When I started driving away from the San Rafael Valley I hadn't decided where to go. Oh I'd narrowed the choices down some. It was going to be east or north.  How do these decisions really get made when you've worn yourself out debating pro-s and con-s?

At the first intersection the steering wheel turned towards Silver City, NM, by way of the southern route, close to Mexican border towns. It was this spring's project to get to know them better.

In Sierra Vista I went to buy the same trailer tire, at the same store, that I bought a couple years ago. The price was shocking. Either my memory is wrong or the government is lying about inflation being 2.3%.

I've always envied guys who work at tire stores doing truly useful work--even life-saving work. They never knew the existential angst of working in a corporate cubicle, working hard on something that never had a tangible result. But I could be wrong about them--they never look too happy.

I took the dogs out for a sunset walk along a dry wash. Even though it was in the town, proper, it seemed remote, so I unsnapped my young Australian kelpie, Coffee Girl. She tore down the dry wash like a missile and slammed into a crow. It hopped around while she harried it, as the crow's comrades did to Coffee Girl, overhead.

The crow hopped up the bank of the dry wash towards something that quite surprised me. There were six rag-tag tents hidden behind mesquite trees--a small tent city for the homeless. Perhaps the crow will find a friend there.

Soon we were in Douglas/Aqua Prieta. The Walmart there was only a quarter mile from the Mexican border. A steady and slow stream of shoppers walked over from Aqua Prieta on the Mexican side. I walked the other way, to look for dental, farmacia, and eyeglass bargains. It would behoove me to look for auto mechanics, too.

It is only in Mexico that you consciously think about how much of the US economy is pure overhead. There has to be an alternative to the absurdity of a situation in order to make it worth your while to actually think. Otherwise you would be a chronic malcontent, to no purpose.

The drive into New Mexico probably gave me my best fuel economy ever. We had a 30 mph tailwind.


I stopped in Deming, my nominal address. Once per year I do this and pick up my mail in person. My goodness, I felt so respectable and rooted after an hour in my "hometown." So we left for Silver City, another one of my little valentines.