our new Saturn VUE! As a matter of fact, even though it looks that way, this car is not really designed for offroad use, which as I understand it, most SUVs are not. They fool the owner into believing they drive an offroad capable vehicle, but the manufacturers know exactly, that the worst most people have to deal with, is when they need to navigate those speedbumps at the local mall.
In any event, I turned south onto a promising dirt road and the fun began!
(Continued in next entry.)
The dirt road that came off the highway had two lanes and was not all that bad. Packed sand, no deep ruts, we were sure we would save a few Minutes. Then came the first fork in the road and we suddenly understood why we might not get there as fast as we would have liked to. No signs or road names, just a fork in the road. Left or right? We decided on the right path, as it looked a bit more driven on than the left. Just a few minutes later we discovered why that was: the path ended in a small settlement. It probably is used regularly by the school bus and thus looked better. So, back to start and take the left this time.
That is how it went for a while and, even though we had a map, every turn led to more uncertainty. Sometime along the way, “right” and “left” became “more to the south” and “that’s to far east!” Thus we arrived at the place depicted in the photo above. Even though it is hard to see on this picture, we were still on a small path, though it soon got lost in the tumbleweeds.
We drove a bit further, but the path just ended in the desert. We had seen another path shortly before, but it looked like it was driven on by the local herders about twice. Nonetheless, that was better than to blaze a new trail.
After much steering, we almost felt like local herders, too. The path got lost in dried mudholes or brush, only to reappear a few feet to the left or right. This wild chase after a long gone herd finally led us to a corral next to a rock formation jutting out of the desert floor. Aha, a sign of civilisation in the middle of nowhere! Just follow the fence, as far as that is possible… A few boulders, sand holes and even more brush later we got back onto a pretty good trail.
Wir fuhren etwas weiter, aber der Weg endete einfach in der Steppe. Kurz zuvor hatten wir einen Abzweig gesehen, aber der sah ganz so aus, als ob er bisher nur zweimal von den lokalen Viehhirten befahren wurde. Nichtsdestotrotz, das war besser als einen neuen Pfad zu “erfahren”.
A mile or so further, the next riddle: A razor wire fence crossed the path, no end in sight in both directions. Luckily the fence could be partially disassembled and thus made a primitive gate. Drive through, get out again, “fix” the fence, and on it goes… in the next entry.