September 4, 2004
Woke up to weather. Unusual for the desert. Most storms blow out during the night, but the sky is dark and cloudy. Looks like rain. Very humid out (also unusual).

Packed up about ten framed pieces of art for Tomcat’s new apartment in Flag. He requested something to hang on all of his bare walls. I’m trying to be careful not to load him up with all things Western, although I couldn’t resist send along a great image painted by my friend and former Razz colleague, Judy Darbyshire, of a 1940s babe wearing two halves of barrel cactuses for a bra and pear cactus for the bottoms. It is a hoot, and I’m counting on the cheese factor outweighing the “Gee, is your dad a Western nut, or what?” factor. Also grabbed the big Life magazine cover of Seligman and clouds from 1952, one of my favorite photographs in the world.

Here is the scratchboard of my two pistols. The one on the right is the freehand, the one on the left is “measured” and calipered (fancy ways of saying traced). You can see that the one on the right has some things going for it, but the dynamics of how the grip lines up with the frame, etc. is quite off. Need to work on this.

Taking off in an hour to go up the hill to Flag. Got to drop off recycling up at the post office, then we are off. Deena and Mike went up last night. Big wreck at Black Canyon and they spent two hours in the Rock Springs Cafe. Mike almost got in a fight with the locals (he’s from Idaho), and they finally made it up the hill at about 11.

I love road trips and will be driving my family nuts once we get there. I’m already threatening to go to a museum. This drives them crazy and they are already planning excuses )”Dad, my appendix just burst”). Of course I love doing this, and going to museums. Someday they’ll thank me, by probably burying me under a museum. As long as it’s not the Bic Lighter Museum in Guthrie, OK, I’ll be happy.

“Make voyages.  Attempt them.  There's nothing else.”
—Tennessee Williamso