Esten's page

I’ve been sharing my thoughts and experiences as we roam around, but what about Esten. What’s she been up to? How is she?

Well she’s doing fine. Along with enjoying and savoring wandering this wrinkled and warped half of the continent she is fully involved with her main purpose and mission of .…. keeping me alive. Yes, if you ask Esten, keeping me from bodily harm is a worthwhile and full time job, and according to her, I am in mortal danger several times a day. Thanks to her I’ve yet to be frozen, starved, drowned, lost, charred, poisoned, gored, mauled, or electrocuted. But along with all this she’s been having her own share of fun.

In sheep canyon we were on a bike ride when we came across some free ranging horses. Esten made friends and was soon sharing the carrots from our lunch.

Esten followed my example and turned 62 on this trip. Ok Mama, it’s your birthday wahdayawanna do? Ouu, Ouu... ARCHES.

 Ok picnic and a beer in the middle of nowhere

 (a beautiful little piece of nowhere) along with presents (a new fleece shirt, some candles, a flashlight her own bear spray, and a magnet with a picture of canyonlands for the trailer) The funny thing was that we put our chairs facing this beautiful view of nothing in particular and cars stopping and trying to see what we were looking at. 

Kind of like stending on a street corner looking up. Pretty soon everybody’s looking up

After lunch we hiked out to admire landscape arch (if you haven’t done this do it soon. A few years ago a big chunk of the arch fell off and who knows when the whole thing could go.( I hope it’s not soon, along with delicate arch it is our favorite )

Then one day she turns around and sees bighorn sheep walking though the camp. Grazing and paying no attention to us.

Another day at the Grand Canyon I was busy cooking and she looks over and says “ ha……….ha” I looked up thinking she was trying to say hawk. Then she gets it out, “javalina” and sure enough one walks by about 20 feet from us. We've looked all over for one of these critters, and one just walks through camp.

 She enjoys joining me for long walks or bike rides, this one at Joshua Tree NP after exploring an old mine site.

Is she having fun? You’ll have to ask her. But I know we both can’t wait to come back and do this again.