#rv parts denver

[gdhitchjd]

HOW TO CHOOSE THE CORRECT TRAILER HITCH

I am Harold Kiefer and I own the Hitch Corner, which has 2 stores in Colorado. I opened in 1990, so this is my 34th year of business. So I have seen just about everything & one of the main questions I get from customers is how to choose the correct trailer hitch. I hope the following will help you as well, but if it does not answer your questions, please reach out to me at info@hitchcorner.com. I will answer all your questions to the best of my ability.

Choosing the correct trailer hitch for towing involves several factors, including the weight of the trailer, the weight capacity of your vehicle, and the type of hitch that is appropriate for your vehicle and trailer. Here are some steps to follow when choosing a trailer hitch:

Determine the type of hitch required for what you will be towing. There are several types of hitches available & The type of hitch you need will depend on the type of trailer you are towing and your vehicle’s towing capacity.

A) 5th wheel hitch for a 5th wheel trailer

B) Gooseneck hitch for a gooseneck trailer or with an adapter to pull a 5th wheel trailer

C) Rear or bumper pull trailer

Determine your vehicle’s weight capacity: Your vehicle’s owner’s manual should list the maximum weight it can tow. This number is usually listed as the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR). Be sure to include the weight of any passengers or cargo in your vehicle when calculating this number. This is a big issue as most people forget to include the weight of the passengers.

Determine the weight of the trailer: The weight of the trailer is also important when choosing a hitch. This includes the weight of the trailer itself, as well as any cargo it will be carrying. Make sure to choose a hitch that is rated to handle the weight of your trailer.

For 5th wheel hitch, the hitch depends on the size of bed the truck has. Currently, over 80% of all trucks sold have a short bed – 6 ½’ bed or shorter. NOTE: 5 ½’ bed trucks are really not designed to tow a 5th wheel trailer but it can be done

A) If you have a long bed truck, then everything is pretty simple. You just need a fixed 5th wheel hitch that can handle the weight of the trailer. We have under bed mount kits (and for those trucks that have the factory puck system) and above bed kits that have rails in the bed. Completely user choice but the B&W gooseneck with Companion 5th wheel hitch is our most popular for long bed trucks.

B) For short bed trucks, and here I am talking about 6 ½’ bed trucks, you have various options. However, the first item to check is if the trailer you are interested in is a a trailer designed for short bed trucks. These will be usually be noted as 88 degree turn trailers, which means you can make an 88 degree turn with a short bed using a fixed 5th wheel hitch. If it is designed for a short bed, then you have the option of using a fixed 5th wheel hitch but s slider is still recommended.

C) For most short bed trucks, you will need a slider 5th wheel hitch to avoid hitting the cab of the truck or your back window with the trailer. Here are the various options: – Manual Slider 5th wheel hitch. This means you have to get out of the truck once to unlock the slider. You then get back in the truck, hold the manual on the brake control & pull forward. The hitch will slide & lockout when it gets to the back. When you are in town or trying to get into a tight space or most common, getting into a gas station, you will want the hitch slid back. When you are getting ready to get on the highway or you are traveling at higher speeds, you will want to be slid forward. You do not want the weight of the trailer behind the axle. Again, like the fixed, you can do an under bed mount, above bed with rails in the bed, as well as for factory puck mounts. To slide the hitch forward, you just do the opposite. Jump out to unlock the slider, get back in the truck, hold the manual on the brake control, back the truck up. The hitch will slide & automatically lock in the forward towing position. – Automatic slider. This unit will automatically slide backwards when you turn. You never have to get out of the truck & you are never looking over your shoulder trying to determine if you need to slide your manual slide 5th wheel hitch. The most popular hitch here is made by Pull-Rite and requires a capture plate to be mounted to the king pin of the trailer. It just mounts with a set screw, so very easy to install but the capture plates are specific to the king pin on the trailer. We have these for under bed, rails & factory puck systems.

    – Final option, is to change the king pin on the trailer to a sidewinder which moves the pivot point back as much as 19” and you would then use a fixed 5th wheel hitch

For gooseneck trailer, the B&W under bed gooseneck is our most popular. The ball flips over when not in use & we can add a Companion 5th wheel hitch if you wish to tow a 5th wheel trailer. Or, we have adapters that adapt your 5th wheel trailer to be towed with a gooseneck ball. Biggest issue here is to verify if your trailer is under warranty. If so, verify that the warranty will allow you to use an adapter to pull their trailer.

For Rear or Bumper Pull Trailers. You need to choose the appropriate hitch class: Trailer hitches are divided into classes based on their weight capacity. Class I hitches are rated for up to 2,000 pounds, while Class V hitches can handle up to 27,000 pounds. Choose a hitch that is rated for at least the weight of your trailer. These are frame mounted & built for very specific year, make & models of vehicles. I would never suggest a universal hitch. We also recommend a professional to install the hitch as you will also need wiring for the trailer lights. You can cause a lot of problems to your vehicles computer system if not wired correctly.

Weight distribution & sway control – Some trailers will require a sway control or weight distribution systems, that can make towing safer and more stable. A weight distribution system distributes weight to the front axle of the towing vehicle, as well as distributing the weight of the trailer between the towing vehicle and the trailer itself. Almost all of the weight distribution systems we sell have sway control built into them. You want a system that can handle the full weight of the trailer fully loaded, but you do not want to go overboard. You can actually make the ride rougher. Our most popular units are the Equalizer and Curt TruTrack 4 points of sway control with weight distribution system. The easiest way to know if you need a weight distribution is if you hook up the trailer & the rear drops to the ground, you NEED a weight distribution system. Moreover, check the weight rating on your hitch. If your trailer is heavier than the weight carrying capacity, you will need a weight distribution system to reach the weight distribution weight capacity listed on your hitch.

Depending on your needs, you may also want to consider additional features such as towing mirrors, hitch lock and RV accessories like levelers and sewer hoses.

Installation: Finally, make sure to have your trailer hitch installed by a professional to ensure it is installed correctly and safely. Every thing can be done as a DIY, BUT you want to make sure these items are installed correctly as you do not want any issues down the road due to failure to install or setup correctly. The Hitch Corner specializes in all types of trailer hitch, 5th wheel & Gooseneck hitches, wiring and weight distribution systems.

By following these steps, you can choose the correct trailer hitch for your vehicle and trailer, and ensure safe and reliable towing.

Please let the Hitch Corner help you decide the best hitch and features for your vehicle and trailer. We can also install all of these products as well.

Check us out on the web at www.hitchcorner.com

or give us a call. Denver store – 720-277-7782 or Littleton store – 303-904-1558

or email us at info@hitchcorner.com

Harold Kiefer – Owner of the Hitch Corner since 1990

[blackmountainmotorworks]

How to Choose the Right Vehicle Storage for Your Needs in Denver

Surely, your vehicle means a lot to you. It holds several memories of your business trip, family vacation, and any other community. That’s where the need for vehicle storage comes into the place.

Storing your vehicle can protect it from harsh weather, storms, sunlight, and any other external factor that can harm it. There are plenty of storage facilities available in the market with different options according to needs and requirements. In this article, we’ll discuss how you can choose the right vehicle storage in Denver CO according to your needs.

Assess your Space Requirements:

The first and foremost thing you must understand is how much space your vehicle requires. For this, you need to measure the car's length, width, and height to ensure you choose the right vehicle storage unit. 

Knowing your vehicle's exact dimensions is essential. This is important not only for the storage capacity of the vehicle but also for access and maintenance. Furthermore, you need to check whether the storage unit offers services for every type of large or small vehicle. Make sure they offer you some extra space, just in case you need space to store spare parts of the vehicle.

Decide to Choose an Indoor vs Outdoor Storage

Another important thing is that you need to decide whether you need indoor or outdoor vehicle storage in Denver. Indoor storage offers excellent protection from every other external element. It keeps your car safe from diverse weather conditions like heavy rain, snow, and scorching sunlight.

This option is especially useful for high-value or luxury vehicles, as indoor units often come with climate control to prevent damage from excessive humidity and temperature fluctuations. Furthermore, it is the best option when you are concerned about your safety and security.

Outdoor vehicle storage in Denver CO is a more flexible and cost-effective option. They are especially best for large vehicles such as travel trailers, RVs, trucks, etc. It might be possible that large vehicles don’t really fit into the regular-size storage unit. So, they should prefer choosing such outdoor options.

Look for Security Features:

Are you looking for vehicle storage near me? Security should be your top priority when it comes to storing your beloved vehicle. Ensuring your car is in safe hands gives you peace of mind. Thus, you should look for storage options that facilitate 24/7 access to surveillance cameras to monitor the area at all times. Having access to gated boundaries especially adds a layer of extra protection and ensures that only authorized individuals have access to the storage unit. Are

Let’s check out the key features that need to be taken into account when it comes to the security of your vehicle:

Gated access

Good lighting

Individual unit alarms

24/7 surveillance cameras

On-site staff

Consider the Location:

Another important aspect to consider is the location of the vehicle storage in Denver. You need to make sure it is easily accessible from your place. It's important to think about how easy it is to get to the place on busy roads, especially if you need to drive there often.

Traffic patterns and accessibility to location can directly impact how quickly you can access your vehicle. Key things that you need to check when it comes to the location of the storage vehicle:

Close to your home or workplace

Easy access from major roads and highways

Traffic patterns

Seasonal vehicle use

Need your vehicle for frequent trips

Evaluate Climate Control Needs:

Taking climate control measures is imperative, especially if your vehicle is sensitive to temperature fluctuations and any other climatic condition. Climate-controlled storage can help prevent your car from being damaged by extreme weather. However, climate-controlled units are more expensive. But it is worth investing in if you want to protect your vehicle.

Conclusion

Storing your vehicle in vehicle storage in Denver, CO, can be worth investing in if you’re going on a trip away from home or maybe you don't have enough space for your vehicle at your place. Then choosing such storage options is the best alternative for you. If you’re seeking the best vehicle storage near me, then you can go with Blackmountainmotorworks!

[dougrobyngoold]

A Little Brewery Tour - Laramie, WY

Well, the guys have decided that they won’t be continuing their journey on the CDT, so we are heading toward the Denver area to get Tom on a plane back to Canada. However, we decided that we should give him a true “full-time RVer” experience his last couple of days with us. Tonight we are staying in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Laramie and, of course, checking out the local brewery scene. Our first stop was Altitude Brewing, they had so many beers to chose from that we had to share a couple of flights. A good start to the evening.

Our next stop, Bond’s Brewing Company. We had a little excitement while we were in this brewery, had an overly enthusiastic and LOUD customer. He was talking so loud that he scared us enough that we jumped when he made some statement during a story he was telling to the guy next to him at the bar. I think the bartender actually spilled beer out of the glass he was pouring from the tap when the guy yelled. Luckily, it was just part of his story and he wasn’t actually as angry as he sounded. We all thought a brawl was about to start! We got our beers and made our way to a table that was a bit of a distance from the loud storyteller seated at the bar. As you can see from second photo below, Tom was pretty enthusiastic about our evening activity choice!

Our last stop for the evening was Accomplice Beer Company. We had food and beers in this laid-back brewery. Loved the quotes on their wall. Food and beer was good.

We made it back to the Wal-Mart just in time for sunset and munchies in the parking lot - I think Tom would fit right in with the RV lifestyle! Tomorrow we are headed to Spero Winery in north Denver. A Harvest Host stay and one of our all-time favorite wineries.

[piratespencil]

#neoscum/campaign sw crossover fic where the mynock and the bluebird are also shadow running trucker crews WHEN#<- prev#WAIT PLEASE THAT WOULD BE SO FUN. i need that to be real right now#the bluebird as a very cool sleek and modern truck with all the bells and whistles vs the much trashier (but so loved) mynock and xanadu#the mynock has to be one of those trucks with just 2 front seats as an homage to the skipray blastboat being comically unsuited to carrying#more than 2 people at a time#lyn had a regular pickup truck that they raided before she joined up with them#tryst as a weird trucker instead of a space pilot is so compelling and funny#zenith and zero having a same hat meme moment over both having z names and lots of cybernetics#leenik and venton and chartreuse having previously been shadowrunners before everything went wrong ouch...#bhikke week as a convention for rogue truckers LMAO#tamlin could be a technomancer like max...#i can feel that there's a connection to be made between bacta/clones and the legacy of adam child soldiers but I haven't gotten enough#concrete z backstory lore to make the connection yet...#like maybe if bacta was in a similar situation to z's then he found out he also has 8-12 months to live and went and got a sleep monitor#thing like dak has about it. instead of lesai?#idk idk I just can tell that there is a connection to be made there and maybe I will make it once I know more about legacy of adam#I have got to stop rambling but this idea is so fun and interesting to me !!!!!!#the mynock is still called 'the mynock' but this time it's a reference to the 100 year old star wars movie#i feel like pox and leenik might get along. leenik would probably play neo candy crush.#the canon kitchen setup of the mynock (spaceship) being in the trailer might be fun. the kitchen and the booth are too important to not work#them in somehow#I still don't really know all that much concrete info on the denver technomancers but aava could be with them somehow...?#binbon still exists but there would be some kind of parallel universe collision paradox if he ever met dak rambo lol#honestly I feel like the bluebird might just be an RV like that crew (especially blue and aava) have too much style to put up with sleeping#in the backseat or trailer of a semi truck#neoscum#campaign sw

Losing my MIND over your tags!! Every single part of this is GOLD but for some reason that part that really got me was the idea of Venton and Chartreuse and Leenik as a shadowrunning crew before everything went wrong... Oooh the angst potential...

thinking about neo american trucking/travel/road culture again because I am crazy

[heartofsnark]

This Is Love (Chapter Two: Lukewarm Welcomes

Notes: Well...I was planning on posting this three days ago....but instead i vanished from the internet for a bit, a nice quarantine mental health crisis as i went into the weekend, we love that. 

Word Count: 11,557

Chapter Warnings: Cursing, anti-cop dialogue, harassment, implications of domestic/family violence

For chapter one and the warnings about this fics overarching themes, please click here! 

A little bell chimes over head as Dahlia steps into the registration building for the Moonflower Trailer Park, there’s little racks of magazines, pamphlets, and maps of tourist attractions. A young girl is at the desk, talking on the phone with someone as Dahlia tries to preoccupy herself with looking through things. 

A plain white pamphlet draws her eye, the simplicity of it standing out among the vividly colored ones.  It’s stark white with that strange cross symbol, from the signs and book, like sunbeams coming from the center of it, black text above the symbol says, ‘Eden’s Gate’ and text below it says, ‘We Love You’. 

Before she can flip it open, the woman at the registration desk hangs up, calling her over with a “Miss?” 

“I’m Hale, we talked on the phone, I’m here to rent a trailer.”

The woman’s eyes flicker down to the pamphlet in her hand and her nose wrinkles like she’s smelled something awful. 

“You ain’t no peggie, are you?” 

“A peggie?” 

“Oh, shit, you really are new here, aren’t you?” 

“Yeah, this was in one of your racks.”

“Damn it, I told them to stop unloading their shit here. Look, I don’t wanna scare you away from Hope County, but the peggies are fucknuts, steer clear of them.” 

“They dangerous?” 

“No more than most of us, but they’re major prudes and buzzkills. Like, think Jesus is gonna firebomb my ass for cumming, type buzzkills.” 

“Oh, that…sucks.” She has no idea where this woman is coming to that a religious group would think she deserves hell for it, but if the woman says they’re not dangerous, it’s not really any of her business, she really just wants her trailer. 

“C’mon, I’ll show you the trailer and we’ll get everything set up.” 

The trailer park isn’t huge, RVs and regular trailers all over it, a little playground in the middle for the resident’s kids with a slide, swings, and a little pool. A trailer with a diner inside of it, advertising bingo, and a little station filled with washing machines and dryers. None of the trailers outfitted with them. It’s a single wide with a little porch, nothing fancy; a living room, bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. All she needs, nothing seems damaged or out of place. 

“Looks, good to me.” 

“Alrighty, we’ll get your down payment and registration settled, then you can have the keys and move in whenever you feel.” 

“It’ll be a bit before I move in officially,” Dahlia tells her as they step outside the trailer, a few people bustling around 

“Why’s that?” 

“I’m coming all the way from Louisiana, still gotta get my shit moved in.” 

The woman whistles, eyes wide. 

“Hell of a move, but I tell you, you won’t find anywhere as beautiful as Hope County.” 

“I’m excited.” 

“Hey, Darcy, we got someone new coming in?” A woman asks, holding a kid on her hip, looking Dahlia up and down. 

“Yeah, we’re just getting her squared away.” 

“I’m Ruth, it’s always nice to see a new face.” 

“Thanks,” Dahlia awkwardly scratches the back of her head, “I, uh, really appreciate the warm welcome.” 

People aren’t her strong suit, she just never feels like she knows what to say, so she’d rather not say anything. 

“Shy girl, don’t worry we’ll knock that out of you, real quick. We’re like a big ole family here at the Moonflower.” 

“I’ll do my best not to get in the way.” 

“Pfft, fuck that, you better be out here getting piss faced with everyone else when the Boshaw’s throw their next barbecue.” 

“They’ll really find any excuse to get drunk, won’t they?” Darcy laughs, running a hand through her dark pixie cut. 

“I don’t even know why they still let Sharky in here, dude got banned from renting, but can still show up, do his laundry and get drunk, makes no damn sense.” 

“Y’know damn well, my mom and dad don’t have the heart to ban him completely.” 

“Yeah, yeah, but if he sets my trailer on fire again, we’re gonna be having another chat,” the toddler squirms, trying to break away for something, “someone is getting fussy, I’ll see ya around, stranger.” 

Dahlia waves goodbye to Ruth, a smile playing at her lips. The trailer park definitely seems to be a bit on the chaotic side from the sounds of it, but the warm welcome eases her nerves. She really can see herself settling in and finding some happiness. 

She goes with Darcy and takes care of the last of the details, a new key in her hand. Pride swells in her chest, it’s just a trailer, but she has her own place. She’s an adult who’s adulting. 

Once everything at the Moonflower is settled, Dahlia’s back at her hotel, haphazardly tossing her things in her luggage before check out time. Always late.  Everything settled, she dashes down to the reception desk, the woman has been thankfully kind about the whole sleepwalking fiasco last night. Not only did she bring Dahlia back in with a blanket, she even had the kitchen make her some hot chocolate before she went to sleep. 

“You checking out?” 

“Yeah, gotta rush back home.” 

“Ah, we gonna see more of you in Hope County.”  There’s a hopeful lilt to the woman’s voice and it makes Dahlia smile, the people in this county are really friendly. 

“I’m moving here, actually.” 

“That’s wonderful! Ah, I’m sure you’ll fit right in, I have some friend who I know would just adore you. Let me know once you’ve settled in.” 

“Uh, will do, thanks.” 

A quick wave bye and Dahlia’s headed out the door, climbing back on her back to ride the long way back to Reinette. 

It’s a long way, a pit stop in Denver along the way to keep her from losing her mind from exhaustion. She finds herself at the same roach motel she stayed at along the way to Hope County, no reason to go digging for something else. It’s past midnight when she’s checked into her room and is throwing her stuff on a creaking bed, staring at a stained ceiling. She already misses the hotel in Hope County. 

Her joints pop and crack as she heads to the shower;  she washes and hums along to her music and she half expects the odd hallucinations to return. It’s later in the day and she’s no doubt more exhausted now than she was last night. But, nothing happens. Her eyes are the same familiar brown when she looks in the mirror, no sirens try to lure her away, and she doesn’t find herself stumbling through a labyrinth. 

She wakes up the next morning in the dingy little bed and she’s back on the road as soon as she can get there. By nightfall she’s made her way back to Reinette, pulling up in front of Lloyd and Caroline’s farmhouse. 

The large wooden home with warm amber light seeping out from the windows. It looks and feels like a home. Sometimes, it feels like it could be Dahlia’s. 

“Stray!” Lloyd yells out as soon as she’s stepped foot inside, pulling her into a warm bone crushing hug before she can say a word. She melts into it, hugging him right back, letting the heat of him chase away the chill outside.  

“C’mon, we’ve been waiting on ya,” he tells her after he reluctantly pulls away from the hug, tugging her towards the dinner table. The smell of homemade stew hitting her nose and making her stomach growl, she can’t remember a time before Lloyd and Caroline where she could come home to an actual cooked meal. She doesn’t think it ever existed. 

“So, what exactly happened, something about a bar?” Caroline asks, as Dahlia begins to gobble up her food. 

“Well,” she slurs out her words around her mouthful of food, unwilling to stop eating just for a conversation, “there’s some bar in Fall’s End, some jackass tried to rob it and next thing I know Whitehorse is calling me his Junior Deputy.” 

“Junior Deputy?” Caroline refills Dahlia’s bowl as soon as she hears the spoon scratching against the china, her eyebrow is raised, and Lloyd looks like he’s holding back a laugh. 

“Thanks, uh, I guess it’s a term they use for their rookie deputies up there.” She shrugs, the term was strange, but she didn’t give it much more thought. 

Lloyd’s unable to hold back his laughter anymore, face going beet red as he bursts into chuckles. Dahlia narrows her eyes at him, unsure what exactly could be so funny.

“That’s what they call the program for the little kids, Stray, when you give ‘em cardboard badges and stickers, they’re Junior Deputies. Earl was giving you shit, you were just too dumb to notice.”

Heat crawls up Dahlia’s face, she’s not sure if it’s from anger or embarrassment. Either way, she’s not happy and finds herself throwing a dinner roll at Lloyd’s head.

“Hey. I’m not dealing with any mess,” Caroline threatens, but Dahlia is busy glaring at Lloyd.

“He knows damn well I’m not a kid.”

“No one would know just by looking at ya.”

“You waste one more roll, you’ll be doing the dishes by yourself.”

Dahlia lowers her arm and instead shoves it in her mouth, looking at Caroline as she chews it, trying to ask if she’s happy now without the words, but the older woman simply rolls her eyes.

“Look, you know damn well that hazing is part of a new job, you aren’t gonna manage to avoid it.”

“Yeah, yeah, one of the other deputies was busting my balls before I even got the job.”

“Just means they knew you’d get the job,” Lloyd says with a grin.

“I’m pretty sure he’s just an asshole.”

“You thought that about Chase, too.”  Chase is one of the officers for the Reinette department, a little shit.

“Yeah and I was right, Chase is an asshole.”

“But you don’t mind it anymore.”

“Sure...we’ll go with that.”

“Was everyone there giving you a hard time?”

“Uh,” her heart seems to beat a little faster when she thinks of Hudson, what is wrong with her, “no, the other deputy was…nice…” 

Caroline and Lloyd shoot each other some look, a meaning behind it that Dahlia can’t catch. 

“Is something wrong?”

“Uh, no, just for some reason when I met that deputy, I just got all weird, I guess.” 

“Weird?” 

“Yeah, like my heart was racing, I felt like I was burning up. It was super weird.” 

“Oh my god.” Caroline places a hand to her smiling mouth, looking over at Lloyd like she just struck gold. 

“Holy shit, I can’t believe it.” 

“Can’t believe what?” Dahlia asks, what the fuck kind of conversation are they having with their eyes, what are they freaking out about. 

“I was starting to think it wasn’t gonna happen, which I mean, is fine some people just don’t feel that sort of way. But, here we are.” 

“She really is growing up,” Caroline remarks, still smiling. 

“I don’t know what you’re freaking out about, I’m probably just allergic to her perfume or something, I don’t know.” That makes sense, right? Why are they freaking out?

“Her?” Caroline raises an eyebrow, why does it matter? Why does any of this matter?

“Eh, lets be honest, Care Bear, are you really surprised?” 

“No, but it’s nice to know, would have been nicer to know when I was trying to set her up with Susan’s boy.”

“Ugh, Susan’s boy, guy or girl Stray needs someone with more than two braincells.” 

“She barely has any braincells.”

“Rude.” 

“That’s exactly why she needs someone with a brain! You can’t have two idiots, that’s how someone ends up dead. You can have a smart person and another smart person, you can have an idiot and a smart person. But you can’t have two idiots, it’s a disaster in the making.” 

“Hey, I’m not an idiot!” 

“Look, it’s not meant to be an insult.” 

“That’s literally the only way it can be meant.” 

“I don’t mean that you’re stupid, you’re just…what’s the word I’m looking for Caroline?” 

“Stupid.” 

“I will start throwing food again.” 

“Okay, okay, lets change the subject for now,” Lloyd holds his hands up in mock surrender, “that bar you were talking about in Falls End, wasn’t the Spread Eagle was it?”

Lloyd was actually born and raised in Hope County, but he left when he was around twenty-eight. He always tells the story of him moving to Reinette like it was magic, taking over an inherited farm from an estranged relative after their death, meeting Caroline, falling instantly and love, raising more foster children than Dahlia could imagine. They had just stopped taking in foster children, having adopted and raised the last one into adulthood, when Dahlia ended up in their barn. Lloyd, ever the dramatic, likened it to adopting cats and then once you’re done adopting, a stray just wanders in and adopts you.  

“Yeah, you know the place?” 

“Gary and Irene always use to give me and Earl discounts, it was always the first place we went after a shift.” 

She can see that, so easily in her mind, the two men when they were younger leaving a long drawn out shift to let off steam in the local bar. It’s hard to imagine just how good of friends they must have been, spending time together after every workday and staying in contact even when Lloyd moved so far away. She can’t imagine having a friend like that. 

“I think the woman running it was called Mary May, something like that?” 

“Seriously, holy shit, Mary May was their little girl, my god she’s all grown up.”

“You’re old.” 

“Thanks, Stray.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

“You know, we should take a trip back to Montana sometime Care Bear, it’s been a while, plus we got a new reason to visit.”

“By the way, do you know what Eden’s Gate is?”  The weird religious group is still on her mind, it seems to be all over Hope County. If they’ve been there for a long while, then surely Lloyd would know what it is and who they are. He raises an eyebrow and she can practically see the gears turning in his head. 

“Can’t say that I do, why you ask Stray?” 

“Some religious group or something, they’re all over the county, even built a damn statue. Figured you might know what they are.”

“You mean, like the big deer statue near the Whitetail mountains?” 

“No, like a statue of a dude, like their founder or some shit, dude with a manbun.” She uses her hands to pull her hair back in a little bun-esque shape, as if the visual aid is necessary. 

“Yeah…that, I’ve never seen any of that, you sure, you ain’t losing it, Stray?” 

“Yes, I’m very sure I’m not losing it. They don’t seem like bad folks, the one I met, but they’re definitely strange.” 

“You’re not gonna go and try to find religion in Hope County, are you?” Caroline asks with a raised eyebrow. 

“Oh fuck no.” 

“I was about to say, I haven’t gotten to set foot in a church in two years.” 

“I’m pretty sure she’d burst into flames.” 

Lloyd and Caroline share a smile, cracking up at Dahlia’s expense as she sticks a tongue out at them. 

“Hope they’re not the Jehovah Witness types, who go door to door,” Dahlia grumbles, the very thought making her stomach churn the stew inside of it. She’d rather blow her brains out then listen to someone preaching at her when she’s trying to relax.

“If they are, they’re about to meet their worst nightmare.” 

She can’t help but grin, the chatting continues for a while, just enjoying a cozy night in with the couple. Before, she knows it the food is gone and the night has gone on longer than usual. Lloyd and Caroline typically sleep early, rise early, while Dahlia is more of a night owl. 

But there’s an unspoken reluctance for the couple to turn in. Even as the moon hangs high in the sky, as Caroline and Lloyd yawn at the table. He even mentions playing a board game, cards, something. When she tells them to go to bed, Caroline nearly drifting off on his shoulder. She’s pulled into another hug, caring touches lingering as they finally drag themselves off to bed; tired voices slurring out goodnights. 

Maybe it’s egotistical, but the hesitance seems to hint at more. An understanding that this is likely among one of the last nights she’ll spend here with them and the desire to make it drag on as long as possible. To soak in every last moment of her being here. 

She knows she isn’t the greatest person to live with or even be around, that anyone should be happy to be rid of a leech like her. But, they’re far too kind for that. 

Dahlia takes a slow walk to the room she’s called her own for the past two years. She hasn’t changed anything in the time she’s been here, despite how much the couple has told her she could. Piles of clothes on the floor are the only thing that could be considered her personal touch. The small bed frame creaks as she sits down on the side, a second later the door is pushed open by Lucy, Lloyd and Caroline’s border collie. 

She lays a fluffy head on Dahlia’s knee and she buries her fingers into the fur, memories of the first time she held the dog. It was the first day she found herself here, hunkered down in their barn for shelter for the night, rain pouring down. She was scared that Lucy would bite her, aggressive towards a stranger. But just as kind as her owners, Lucy just shuffled herself closer to the drenched teenager, helping keep her warm through the stormy night. 

She’s changed so much in these past two years. 

Muscle tone and squish where was once a sack of bones, her fingers no longer able to slot in the spots between her ribs. Skin a healthier tan instead of the sickly pale it was that first night, ink now covering sections of that skin. Her first paychecks ending up in tattoos and clothes, taking control of her body and wardrobe in a way she’s never had before. For years her thick dark hair hung in a curtain down past her chest, that night and many nights before, it was tangled in thick dirty knots, matted to her skull in places. 

The very first day she was allowed to shower here, she grabbed a pair of scissors and hacked it off to the best of her abilities. Caroline later cleaned up the choppy job and now she’s found herself with a short bob of dark brown, nearly black hair. She’s really started to come into her own, feeling like her own person and becoming who she wants to be. 

She just wishes that was a person who could stay in Reinette. This is what has to happen, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t going to miss everything here. Lloyd and Caroline being the biggest thing, but Lucy, living on the farm, so much. It’s not like she’s never going to see them again. 

They’ll likely invite her back for visits, already making plans to visit her in Montana, but things are going to change. That’s unavoidable and undeniable. It’s scary, but most things worth doing are. 

Dahlia sees the sunrise before she finally manages to sleep in that bed for the last time. 

The next day, or more accurately after she’s gotten a few hours of sleep, everything is a frantic blur of activity as she tries to prepare for the move. It’s mostly clothes, a laptop, a portable game, and a few books. Nothing major or impressive, a tight pang in her chest as 

“Come on in.” 

The door creaks open and she looks over her shoulder to see Lloyd, something in his hand. His fingers clench and unclench, there's something in his hand, he shuffles a bit in the doorway.

"Something up?" She asks, throwing a few more shirts in her bag.

"Uh, I, well, what's this?" His eyes are drawn towards her open duffle bag, the same one she brought with her to Hope County, she's just been throwing her stuff in without much thought.

She raises an eyebrow as he starts to shift some stuff around in her bag, pulling out a heavy white book with that familiar cross like symbol. How did that get in there? Chills reverberate up her spine, goosebumps raising on her skin, it's starting to feel like this Eden's Gate shit is following her everywhere.

"That was at the hotel, I uh, must have thrown it in my bag by accident?" It's the only thing that makes sense.

"First day there and you're robbing the hotel?" 

"Shut up, I'll return it when I get back, but, uh, that's that religion I was talking about. Their book." 

He drops what he was holding, it looks like a little booklet, homemade. She grabs it as he starts flipping through the weird religious tome, she opens up the booklet. A photobook, the first one is of her, Lloyd, and Caroline at the fair, big puffy bags of cotton candy in her hand. Second one her holding an alligator and grinning, they drug her out to an alligator ranch one day, knowing how much she loves animals. Pictures from the beach trip they took her on, photos of her and Lucy. A photo from her first day at the station with everyone crowded around her.

 "Book of Joseph...god that's already creepy." 

"Huh," nostalgia interrupted she peers over at the book, seeing a portrait of a guy, “that's him!" "What?"

"That's the guy who had the fuckin' statue of him, their founder or whatever."

"Who the hell wants his face hanging over 'em? Seems like a total creep." 

“I don't know, he looks like Norman Bates there." She grimaces, the way he's glowering is entirely too reminiscent of the famous mother loving killer's signature look.

“Don't get it, I uh, hey, why are you looking at that?" He asks, peering down at the booklet in her hand. 

"It's mine, I'm allowed to look at it." 

"Who the hell said it's yours?" 

"So, you weren't giving this to me as a gift, you just made it for fun?" 

"Caroline made it and ya know, something to remember us by and..." His blue eyes blurring with tears. 

"I'm moving states, not going to war, Jesus Christ." 

"You're leaving, I'm gonna miss you." 

“No one is dying, stop, oh my god, stop crying you baby." She knocks her fist into his shoulder, no force or animosity behind it. 

“I haven't cried this much since Maya left for college," he tells her, talking about his youngest adopted daughter, who had left the home just a year or so before Dahlia showed up in their barn. The couple barely got a year of an empty nest before she barged in.

“Are you done?” She asks him with a raised eyebrow, waiting for the new fresh onslaught of tears to poor out. 

“Yeah, yeah, by the way everyone down at the station wants to see you before you head out.”

“Why?” 

“I don’t fucking know, maybe it’s ‘cause you’re leaving and they like you, some a little too much, as far as I’m concerned. “

“What do you mean?” 

“Oh, my sweet naïve child,” Lloyd dramatically cups a hand on the back of her head and pulls in for a hug, “whoever was supposed to teach ya about the birds and the bees, really fucked up, didn’t they?” 

“Shut up!” She groans, pushing him away, she’s not naïve. He just talks like a weirdo, she’s finally got her stuff all packed up, so she follows Lloyd out of the room. 

Caroline is in the kitchen and has been all day, according to Lloyd she’s been cooking up a storm for the past couple days, ever since Dahlia first left for her interview. 

“You coming down to the station with us?” 

“Uh, I’ll meet you down there later.” 

“Alrighty then.” 

Dahlia’s heart sinks, a pang there as she sets up her luggage and bags to be tried down to her motorcycle, she plans on getting on the road right after this little meeting. She knows it’s silly, but she was hoping Caroline would go with them. It will be the last they see of each other for a long while, she doesn’t want Lloyd’s sobbing, but she’d like at least a little more…fanfare. But, Caroline seems fairly nonchalant. 

“You ready to get going?” 

“Yeah.” 

Lloyd hops in his pickup truck, firing it up and driving into town with Dahlia riding her bike after him. 

There’s an extra weight to her sigh as she parks in front of the little police station, the one she’s been reporting to every day for the past two year and this the last time she’ll visit. Lloyd doesn’t even bother to wait around for her as she stares at the building, soaking it in for the last time before she finally trails in behind him. 

“Surprise!” A chorus of voices cheer out as she steps into the modest station, Micah and Chance two officers blowing on little party kazoos afterwards. 

“What the fuck?” 

“You didn’t think we could let you go without throwing you a party, did you?” Alexis tells her, squeezing Dahlia’s shoulder. 

Alexis has the most experience here after Lloyd and if he’d bother to retire before the station goes out, she’d be next in line. Micah and Chance are the resident dumbass officers, but they’re entertaining if nothing else. 

There’s a banner across the station office, Goodbye Stray. A sheet cake saying Good Luck on a table and Chance is throwing around confetti like a weird shredded paper fairy. 

“You guys are so dumb.” 

“We’re trying to be nice, brat,” Chance tells her, sprinkling confetti directly in her hair. 

“Come on, I’ll cut you a piece of cake before he covers it in paper,” Micah offers. 

Once the initial yell and Chance has run out of confetti, the party winds down into something more casual. Dahlia cramming cake in her mouth, with her feet propped up in Micah’s lap as they talk about everything. There’s a few other cops in the station, but most are on patrol and couldn’t make it. But Alexis, Micah, and Chance are by far the ones apart from Lloyd that she’s grown the closest too. 

Which makes it all the more depressing that the station is slowly dying out. Each of them has already started building their list of places to apply to once the inevitable happens. 

“I’m gonna miss you assholes,” Dahlia brings herself to say, after a moment. 

“Finally, she admits it,” Lloyd yells out excitedly. 

“Shut up.” 

“You’re gonna make some great friends over in Hope County.” 

“No one’s gonna be better than us, though.” 

“Shut up, Chance.” 

Dahlia can’t help but laugh at Alexis and Chance’s interaction, she really is going to miss these dumbasses. She doesn’t make friends easy, so parting with them and getting new ones is just that much more aggravating. Pratt was a dick and Hudson does weird things to her, how could she become friends with them? She doesn’t want to go to work everyday and either hate or be nauseous around her coworkers. 

“My friend Earl will keep an eye on her.” 

“Make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid you mean,” Alexis teases and heat flushes up Dahlia’s cheeks.  Why does everyone think she’s stupid, why does Alexis have to think she’s stupid?

“You like it up in Montana?” Micah asks after a beat of silence. 

“I do, it’s colder up there which sucks, but it’s beautiful. Whitehorse is nice, I’ve met some friendly people,” she thinks of the couple with Boomer and the people of the trailer park. 

“I’m glad then.” 

“Watch out or Micah’s gonna be throwin’ in an application there just to follow you,” Lloyd says, grinning. 

“Would you stop?! I just wanted to make sure, she was going to be happy.” 

“Sure, you were.” 

They talk about anything and everything, Dahlia is the first one to leave, but all of them have looked into where they want to be post-Reinette. Alexis is looking into big cities, lots of work, showing just how talented she is. Chance isn’t going far, a county or two over at most. Micah still isn’t sure, but he’s thinking of leaving the state. 

The night drifts on, until the cake is gone, easily two-thirds of it ending up in the void Dahlia calls a stomach. Outside the sky has become a wash of oranges, pinks, and purple as the sun sets. It’s time to get going. 

“I gotta get on the road, if I have any chance of getting there with enough time to settle in.” 

Dahlia reluctantly stands from her chair, the time’s come. The last goodbye, for now at least, she hopes that they’ll stay in some form of contact after this. Alexis is the first to pull her into a hug and Dahlia freezes a bit, taken aback. 

“You’re gonna do great things out there.” 

Dahlia’s heart pangs and she squeezes Alexis back, hoping the strength of her hold can communicate how much those words mean to her. After a moment, they separate. Chance and Micah looking at her now. 

“Don’t think this gets you out of your promise, twenty-first birthday, you’re letting me take you out and get you piss faced drunk,” Chance tells her, grinning at his own stupid ideas. 

“If you wanna drive out to Montana just to see me drunk, that’s on you.”

“Don’t underestimate my stubbornness.” 

“I wasn’t.” 

“Just so you know, if you need anything, all you have to do is call and ask,” Micah tells her, squeezing her shoulder, but she can tell he’s holding back. 

“You can hug me, if you want.” 

And then his arms are around her, hugging her tight to his body. She squeezes him right back. A few moments pass, before they finally pull apart. 

“Well now I want a hug,” Chance says, upon the realization he’s the only who hasn’t gotten one. 

“Come here then, dumbass.” 

And then they’re hugging, Chance going the extra mile to pull her up off the ground. Another beat of just enjoying the warmth of someone who for some reason cares about her. She’ll never understand why. Why any of these people opened their hearts to her, but they did, and she’ll always be thankful for it. 

Lloyd walks her out once Chance has finally freed her, the sun sinking lower in the sky, she buries her hands in her pockets. Her throat is tight, it’s getting closer and closer to the time to leave. 

“You sure, you can’t just stay one more night here?” 

“It takes over a day just to get there.” 

“But uhhh,” Lloyd is nervously looking around as he stutters, like he’s trying to stall. 

“You alright?” 

“Well….um, it’s just…finally!” Lloyd yells as they hear the rumble of an engine coming in, Caroline’s car pulling into the parking lot. 

“Caroline?” 

“Thank god, I managed to catch you.” The older woman gets out of her car, tucking a short strand of blonde hair back behind her ear, she opens the passenger side and is rummaging for something. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Here, we go.” Caroline emerges from her passenger seat with a towering pile of Tupperware, all filled with various meals. 

“What the hell is this?” 

“You can’t cook, how the hell else are you supposed to eat up in Montana,” Caroline says, shoving the containers into Dahlia’s arms. 

“There’s restaurants, microwave meals, I have options.” 

“I’m not letting you eat garbage the whole time you’re there, this should at least get you through the first couple months.” 

“I, I don’t have room for six-hundred plastic containers, I drive a motorcycle.” 

“Eh, I’m sure you can fit ‘em into the under-seat compartment,” Lloyd says, already lifting the seat on Dahlia’s motorcycle and taking containers from her arms to force inside. 

Dahlia’s laughing by the time he’s forced the last of them inside, looks like she was proven wrong. 

“So, I’m just gonna be sitting on three months’ worth of meals all the way to Montana.” 

“Pretty sure that’s more like a week’s worth for you, but it’s better than nothing.” 

Dahlia smiles and chews her lip, not sure what to say. Emotion and sentimentality rising up in her. She feels like she has so much to say, every word cobbling together to catch in her throat. But she can’t just let it go, even if she has to force herself to dislodge a single of those words, she has to do it. 

“I…,” that’s a start, technically, “I, really, really, really, really don’t deserve you guys. Th-there’s not enough reallys in the world, but I’m serious, I-”

“Stray, you deserve all the good that’s comes your way, hell you deserve a lot more of it.” 

“I really don’t, I, I owe you guys so much and I know I can’t ever repay you for everything. But, I, I at least want you to know just how much it all means to me. If it wasn’t for you guys, I’d, be rotting in a gutter somewhere, I mean.”  

“Hey, hey,” she’s being pulled into Lloyd’s chest before she knows it, hugged tight against his chest, when did she start crying?

Her face feels like it’s on fire and her head is throbbing. After a moment, Lloyd pulls away. He places a hand on her shoulder and the other cups her jaw, forcing her to look at him through her tear-filled eyes. All her yelling at him to keep it together, don’t be a crybaby. And she’s the one falling apart. 

“You don’t owe us anything. We did our best to do right by you, because that’s what you deserve. Okay, you deserve a home and a family and people who love you.”

“Uhhh, agree to disagree…?” What the hell is her voice doing? It’s so broken and cracked, everything she says dragging out of her throat. 

“No disagreeing,” Caroline chimes in, her eyes soft and motherly. 

“We just want you to be happy, you deserve it.” 

“You think you can do that for us? Just be happy and you’ll more than pay back anything you think you owe us.” 

“I’ll try, I guess,” she murmurs, wiping tears from her eyes. 

“Good girl,” Caroline says, reaching out to ruffle Dahlia’s hair. The young girl laughs through her tears, pull Lloyd in for another hug before forcing one on Caroline. 

Dahlia wipes away the last of her tears. 

“Uh, sorry about that.” 

“No apologies, call as soon as you get there. We’ll try to come out and visit just as soon as we can.” 

“This ain’t goodbye forever, Stray, we’ll see you again before you know it.”

A bright silver moon hangs in the sky by the time she brings herself to part with them for the last time, climbing onto her motorcycle. 

Two mornings later and she’s pulling into the Moonflower Trailer Park, the sun rising overhead. A smile stretches across her lips as she pulls in, a few people already milling about in the early morning. She notices Ruth, helping ease her kid down the little slide in the miniature playground that’s at the center of the trailer park. The woman waves at her and Dahlia returns the gesture as she parks near her trailer. 

She pulls off her helmet and thanks for a moment, locking up and keeping her motorcycle safe will be difficult with this set up. Moving it into her trailer would be an option, but it’s be a pain the ass with moving it every day. There’s a decent chunk of land behind where her trailer sits, not enough for another to move in there, but enough to mark a pseudo backyard. 

Maybe she can build a shed or something? She’ll have to double check on the rules and what’s allowed. 

For now, Dahlia busies herself with moving her things into the trailer. She basically tosses her bags and luggage in, not bothering to properly unpack things. The biggest thing is moving Caroline’s meal into the fridge and freezer. Once everything is where it needs to be, she grabs a shower and changes her clothes. She’ll have to do some laundry when she gets a chance. 

Dahlia stretches her muscles as she steps back out of her trailer, the activity has picked up somewhat, more people milling about and having conversations about who knows what. She makes a mental list of the things she has to get done; checking about a shed, getting some groceries in, doing her laundry and probably some stuff she hasn’t even thought about yet.

She makes a beeline for the registration building, peering inside and seeing a man talking to Darcy. Taking her chances of a long wait; she steps inside and loiters behind the stranger. Darcy’s bright blues land on Dahlia and the man follows the gaze, it seems like everyone in the county has a set of pretty light eyes. All greens and blues from what she’s seen. The receptionist at the hotel, both deputies and Whitehorse, the dispatcher at the station, Mary May, Darcy, and even Ruth. She’s pretty sure the only other pair of brown eyes she’s seen since she’s been here was the guy who nearly pulled a gun on her.

“You need something, hon?”

“I don’t want to interrupt.”

“You’re fine, darlin’, we were just shooting the shit.” Pet names and light eyes seem to both be trends here.

“I was just wondering if I could build a shed behind my trailer, to keep my motorcycle locked up.”

“As long as you aren’t blocking anyone or anything, go for it.”

Dahlia gives a little thumbs up in acknowledgement and starts to make a bee line back out, time to find out where the hell to get supplies for a shed. The man starts to follow her out, quickly catching up to her as she’s making her way back to her trailer.

“If you’re looking to build something, there’s a nice hardware and carpentry store, they give you all the supplies and instructions. You just gotta put it together,” he finishes up as they reach her motorcycle.

“Sounds good, you got a number for them?”

“Yeah, I,” he looks at her motorcycle, “you got a way to haul it?”

“Nah, I’d have to rent a truck.”

“I got a pickup, if you order it, I can pick it up for you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m down there most days anyway, I’m Liam by the way.”

“I-”

“Nice bike,” another voice yells out, a guy with scraggly hair looking at Dahlia’s motorcycle, “it yours?”

“Hey, Clyde,” Liam greets him.

“Yeah, 2009 Yamaha FZ1; guy’s kid totaled it and I nearly rebuilt it from scratch.” She tells him, smiling at the memory of finding the wrecked bike in Lloyd’s garage.

The three talk for some time about the specs of her motorcycle and talking about the place Liam recommended. He gives her the number and after some relenting agrees to be paid for at least the gas money. After some time and Clyde rambling about the vintage motorcycle he had as a teenager, she manages to tear herself away from the conversation to make the call. She reserves the materials and Liam is planning on heading that way shortly.

That taken care of for now, she decides to get her laundry taken care of. She grabs her bag of dirty laundry out of her trailer and makes a beeline for the laundry half building. It’s a strange roofed in area with no doors. How they manage to maintain the machine is beyond her. Seems like a nightmare when bad weather hits.

She rattles out her coins and gets what she needs, cooking may evade her but she at the very least knows how to do her own laundry. Dahlia bends over to start shoving her clothes in, she’s struggling to find her other sock when she gets the sense she’s being watched, someone’s eyes trained on her backside. She tucks a lock of hair back behind her ear as she stands back up and turns around.

“Uh, ah…” The guy awkwardly stumbles back, not really forming any words as he avoids her eyes. He’s taller than her; as are most people. Other than children, she hasn’t found a single person in Hope County shorter than her.  

He scratches sheepishly at the back of his neck, why was he looking at her? 

"There something on my shorts?" She brushes a hand down the denim, searching for something. It wouldn't be the first time she's managed to sit in something gross. 

"Uh, shit, sorry I'm just a man, I can't help it."

"Okay…" That didn't really answer her question. Weird guy, she decides and focuses on going back to her laundry. 

"No harassing the new girl, Boshaw." Ruth comments as she walks in, laundry basket on her hip. 

“I wasn’t doing nothing.” He tries to defend himself and Dahlia is left even more confused.

“Don’t let him bug you, he doesn’t even live here. Boshaws are good for nothing but a party,” Ruth tells her, clapping a hand on Dahlia’s back. She just shakes her head, not worth dealing with.

By the time Dahlia finishes up her laundry the sound of a backfiring truck engine is making its way back into the trailer park. Liam with a truck bed filled with hardwood and all the stuff she needs for her shed.

“Me and Clyde will help you put it together, if you want.” Liam offers, him and Clyde already helping her unload the materials. 

“I mean it’d go quicker, if I had more hands,” Dahlia says, she doesn’t need the help necessarily and doesn’t want to be a bother, but she’d appreciate it anyway. 

“Where exactly do you want it?” 

“Just right back behind my trailer, let’s see.” 

The three of them move the supplies to where she needs the shed built, Dahlia’s taking a glance at the building instructions and when she looks back up, Liam and Clyde have managed to grab a radio and a pack of beer. It’s not even noon. 

“Want one?” Clyde offers her a can. 

“Nah, I’m under 21.”

“Pfff, never stopped anyone.” He shrugs before downing the can himself. Maybe as a cop she should give a shit about that statement, but the drinking age is dumb. Even if she feels obligated to listen to it due to her job, she can admit it’s stupid. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, sweetheart, where are you from?” 

“Louisiana.” 

“The hell you doing out here?”

“Moved for work, you two Hope County natives?” 

“Born and raised, wouldn’t trade it for the world.” 

“You guy’s got any recommendations of shit to do here?” 

She happily listens to them ramble about lady’s night at The Spread Eagle, O’Hara’s Haunted House being the best place for a scare, hiking trails in the Whitetail Mountains, the best fishing spots, the 8-bit Pizza Bar’s games, and raving about the burgers at The Grill Steak. The entire time they’re all working, laughing, and the pair of them throwing back beers. 

Sweat is coating Dahlia’s skin by the time they finish, and it feels nice to be able to stand back to look at what’s been accomplished. Put together with hard work and the help of her new neighbors.

“Hell yeah, we got that knocked out in no time,” Clyde boasts, holding his hand out for a high five that she gives right away.

“Here,” Liam tosses her the padlock he picked up for it, all packaged with it’s little key. She pushes her bike inside, already thinking of adding hooks and shelves, for her helmet and other odds and ends. She can really make something with it. She’s more excited to put work into her motorcycle’s home than her own trailer. Go figure.

She locks it up and hooks the key on her keychain. One more thing taken care of.

“I really appreciate it, you guys didn’t have to do this. Uh, I can’t cook for shit, but if you want I can buy you l-”

Engine revving again, better shape than Liam’s backfiring pickup, an old green one comes pulling into the trailer park. Dahlia’s eyes widen in surprise when she realizes who’s at the wheel, Sheriff Whitehorse. The tension of the trailer park draws tight, no more signs of the laughing easy going nature she was getting comfortable in. Liam, Clyde, and every trailer park resident as far as Dahlia can see are now staring daggers at the Sheriff.

No sign of peturbment, Whitehorse parks and hops out of the front seat of his truck, right next to Dahlia and her two new friends. He stops to grab something from the passenger side.

“The hell are you doing here?!” Clyde asks low and threatening.

“Came to see my new Junior Deputy, figured it’d be good for you to get your uniforms,” Whitehorse tells her, green deputy shirts in hand.

“Thanks, Sheriff.” She takes the uniforms from his hand, feeling those glares that were on Whitehorse being turned towards her.

“You...settling in alright, Rook?”

“Uh, yeah, I think…” She thought she was. But, now she has her doubts.

“That’s good, just wanted to check in on you.”

“I appreciate it, I was just about to buy them lunch, if you w-”

“We’re good,” Liam says, definitely with a gruff sound to his voice.

“Are you s-”

Liam and Clyde are already storming away, smiles and laughter drained from their faces and replaced with angry tension. What did she do? Why are they mad? She clenches her jaw and chews her bottom lip as she watches what she thought were her new friends walk off.

“Come on, I’ll buy you lunch, Rook.”  Whitehorse claps a large hand on her shoulder, warm and comforting during her confusion. He gently turns her towards the passenger side of his truck, and she climbs in, fiddling with the uniforms in her lap; the Hope County Sheriff’s Department patch rough against her fingers.

The engine revs to life as Whitehorse climbs in, the radio humming out a country song. She hates not at least knowing what she did wrong. 

“Not gonna lie, when I heard you moved into The Moonflower, I got worried about ya Rook.”

“Why’s that?”

“Hmm, it’s where a lot of the more...suspicious citizens of Hope County live. They don’t have a lot of respect for cops, none actually. More likely to call you a pig than eat lunch with you. Not bad people, but they don’t have any love for law enforcement.”

“So...I’m a cop who just moved into a trailer park of criminals is what you're telling me.”

“Basically.”

“And thanks to you, they all for sure know I’m a cop now.”

“Would have found out when you had to arrest one of ‘em, this seemed a bit better.”

It’s stupid to be upset, she knows that it’s stupid to be upset about losing people she’s known all of five hours. But it felt nice to be welcomed with such open arms and to know that’s already gone to shit. She focuses on her uniforms in her lap because it’s easier than dealing with the lump in her throat and the churn of her stomach. No name tag or badge on her uniforms.

“Where’s my name tag and badge?”

“We’re a small operation, Rook. We’re not investing in patches and a badge until we know you’re staying in for the long haul.” 

“I also found out about your junior deputy crap, I’m not a kid in high school.” 

“Not far off from it.”

He’s looking off across the road to make sure it’s safe to turn, so she uses the moment of him looking away to stick her tongue out at him. Does it make her look any more mature? No. Does she care? No. 

“Caught that, Rookie.” 

“No, you didn’t.” 

“Yes, I did.” 

“Sounds fake.” 

They pull into the parking lot of Aubrey’s Diner, a big restaurant with a pink roof. Whitehorse brings the truck into park, Dahlia tucks the uniforms into the backseat before hopping out of the truck. The sheriff squeezes her shoulder as they walk into the restaurant, as much as he likes teasing her, he seems keen on trying to comfort her. Maybe he just feels sorry for her and her shitty luck. 

“Hey, my name is Cassie, I’ll be your waitress today. Can you take a seat, right over here.” A young girl, probably around Dahlia’s age with long black hair helps show them to a booth. Whitehorse takes his hat off as he sits down. 

“Can I get you two anything to drink?” The waitress hands them menus, there’s a mess of bruises across her forearm. Mixes of blues, purples, and some more faded greens. The indents of fingerprints on her skin. 

“A black coffee, please.” 

“Uh, whatever soda you have is fine, what happened to your arm?” 

The girl’s eyes go wide, reminiscent of a deer in the headlights. She gives an awkward tight smile and pushes a lock of hair back behind her ear. 

“Oh, I was just horsing around with my four wheeler, nothing major. I’ll go get your drinks, right away.” 

“You worry about everyone, don’t you?” 

“You don’t get bruises like that from a four-wheeler.” 

“You gonna do something about it?” 

“Sure as shit gonna try,” she manages to catch the smile on Whitehorse’s face before she looks at the menu, “now, if you’re paying, what’s the limit?” 

“Get whatever you want.” 

“Do you actually mean that? Or are you trying to be nice, ‘cause I can and will eat you out of house and home if you let me.” 

He laughs a little; a dry chuckle, like the idea of her being able to eat that much is ridiculous. She should try to go somewhat easy on him, first impressions or something. She’ll settle on a stack of pancakes and a double burger and fries. 

There are a few people in the diner and when Cassie returns, Dahlia decides now isn’t the time. She doesn’t want to embarrass or make her uncomfortable. Even she has a smidge more tact than that.  Cassie takes their orders and Dahlia feels Whitehorse staring at her. 

“You gonna gorge yourself to make a point?” 

“Pfff, this ain’t nothing to me,” Dahlia tells him with a shrug, drinking her soda, an awkward beat of silence following. 

“You know, it you may not have picked a great place to settle in, but I think you’re gonna like it here, Rook.”

“I’m hoping.” 

“A lot of people aren’t gonna like you. Aren’t gonna like your job, or what you have to do. You can’t let it get you down. The people here are good, most of ‘em will take you in with open arms.” 

“They literally turned their backs on me, like physically looked at me in disgust and turned around,” Cassie brings their food back out, “thanks.” 

“You know why I took a chance on you?” 

“’Cause of the robbery thing?’ She asks as she begins dumping syrup on her peach pancakes before shoving a forkful in her mouth.  

“I was gonna give you the probie position before that.” 

“What!?” She slurs out around the food in her mouth. 

“Well, yeah,” his blue eyes are soft, and he reminds her of Lloyd more than he ever has before, “you’re good people, Rook. And I’m not gonna be the only person who sees that. Anyone’d be damn lucky to have you in their corner.” 

She swallows her mouthful of food, chewing the inside of her cheek as she weighs his words in her mind. Her heart is lighter, it’s nice knowing her new boss is rooting for her, sees something in her that’s worth seeing. 

“That, uh, it means a lot,” this is too serious, “so, if you already knew you were gonna give me a shot before the interview ended, why the fuck did you wait until after to tell me?” 

“Wouldn’t be any fun if I didn’t make you sweat at least a little.” 

“I thought I fucked it all up!” 

“Can’t be a cop if you don’t have a good poker face.” 

“Its too good, I hate it.” 

“Well, if you hate that, you’re gonna really hate this.”

“...and what would ‘this’ be?” 

“You’ll be with Pratt on patrol.”

“What!?” She groans out, thinking about that smug asshole’s face.

“Pratt wasn’t too excited either, but I’m sure you two will manage.” 

“Why can’t I work with Hudson?” Dahlia asks, though her voice catches strangely when she thinks about her. Heat prickling up under her skin. Whitehorse sighs as he leans back in the booth. 

“I don’t want this to sound bad. You and Hudson are both perfectly capable officers. But I don’t like having two women officers partnered. I know it’s not right, but around here; perps will think they can push you around ‘cause you’re a woman. They’ll assume you’re soft. It’s not right, but it happens. I don’t want to put you in a bad situation right out of the gate, working with Pratt will make it easier on you.” 

“That’s garbage, you may mean well, but it’s garbage.”

“There’s another reason too,” Whitehorse tells her with lopsided grin. 

“And what’s that?”

“Rook, you could barely even talk to Hudson. I partner you with her and you’ll be a disaster.”

“What are you talking about? I talked to Hudson just fine.” 

“You were bright red and stuttering; blind man could see your little crush.” 

“Crush…?” Dahlia raises an eyebrow, like...feelings… That’s what everyone has been trying to say. 

“Jesus criminy, that’s a whole new can of worms. You know what a crush is?” 

“Yes, I know what a crush is, I just...never had one...I don’t think.” 

“You feel like you’re burning up and gonna puke when you see her?” 

“Maybe…”

“Like your heart is gonna explode out of your chest.” 

“Uhhhh…”

“That’s a crush, Rook.” 

She doesn’t even know Hudson, how the hell can she have a crush on her? You can’t have feelings for someone you don’t hardly know. She’s pretty though. Maybe it’s just physical attraction? Has she ever been even physically attracted to someone before?

“My head hurts.” 

“I’m starting to think you’re even worse than taking on a high school kid.” 

“Look, I don’t mess with that crap okay, I’ve never...ugh, can we move on?” 

They’ve finished their food before they know it, Whitehorse just shaking his head at how easily she managed to gobble up all of the food she got. Dahlia grabs a napkin, doing her best to write down her phone number with it being actually legible. Her hand aches from the effort but it’s easy to read. 

Cassie gives the bill and Whitehorse leaves a tip for her, once the young waitress starts to walk away, Dahlia excuses herself to go smoke. Though, she suspects the sheriff knows her actual intentions. 

“Hey, Cassie,” Dahlia calls out and stops the waitress when she gets to a relatively secluded portion of the restaurant. 

“Is there something else you need?” 

“How old are you?” 

“Uhh, 18, why?” 

Not much younger, but she’s an adult, even a year younger this conversation would be a lot different. 

“I can’t force or do much, unless you ask for it. But, I’m the new deputy with the station. I’m not saying for sure something is wrong, but if you need help, I want you to give me a call, alright?” 

‘Um...thanks…” The girl awkwardly accepts the napkin before darting away and Dahlia clenches her jaw, knowing the chances of that call ever coming are slim. But at least she’s made an effort and if nothing else Cassie knows she has options. More than anyone ever did for her. 

Maybe, she’ll go ahead and step outside for a smoke anyway. 

She steps out and finds herself at the side of the building, where she lights up her cigarette. Dahlia fiddles with the edge of her thigh high socks as she takes a deep drag. She exhales a heavy cloud of smoke that drifts up through the sky, the afternoon sun rays beating down on her. 

Among the trees something moves, a rustling of grass and brush followed by footsteps. Dahlia’s heart sinks when she sees her emerge. The girl from the hotel, the siren is walking down a grassy pathway. Her dress is a little different, no less white or lacy, but the sleeves are shorter and it comes off her shoulders, a white flower adorning her sandy colored hair. There’s a light grace to the way she walks, as if she’s on her own personal cloud floating along. She holds a book close to her chest. 

Why is she seeing her again? Are her eyes playing tricks on her again?

Dahlia is moving without another thought, the siren’s call working it’s magic to draw her in again. 

She expects the girl to vanish again, to fade into mist the second Dahlia gets too close, just as she had done time and time again that night. The second she grabs the woman’s shoulder, she’ll be gone. If the junior deputy even gets that close without the spectre fading away. 

The heat of real flesh under her hand sends her spiraling back to reality. The girl jolting and staring at Dahlia with wide green eyes, scared and surprised at the grasp of a stranger. An expression unlike any seen in Dahlia’s hallucinations. She’s human, flesh and real, an actual person standing before her whom Dahlia just grabbed like a maniac. The panicky yells of others flood her ears. There are other people, a group of five or so people glaring daggers at Dahlia. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” One of them yells, obviously ready to fight and Dahlia rips her hand off of the girl like she’s been scalded. What is she doing? 

“I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry,” Dahlia gushes out a mess of apologies, “I, uh, thought I knew you from somewhere. I’m sorry, I just, sorry.” 

“No, no need for sorries,” she’s speaking actual words for the first time, voice soft and melodic as she gently brings Dahlia’s hand into her own to intertwine their fingers, “you’re here for a reason, what’s your name?” 

“Oh, uh, I-” 

“Rookie, you ready to head out?” Whitehorse yells out from the diner, eyes narrowing a bit when he sees Dahlia with the strange woman. 

“I gotta get going, again, I’m sorry, I, bye.” Dahlia’s off like a shot, ripping her hand from the woman’s and running back towards Whitehorse; desperate to escape the awkwardness. 

She still feels those green eyes watching her as she jumps up into Whitehorse’s pickup. Dahlia settles into the passenger seat with a residual chill in her spine, she can’t put into words but something about this girl and the whole thing feels strange. The engine revs to life and the radio starts to play. 

“You know that girl, Rook?”

“I thought I recognized her but, no.” 

“You probably shouldn’t buddy up too close to the Seeds.”

“Why’s that?” 

“They’re not too dangerous, they run a little religious group around the county, but they keep finding themselves in trouble lately it seems.” 

“Reli- are they those Eve, Ed-” 

“Project at Eden’s Gate, everyone calls ‘em peggies. They’re usually pretty harmless, but they always seem to be getting into hot water with the locals. Two of ‘em were the ones robbing The Spread Eagle that day you interviewed.” 

“That doesn’t sound too harmless to me.” 

“Stuff like that is rare, you just managed to land here at the right time.” 

“Eh, I just know that I kept seeing random crap of theirs, from pamphlets to a book, and apparently that big freaking statue.” She glares at where she sees it over the horizon, the giant hunk of useless cement. 

“Yeah, Joseph Seed is a real piece of work.” 

“Wait, like, you’ve met him?” 

“He’s had some run ins with us.” 

“He’s like a currently living human being?” 

“Last time I checked.” 

“I, what the fuck, I thought he was like their old founder who died or something. You know from like the 1800’s or something. How far up your own ass do you have to be to have people build a statue of you? Ugh.” 

Whitehorse laughs at her discomfort; she was here thinking he must have been some old founder who died a hundred years ago and it’s just some creepy man bun guy probably off somewhere being weird right now. 

“You in a hurry to get home?” The sheriff asks her. 

“Not particularly.” She needs to get groceries and stuff, but she has Caroline’s made up meals and she has water to her trailer, so she can make do and go shopping tomorrow. 

“We’ll take the scenic route then, show you around.” 

Whitehorse drives her around the Henbane river area, pointing out different places and structures that seem worth noting. The Dire Wolf Basin, Lydia’s Cave, Mastodon Geothermal Park, Dead Man’s Mill, and every place that has a name it seems. He prattles on something about each place, where they get their names, history. And she can feel her eyelids getting heavier with every syllable.  They pass by the Drubman Marina, a dock and buildings, a pink helicopter landed there and boats on the sparkling clear water. The sun is starting to sink down and turn the sky into a mess of oranges and purples. His low accented voice rambles on about someone who owns it, divorce, real estate; it’s all a blur as she’s leaning against the door and her eyes finally shut completely. 

 “Rook, wake up,” Whitehorse is calling out and gently shaking her awake. She blinks a few times, clearing the sleep from her eyes. A glance at the radio clock tells her about two hours has passed. They’re parked back in front of the trailer park. He was talking and she fell asleep; not the greatest first impression to have on her boss the day before she starts working.

He doesn’t seem upset though, just smiling and laughing at her.

“You know, I was trying to help get your mind off shit, didn’t mean to do by boring you, but whatever works, I guess.”

“Sorry, I, uh guess, I was still tired from traveling, that’s a lie, I don’t know why I’m trying to lie. I just got bored and passed out.”

Whitehorse chuckles; at least he seems to find her amusing, that might help keep her around for a while.

“I’ll see you tomorrow Rookie, try to take it easy tonight,” she starts to unbuckle her seat belt, “and don’t forget your uniforms.”

“Thanks.” She grabs her uniform shirts out of the backseat and clambers out of the rusted green pickup.

Dahlia hears the trailer park before she steps past the sign. Whoops and hollers, the sound of a radio blasting. Behind her she hears Whitehorse’s truck pulling away and she feels alone again. No matter what it seems like she can’t seem to ever escape that.

In the center of the trailer park, near the playground area is a bonfire. Faces of people she’s seen in her short time here and ones she hasn’t met yet mingle around, laughing, hollering, and downing beers. The smell of food cooking over grills hits her nose, her never filled stomach growling despite herself. No one has noticed her yet. Caught up in the festivities. She adjusts the grip on her uniforms and kicks the toe of her boot into the dirt, she wants to be included. It’s childish, wanting so badly to just be invited. But she can’t help it. She doesn’t want to believe that people she seemed to fit in well with would throw her away because she’s a cop.

“You got a problem?” Clyde suddenly speaks up, noticing her through the party. His voice is low and his eyes narrowed, like he’s ready for a fight.

“Not particularly.” She shrugs.

“Then why don’t you go ahead and get out of here, Johnny Law.”

“I mean, I’ll go to my trailer…”

“Be better off if you just get out altogether,” Liam tells her.

“I paid to move in here like everyone else, you can’t kick me out.” Dahlia looks to Darcy, the only one here she sees that actually works for the trailer park and decided to rent to her.  The girl chews her lip and avoids eye contact, running a hand through her short hair.

“I mean, yeah, as long as you pay you can stay, but I doubt you’ll be too happy here...You should, uh, try to find something else.”

“And the sooner the better, we don’t need fuckin’ narcs moving in on us.”

“I don’t work in narcotics.”

“Do I look like I give a damn what division you work for, a pig’s a pig!”

Dahlia clenches her jaw at Clyde’s yells, the way everyone around him is grinning, supporting him. This was one of the only options, besides an expensive apartment in Falls End or just waiting for the Silver Lake Trailer Park to have something available. She just rolls her eyes, trying not to betray the ache in her heart. 

“This conversation is pointless.” She shakes her head and heads towards her trailer.

“Can’t believe we helped out a fuckin’ cop,” Liam grumbles as she turns her back on the party.

Then something pelts the back of her head, the stench of beer coating her hair as it splashes out of the nearly empty can that’s bounced off her skull.

She bites her lip, she could be an asshole, technically this can be classified as battery. And a little angry gremlin in the back of her brain wants her to teach them a lesson as they laugh at her, cackling like hyenas. 

But it was just a can of beer, basically empty. She’s an adult. She doesn’t need to waste time or energy on this. At least that’s what she tells herself when she keeps her head down and makes her way to the trailer.

Her door does little to filter out the sound of the party. The music and excitement reverberates through the thin walls of her trailer.

Young blood, come to start a riot.

Don’t care what your old man say.

She tosses her uniforms on the couch, not really caring where they fall. The stench of beer is still sticking to her skin. She peels off her jacket and digs out her phone, syncing it to her speaker, might as well blast her own music in return.

Young blood, heaven hate a sinner.

I felt a break in a sacred place where your hands don’t heal.

But we gonna raise hell anyway.

These are the reasons you’re ruled by the things you feel.

The music mingles and mashes in awkward ways. The upbeat country rock and slow drag of indie music meshing into a cacophony of noise. Somewhere between a yell and a sing, she belts lyrics out, sometimes her music, sometimes theirs.

Raise hell, yeah

Out of the deep waters and all their intricacies.

Somebody gotta, gotta raise a little hell

This is the real face of all your enemies.

This isn’t unfamiliar. The ache of loneliness and feeling like she doesn’t belong. There are lots of reasons for it. No matter where she goes, there never seems to be a place for her. She can’t even blame them. Even if they’re open and welcoming, she knows that feeling will creep up again.

Baby, drop them bones.

I felt you escape into empty space where my heart can’t feel

Baby, sell that soul

Down in that darkness, you met all the things you feared

Lloyd and Caroline were the most welcoming people she’s ever encountered, yet that feeling still reared its ugly head. Those doubts of being a burden, a bother, that she’s intruding on their space. A leech of their time and energy.

The party rages on outside, everyone far happier without her around, as she lights a cigarette up in her trailer.

And I knew, I knew..

Baby, fare thee well

There was nothing I could do...

[moshimorita]

Another tag game! I was tagged by the amazing @poptartmochi like 3 months ago (I AM SO SORRY IT TOOK ME THIS LONG!)

rules: you can usually tell a lot about a person by the type of music they listen to! put your playlist on shuffle and list the first 10 songs, then tag 10 people!

1. Annie’s Song - John Denver 

2. Morir al lado de mi amor - Demis Roussos

3. My Melancholy Blues - Queen

4. Great Days (JJBA part 4 op)

5. Amor Narcótico - Chichi Peralta

6. Kelpaat kelle vaan - Juha Tapio

7. Jealousy - Queen

8. Chamber Concerto in D minor RV 96 - Vivaldi

9. Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton

10. Everytime You Kissed Me - Yuki Kajiura

I’m tagging: @asphodelvalley @odetoecho @felipevime @angieaspn @miriio @neolation @velosarahptor (ok. i’m sorry for several things: 1) for not tagging ten people. 2) for tagging some of you AGAIN and 3) for tagging you if you don’t like tag games. I always say this, but i think it’s important. Please don’t feel pressured to do these things if you don’t want to! I hope all of you have an amazing day! ���)

[thismightbeaterribleidea]

Accidental Snowbirding

So I went to Florida and accidentally became a snowbird. I drove south in September with no real timeframe for anything in mind, and I ended up staying on the Gulf coast north of Tampa (Pasco County) for almost three months, minus a couple of weeks I was in Georgia.

Some friends have asked me how the new, nomadic life is going, and I tell them that it hasn’t really felt that nomadic. I’ve enjoyed being close to my friend Ron — I had a regular rotation of several campgrounds, none of them more than half an hour from his place. It reminded me of the decade-plus ago when we both lived in Denver, in old, cheap apartments within walking distance of each other. A friend calls and says “do you want to come over?” and you just go over. It’s lovely. We both got into paddleboarding (more on that later) and explored some rivers. We even took an airbnb trip to the Smokies and northern Alabama before the pandemic escalated. So it’s been interesting and good, if different from the types of images that motivated me to buy this big-ass van (wilderness, solitude, aspen groves, desert mesas).

Here’s what I remember from the last few months:

A cotton-candy-pink bird forages on a shoreline and it is so quiet that you can hear its three-clawed feet pattering in the mud. Ninety minutes later we are scarfing down fried chicken in the car in a crowded parking lot.

In the trailer park, people drive golf carts around in loops: maybe this passes for exercise, or maybe they are hoping to run into someone to talk to.

Until November, I sweat and sweat and sweat, and then it cools off enough for me to run in the morning and it’s glorious. 

During the day, there is constant traffic and the lights are always red. There are a lot of billboards, all promising different things, but the one that makes us angry is the one that says “Jesus promises stability.”

I spend the night at a trailer park and the ladies in the office are sweet and efficient and wearing masks. But the spot I’m assigned is across from a mobile home with one of those flags that is half the U.S. flag and half the Confederate flag, and although my privilege probably keeps me safe here, I keep running through the equations with slightly different variables: who would be safe in this spot, in this trailer park/this county/this state/this country, and under what circumstances? What could make all of us safer? And the people who chose to pay for and display that absurdity of a flag, why is that flag the story they tell themselves? And what is the topography of the shared responsibility for all of this bullshit?

We paddle the Hillsborough River and see no other boaters but two alligators. One is basking on a log, and when I turn my head for a second it drops into the water with a massive splash: one moment there was a six-foot alligator; the next moment there was nothing but ripples. It was that fast. My friend decides he will not paddle here alone.

I see live oaks that have Spanish moss hanging from their branches, sure — but they’re also covered in lichens, and on the horizontal branches there are carpets of multiple kinds of moss and clusters of foot-tall ferns. It’s a whole ecosystem in one tree.

I’m driving “home” (most frequent campground) late one night and I am alone on a very dark road. In my headlights, I see a human figure in the middle of my lane, facing directly at me. I think: goblin! But it is a human person. I swerve into the other lane in case he moves. But he doesn’t move a muscle. He is in a half-crouch with his hands on his knees. I catch a glimpse of him in profile as I pass: his face is set in a rictus, jaw clenched. He is still staring straight ahead, unblinking, as if he hasn’t even seen me.

I call Ron just to reassure myself that I haven’t slipped out of the real human world and into someplace else.

“Oh my God,” he says. “But no, you’re still in the real world. There’s a lot of meth around here. He’s not a demon or anything. It’s just Florida.” He is wearing a dark sweatshirt and standing in the dark on a dark road; what if he gets hit? I call the police and I hate that to this day I still wonder if that was the right decision.

We get into paddleboarding. Ron already has an inflatable paddleboard, and I buy one with money I should be saving for things like van insulation or the loose crown on my lower left molar that is already living on borrowed time. But the paddleboard is amazing. Previously, I hadn’t gotten it: why stand when you could sit? I’m lazy and I have crappy feet; I hate standing. But this isn’t regular standing. It’s walking-on-water standing. In our favorite river, the Weeki Wachee, you can see all kinds of things from a paddleboard that it’s harder to see in a kayak, just because of the angle. On a paddleboard, you look straight down and there’s a fish striped like a zebra, an old pine log submerged ten feet down in the clear water, a scurrying blue crab, a bed of rippled sand.

We start at the public park and paddle up against a stiff current. Twice, we get to the three-mile mark and there is the same black-and-white cormorant in the same tree both times. We are familiar with the fact that if you time it right, so that you get back to the park as late as possible without actually paddling in the dark, and the crowds taper off so you have the river to yourself, the deepest pools are turquoise on our way upriver and viridian on our way down.

There are sometimes manatees on the river. In this part of the world, manatees are THE charismatic megafauna. And they are charismatic as hell. Once we are out late, a couple miles up the river with no one else around, and we see a mother and baby grazing on eelgrass in shallow water. We watch for minutes, mesmerized. The baby is tiny for a manatee: about the size of a Corgi. It must be very, very new. There is another manatee that I’m pretty sure I see several times on different days: it is very plump, with three pink slash marks across its back. We get to the point where, if there is a throng of other boaters stopped near where manatees are feeding, we don’t try to stop and see the manatees. We’ve seen them before, and we’ll see them again, when we don’t have to worry about the people and their kayaks and canoes in the current.

The last time I went to the Weeki Wachee, I went alone. The leaves were turning, because the calendar’s close-to-Christmas is Florida’s fall. I hadn’t ever planned on seeing a blazing orange maple next to tropical blue water, but it happened. Close-knit formations of big, soft gray, doe-eyed fish darted under my feet, and at the appointed time the water started turning dark green. In one of the final bends just upriver from the park, there is a deep spot called Hospital Hole. As I paddled down towards it, I saw one manatee, then another break the surface to breathe. I drifted over the hole, away from the manatees near the surface, and I saw the outline of another one eight or ten feet down against the very dark blue of very deep water.

The Weeki Wachee is a very narrow river, usually not more than thirty feet across and often only twenty. It’s also shallow, four or five feet on average, twelve where the current has carved a deep groove or pocket. Hospital Hole is at one of the river’s widest points, I’d guess maybe 150 feet from bank to bank. The hole itself — technically a sinkhole, but with a couple of small springs feeding into it — is only about 30 or 40 feet wide, but 140 feet deep. It goes down so far that there are different layers of water: freshwater, saltwater, a layer that is anoxic, another layer that is so full of hydrogen sulfide that divers can smell the rotten-egg odor even though they’re breathing compressed air. I read online that the manatees often go to Hospital Hole to sleep at night. The sinkhole-spring, like a big deep pocket, gives them space to stay together and still spread out. They can sink down below where they have to worry about boat engines or curious paddle boarders or whatever else manatees worry about. Every so often, they come up to breathe, then sink down again. Respire, rest, repeat.

It’s 7:17 p.m. as I am writing this, so they’re probably there right now.

***

So that’s Florida! Other, more nuts-and-bolts things that have happened include...

I installed lights and outlets. This was a big project and a big deal, since it means that I can have things like a fan (to keep me from sweating to death in the summer), an electric cooler (a.k.a. mini-mini-fridge) for things like vegetables and hummus and cheese and cold boozy beverages, and, well, lights at night that aren’t a harsh blue-white solar lantern, which is what I was using before October, when I made these improvements. Anything electrical is always a little scary; I’m nervous every time I have to go into the breaker box and always surprised when I’m able to touch it without shocking myself. I also had an extremely minimal understanding of how to splice wires together and how to connect all these lights to each other, to the dimmer switch, and to the breaker box. This involved a lot of googling, and even though the DIY van blogs seemed to say that installing lights would take half a day, it took me the better part of two days. But it’s done, and I’m very happy with it. Fiat lux, motherf***er!

My new favorite public agency is the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Occasionally, if I’d had a few drinks at Ron’s house, I spent the night parked in his driveway. Sometimes I stayed in private RV parks. (This was mostly driven by the need to empty the van’s port-a-pot once a week or so — public dump stations are not easy to find in this area of Florida; the closest was about an hour away.) But mostly, I stayed at campground operated by the SWFWMD. These campgrounds are in big tracts of forested, marshy, watery land, and they are great primitive campgrounds that cost $0. There’s no water, no showers, no other fancy campground amenities, but there is usually one outhouse, and each campsite has a picnic table and a fire pit. They’re basic and beautiful.

My favorite campground is called the Serenova Tract. It’s about 15 minutes from Ron’s house, and the campground is in a bunch of pines and live oaks. Horses are allowed, and on one of the last weekends I spent there, several people with horses stayed overnight and hung up Christmas lights. The next morning, they were joined by a dozen other horses and riders who all went for a morning trail ride through the woods. I was insanely jealous.

The other SWFWMD campground I stayed at was called Cypress Creek. It’s a little farther from Ron’s place than Serenova, so it was my second choice when Serenova was full but my van’s shitter wasn’t. It’s a beautiful spot, with tons of big pines. But right now I’m a little wary of it because the last time I stayed there I woke up from a dead sleep at 4:51 a.m. when I heard someone singing and talking to themselves. (The campground had been totally empty when I got there and still was as far as I could see.) It was probably just someone who had come in on foot and was drinking because it was cold (40 degrees) outside, but it was still a bit unnerving. 

I also have a favorite RV park. I was thinking that my relationship with these places would be strictly utilitarian, and it still mostly is. But out of the three RV parks that I’ve stayed at, there’s one small one called Suncoast that I actually kind of enjoyed: even though I only went there occasionally, the three staff people remembered me when I called or came in, and they often gave me a discount on their regular rates because I don’t use any electricity. They (both staff and most guests) also seem to be taking pretty good pandemic precautions. (I actually saw someone get kicked out of the office when they tried to come in without a mask, something that I’ve never seen in any other business since March!) The place has nice big pine trees, and by the office there’s a table where people put free food that they aren’t using, or occasionally two-day-old bread that someone got from Publix for free. The last time I was there, some people had decorated their campers and RVs with lights and it was kind of charming. I still heavily prefer to be out in the woods by myself and not spending any money, but I’m glad I found someplace pleasant for my once-a-week-or-so sewer/water needs.

I figured out how to stay warm while sleeping. This is a bigger deal than it sounds because a) I haven’t insulated the van yet, so at night, it’s only a few degrees warmer than whatever the temperature is outside, and b) I’m a very cold sleeper. Florida is SUPER WARM compared to any other place I’ve ever lived, but in December, it started getting a little chilly at night: down into the fifties, then the forties, then, a few nights ago, 30 degrees. I’ve camped in near-freezing or slightly-below-freezing temperatures before, but sometimes it wasn’t very comfortable — even with good long underwear and socks and a hat and a zero-degree-rated sleeping bag. But I’ve figured out a system for my bed that uses four blankets, layered like a licorice allsort: a quilt, a heavy wool blanket, another quilt, and a faux-wool blanket. If it gets below 40, I can add my zero-degree down sleeping bag and be not just comfortable but actively toasty, like a baking croissant.

Unrelatedly, I’ve been having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.

I’ve found that my life in a van is basically like my life has been anywhere else. I work. I sleep. I stay up late reading things on the internet when I should be sleeping. Sometimes I go running or do yoga (while trying not to bump into the cabinet or kick the front console or hit the ceiling). Sometimes I do fun things, like paddleboarding or talking to friends. I make goals and plans and don’t follow through on them, except when very very occasionally I do. But when I’m looking up van stuff online, I often run across photos of people who are #selfemployed #vanlife and the photos of them working are:

A woman is seated propped up on pillows in the bed in the back of her van. The doors are open, framing a view of the cerulean sea, so that you can practically smell the gentle breeze blowing over the dunes. She has a laptop on her lap and is looking thoughtfully out to sea while a cup of tea steeps on a tray that is on the white coverlet of her bed.

Or

A man is seated at the dinette in the back of his van. He has a laptop, a French press, a mug of coffee, and a plate with two scones on it on the table. The table, and in fact the whole dinette with its two upholstered benches, would be at home on a small luxury yacht, and it’s the kind of dinette that you make into a bed at night. The astute, intent expression on the man’s face give the viewer to understand that he is competent and disciplined and never stays up two hours past his bedtime because he’s too lazy to lower the dinette table and rearrange the cushions and put on all his sheets and blankets. We are also given to understand that the electrical system in his van would have no problems handling the power drain of a bean grinder, even though he is clearly parked in the high Rockies — again, with the back doors open, the better to take in the late spring air and see the fresh green of the aspen trees — and it’s often cloudy. Lastly, we are given to understand that he baked those scones himself, because when he’s not working, hiking, lumberjacking, or otherwise living his best life, he enjoys unwinding by baking bread and pastries. (Not in the van; don’t be silly! He bakes outside, over a wood fire.)

(A tangent: Why do so many people have their van doors open in photos I see online? Do they only stay in places with no bugs? If I tried that in Florida, or even Maryland or Colorado half the year, I’d be awake half the night swatting at mosquitoes and/or flies.)

In contrast, a photo of me being self-employed in a van would look like:

A woman is sprawled in an ungainly fashion on her narrow bunk. Her laptop is braced by her lower ribs and propped up with a pillow placed over her gut. The pillow has a cat on it. The windows of the van are covered in silver bubble-wrap, so very little light gets in. Absolutely no doors are open, because the van is parked behind a Dunkin Donuts so the woman can get free wifi and not burn through all the data on her phone plan. She takes a break to heat up a can of Campbell’s soup on an alcohol stove, adding a handful of dehydrated mixed vegetables, to be healthy. As she stirs the soup, she gazes contemplatively out the windshield towards the adjacent parking lot, where there is an IHOP. #vanlife

Or

A woman is sitting in the passenger seat of her van with her feet on the dashboard and her laptop on her lap. Beside her in the cupholder is a steaming Hydroflask full of the cheapest tea she could buy at Publix. The van is parked in a grove of live oaks. Spanish moss sways gently in the morning breeze. Behind the woman, in the dark recesses of the van, sets of clothes are hanging: leggings and a shirt, still sweaty, by the side doors, a bathing suit over the sink, a t-shirt and shorts for sleeping in by the rear cabinet. Several kitchen towels are draped on the driver’s seat and on the dashboard because the cab leaks above the sun visors when it rains, and even though she’s tried caulking it three times, she still can’t get it to stop. #vanlife

The good thing, though, is that I’m still getting work and making a living. I can do it someplace that’s safe, without having to risk my life to do it. And I’m getting paid a fair hourly wage. But then the very terrible thing is that everyone should be able to say what I just said, but so many people can’t: they’re not making a real living through their work, they have to risk their lives to do it, and they’re not getting paid a fair wage.

(Brief interlude as I stare at the ceiling angrily.)

***

Here’s what I’m doing next: I left Pasco County on the 16th. I’ll be in what I think of as “traveling quarantine” until the 30th, staying in a national forest near Jacksonville. (With a couple of stops at state parks to refill water, empty the port-a-pot, and maybe take a real shower.) I’ll be in Maryland on New Year’s Eve and will stay at my parents’ while I insulate the van, build interior walls, and do a bunch of other stuff so that I can call it (mostly) finished. Then I’m thinking of going to New Mexico and spending late winter/early spring there… parked on top of a mesa… sipping a cup of French-press coffee on my white coverlet while I thoughtfully gaze out the open doors of my van… (I really would like to park on top of a mesa though.)

[insouciantsloth]

Colorado Springs Real Estate - Black Forest Homes

Find your own dream house property in the Colorado Springs real estate area of the Black Forest. This part of the Colorado Springs real estate space is located in northern El Paso County. The Black Prep is a rural area that is situated on approximately 180, 000 acres of land. The area is heavily wooded with mostly Ponderosa Pine trees. Black Forest is actually a mix of older homes and newer homes. The northwestern Black Forest real estate area includes: High Forest Hacienda established 2001-2004, Walden established 1965-2002, Hawk Ridge recognized 1994-2000, Wissler Ranch established 1996-1999, and Elk Creek Ranch established 1980-1993. Home Prices & Descriptions Some of the homes for sale in the Black Forest real estate area are 5 acre house properties. There are mostly ranch style property and 2 story homes. Some of the homes are made to order homes and reflect "country style" living and some of your homes resemble houses that blend into "city living". Many of these Colorado Springs real estate subdivisions include features which includes: multiple decks and fireplaces, slate floors, barns not to mention garages, granite counters, and theater rooms. The smallest sales price for homes in 2008 in the Dark colored Forest is $375, 000. The minimum size Black colored Forest home for sale is 3, 408 finished block feet. The minimum home for sale is 3 sleeping quarters, 3 baths, and a 3 car garage. The average revenues price in 2008 is $650, 000 and is contemplate, 527 finished square feet. The average size home available for purchase is 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, and a 4 van garage. The maximum sales price in this Colorado Springs real estate property area is $925, 000 and is 5, 646 completed square feet. The maximum size home for sale is 5 bedrooms, 5 baths, and a 5 car garage. The newer communities in the Black Forest real estate area will be prestigious High Forest Ranch. The Ranch has traditional custom homes for sale. There are close to 20 different custom builders to choose from. Some of the homes in this Colorado Springs real estate locale are situated on 2 . 5-5 acres of area. Residents in the High Forest Ranch area have group lodge at their disposal for those special occasions. The particular custom homes for sale in this Colorado Springs real estate area utilize the $499, 900-$3. 5 million. Amenities for some of the real estate include: multiple fireplaces, slab granite counter tops, vaulted ceilings, great rooms, family room, master retreats, theater rooms, pool rooms, wine rooms, travertine flooring, outdoor covered units, and wet bars. Many of the Colorado Springs homes for sale in this region have extensive timber and stone features. The Walden real estate area has beautiful custom ranch style properties with lots between approximately 1/2 acre and 1 acre in size. Many of the homes have stucco exteriors and also resemble more of a "city look. " Some of these Co Springs real estate neighborhoods include: custom cabinets, molding plus trim, granite slab kitchen counter tops, hardwood floors, a number of fireplaces, 5 piece master baths, vaulted great room, stucco exteriors, perennial gardens, offices, recreation rooms, game place, formal dining rooms, wood decks with hot tub, walk-out rancher, and gourmet kitchens. Homes for sale in this Colorado Rises real estate area range from the high $200, 000s to just below $600, 000. In the privacy of the pines is the distinguished Hawk Ridge real estate area. Hawk Ridge has homes for sale on approximately 2 . 5 acres or less. Lots of the homes are custom homes with features like: wood floors, walls of windows, multiple fireplaces, French gates, granite kitchen islands, custom cabinets, hand crafted banisters, ponds, walk-out dining area, and large decks. The virginia homes in the Hawk Ridge community range from the approximately the middle of the $500, 000s to 1. 3 million dollars. This part of the Colorado Springs real estate area borders the Black High area. The Wissler Ranch homes for sale range from the mid $400, 000s to $900, 000. Some of the homes have superb living and family rooms, huge open kitchens, large master suites, home theaters, wine cellars, exercise houses, recreation rooms, and 5 piece master baths. A number of the homes are on approximate 3 acre lots. A few of the homes are gorgeous cottage style houses with good old world charm. The homes for sale in this Colorado Springs properties area range from the mid $450, 000s to the mid $800, 000s. The Wissler Ranch community also borders typically the Black Forest area. There are some homes for sale in the Elk Creek community in the low $200, 000s. The homes are found in meadows and in the woods. Most of the homes are actually on five acre lots and are zoned for farm pets. Some of the homes have beautiful mountain views and some are situated in the meadows and have natural streams running through the real estate. Many of the homes include barns, storage sheds, fences for horse, RV parking. There are custom homes in this community. Come across your perfect dream horse property in this Colorado Spgs real estate area. Amenities include: vaulted/beamed ceilings, large pools, fireplaces, skylights, multiple decks, oversized garages, and coated stalls. Schools. The schools of attendance are: Lewis Palmer Elementary School, Ray E. Kilmer Elementary College, Lewis Palmer Middle School, Creekside Middle School, as well as Lewis Palmer High School. The schools are part of the Lewis Palmer School District 38 boundary area. Neighboring Residential areas. The Southwestern portion of the Black Forest is located to florida and contains the Black Forest Regional Park. The Charcoal Forest extends to the east. The Kings Deer, Canterbury, Fox Run, and Cherry Creek Crossing subdivisions will be situated to the west. Commuting. The northwestern Colorado Comes real estate area of Black Forest is located near Highway 83 and County Line Road. It is convenient for travelling to Colorado Springs and Denver. This part of the Ticket Force Academy real estate area is located approximately 30 minutes or perhaps 22 miles from the USAFA main gate and is the possible Colorado Springs military relocation choice. Recreation. Typically the High Forest Ranch community has miles of backpacking trails and open space. It is close to the Tri-lakes realty area. Three lakes and multiple golf courses live in the Tri-lakes area. Shopping is close by in Monument, Castle Rock, Denver and Colorado Springs real estate locales.

[havekiddoswilltravel]

News Flash: Family Travel Doesn’t Even Require a Passport

Passport free affordable family travel inspiration that will get you to actually leave the house with your kids.

Often times, I have parents ask me for advice regarding travel with children and I remind them that international travel is not the only way to expose and share experiences with your kids. I’m well aware that if you search the hashtag #travel or #familytravel, you will come across many staged and photoshopped images of what seems like perfectly behaved jet setting families in Paris, Malasia, Kenya, Greece and every international Disney Park, yet I’m here for the family who’s trying to figure out how to pull off a simple in state road trip, overnight trip or weekend adventure. While we love exploring so many amazing places that are ideal family travel locations, I’m also all about the local and regional travel experiences. Why? It’s more realistic that the average family will be able to plan, afford and actually pull off an overnight trip or weekend getaway, than a safari or two week long trip through Europe. Realistic and affordable family travel is imperative to breaking the obstacles to family travel for most people. 

Family travel is not something we do to simply check off a box, say that we’ve been there and because it’s currently the trendy thing to do. We were those lone black people hiking, camping, skiing and in typically not family orientated travel destinations, before family travel became the “in” thing. It’s been an integral part of our family values and way of life for over nineteen years. This means that we place as much emphasis on the experiences and lessons learned while taking a day trip to Block Island, Rhode Island or a weekend trip to Acadia National Park, Maine, as we do on our trip to Havana, Cuba. Travel is truly as much about the process of getting to the destination, as it is about experiencing said destination with our children. What do I mean? Children who grow up to be adults who love adventure and experiences are born in transit. They are born in their ability to pack their bags, organize the car, plan their trip and live in the moment once they arrive. They’re born in the ability to make the most out of the unexpected or hiccups in their plans, without those challenges completely ruining their trip. 

These lessons can be learned without even owning a passport, a car or the funds to take you on that bucket list trip. You don’t need to have TSA Pre Check, Global Entry or Mobile Passport to raise travel loving and adventure seeking children. You can accomplish these goals by teaching your kids how to explore their own back yard, state, region and country. The United States or your own home country are filled with incredibly beautiful places just waiting for you to experience them. I challenge you to rethink the passport stamp seeking family travel culture that we’re bombarded with daily on social media and you will realize that it’s not as unattainable as you once thought. Even as a family travel blogger, I find myself rolling my eyes at some of the elitists posts that I see on social media these days. I’m here to tell you that it’s perfectly okay if your kids don’t leave the country until they have their first job and can afford to buy their own flight. While we do travel internationally with our four children, I must acknowledge that international travel is not something that is immediately available to most families with two children, much less those with four. I encourage you to start traveling with your kids by choosing trips that meet your personal family budget. Don’t compare yourself to others. It’s paralyzing.

The older I get, the more I appreciate a good long weekend family trip. I don’t have the attention span for most 7-day trips with kids. I love long weekends and 5-night trips because they allow our family to create amazing memories while not completely disrupting our daily flow, routine and wallet. Also, as a large family, lodging, food and transportation costs add up quickly. I’d rather travel more often, than travel longer in one single trip. This is our family’s preference and you will figure out your own family travel flow, the more you get out of the house with your kids. I’ve written previous blog posts about the fact that family travel is not a vacation. It requires a shift in thinking and an acceptance to what your reality is as a parent leaving the house with children. It’s a fact. You will have to put in all of the work required to parent on a daily basis while you are away from home. Travel will only accentuate your troublesome family dynamics. Ugh, sorry I had to say that! It’s reality. I’ve spoken to so many parents who say that they don’t travel with their kids because their kids don’t listen, misbehave and thus damper their travel experience. Those are issues that I highly recommend that you address and deal with before you embark on a week long trip with children. Traveling didn’t cause these issues, but having kids out of their element accentuates all of those things to a degree that will cause you to never leave home again. Thus, be realistic in your travel expectations with children. You may be in a season that requires shorter trips. Embrace that. The season of longer travel will be here before you know it.

Don’t be paralyzed by all of the family travel posts to expensive travel destinations, that leave you feeling inadequate, despondent and slightly depressed. Start somewhere. Start Local. Start now. You won’t regret it and in the meantime, you’ll be planting those seeds that you will surely sow at the right time in your family’s lifetime. These are some of our favorite family travel destinations that hopefully will get your wanderlust juices flowing. I bet some of these are close enough to you that you can make a long weekend out of them.

-          The Grand Canyon, Flagstaff Arizona, U.S.A.

-          The Monterrey Peninsula, California, U.S.A.

-          The Pacific Coast Highway, California, U.S.A.

-          Coronado Beach, San Diego, California, U.S.A.

-          San Francisco’s Cable Cars, San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

-          Sequoia National Park, California, U.S.A.

-          Yosemite National Park, California, U.S.A.

-          Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

-          Essex, Connecticut, U.S.A.

-          Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Connecticut, U.S.A.

-          Litchfield Hills in Connecticut, U.S.A.

-          Amelia Island, Florida, U.S.A.

-          Everglades National Park, U.S.A.

-          Key West, Florida, U.S.A.

-          Marco Island, Florida, U.S.A.

-          South Beach, Miami Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

-          Savannah, Georgia, U.S.A.

-          Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

-          Acadia National Park, Maine, U.S.A.

-          Kennebunkport, Maine, U.S.A.

-          Ocean City, Maryland, U.S.A.

-          Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

-          Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

-          Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

-          The Lakes Region, New Hampshire, U.S.A.

-          Mount Washington, North Conway, New Hampshire, U.S.A.

-          The Adirondacks, New York, U.S.A.

-          The Catskills, New York, U.S.A.

-          Lake Placid, New York, U.S.A.

-          Lake George, New York, U.S.A.

-          Finger Lakes, New York, U.S.A.

-          Hudson Valley, New York, U.S.A.

-          New York City, U.S.A.

-          Saratoga Springs, New York, U.S.A.

-          The Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina, U.S.A.

-          Gettysburg National Military Park and Cemetery, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

-          Pennsylvania Dutch Country, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

-          Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A

-          Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

-          Block Island, Rhode Island, U.S.A.

-          Newport, Rhode Island, U.S.A.

-          Manchester Village, Vermont, U.S.A.

-          Stowe, Vermont, U.S.A.

-          Killington, Vermont, U.S.A.

-          Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, U.S.A.

-          Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S.A.

-          Washington, District of Columbia, U.S.A.

-          Nova Scotia, Canada

-          Niagara Falls, Canada

-          Quebec, Canada

-          Montreal, Canada

-          Exploring any Chinatown, Koreatown or little Italy in any major city.

 What are some of your favorite affordable family travel destinations? What are some of the obstacles that you face in starting to travel with your kids?

Pro tips for affordable local family travel:

- Travel off season. Island destinations like Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard are just as stunning, more affordable and less crowded in the off season. Ski resorts make amazing Spring, Summer and Fall destinations. Off season travel also mean that you won’t face minimum night requirements and thus allow you to take a weekend trip rather than a full week. 

- If you have young children and don’t need to work around a school schedule, hotels are cheaper on Sunday nights and mid week. Avoid Friday and Saturday nights unless traveling to business destinations and then weekends are actually less expensive at some of the really nice business hotels.

- Brand loyalty does pay off. If you do stay in hotels, follow the deals and not the destinations. Also, stick to one brand and sign up immediately for their rewards programs. Many of our annual hotel stays are free nights using rewards.

- Don’t be afraid to book Airbnb’s. As a large family, we often book condos and full houses at a significantly cheaper rate than a hotel stay.

- I use Costco often for car rentals. They offer the best deals for vehicles that can accommodate our family. 

- Be flexible and creative in your lodging options. We’ve stayed outside of beach towns for 1/4 of the cost of staying on the beach. Flexibility in family travel is key to actually going anywhere. 

- Be willing to try new things. We’ve stayed in cabins, RVs and tent camped. I honestly never pictured myself having some of the amazing experiences that we’ve shared with our children. To think that I may have missed these memories if I stuck to that which I was comfortable with. 

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[onlywhenitsraininglove-blog]

The Carnage Chapter two

*SEE WARNING AT TOP OF CHAPTER ONE*

Two:

South of Clover, Idaho.

In the early nineteen seventies, the sprawling Shaw Ranch raised over five thousand head of cattle, operated a full dairy and employed over one hundred workers that cared for every aspect of the ranch. They grew most of their feed but still required semi truck loads to be delivered during the final months before winter set in and seeing the ranch in its hay day was a sight to behold.

But now the ranch looked defunct and seriously aged. The animals were gone and in their place were the remains of old rotted hay stacks and rusting hulks of farm vehicles that littered the areas around the barns. Piles of scrap wood and tin along with half a dozen old tractors sat in the tall weeds that grew around the farm.

The California ranch style home was a large six bedroom structure that had two levels with over six thousand square feet of living space, the main floor being ground level and the second floor below. At its prime the house and property had been valued at nine million dollars, and while it still retained a good portion of that value, it was only due to the value of the land that surrounded it. The exterior of the house was in disrepair and needed a fresh coat of paint, but the interior was warm, clean and still inviting.

From as early as seventy five, the house had become the central hub of so many children in Clover due to the Shaw children having so many friends that it had been one of the most visited houses in Clover. The children had started calling the house, Blissful House and it was a name that stuck with the locals too. Seth made a wood sign that hung over the front door that said, “Welcome to Blissful House” in honor of all the children who had ensured its respected name in the community.

The farm was not the sole income the family earned. Seth may have had a bit of a tougher time if that had been the case, raising five children as well as he did. But Seth made his money in High rise construction and had been so successful that at the age of thirty he was able to buy the property that was now Shaw Ranch and build it up. He worked both places, but the ranch was his home.

He married his childhood sweetheart on Christmas day, in nineteen sixty nine while they were both still thirty. He built the house first and they moved in on their wedding day. They started having children right away. They were both eighty years old now and the children ran the construction business and over the years it had grown into an empire.

Seth would have liked to turn over the Ranch to one of his children, but none of them had any interest in keeping it going. They liked the city life and all of them had moved to Denver, Colorado where the head quarters of Shaw Construction was located. Every one of his children worked in the business and were listed as the owners of the construction business now along with their spouses. It seemed that Denver was the main attraction.

Seth managed the Ranch till he turned seventy. He supposed he could have kept it going, but he really didn’t want to worry about things anymore. So he sold off the animals and as much of the equipment as he could and focused on his lovely wife and little hobbies that he had enjoyed when he was a boy growing up in Texas. He kept a few of the old farm hands around still, living in their homes for free as it always had been and in exchange their children would do what needed to be done around the house and property that he himself couldn’t do.

He was in considerably good heath and didn’t look eighty, but he just attributed it to his work in construction and his absence in the use of alcohol and tobacco. Those were the two things he had never done, would not do and didn’t allow on his farm. He hated those things just as much as he hated drugs too, but he was of a mind that only strange hippy people did the drugs.

After giving birth to five children, Mabel had become a round plump woman and she was fine with that. She had known her husband liked that look in a woman and in the fifty years they had been married he had never once complained about her weight or looks. She could see the love he held for her in his eyes, in his gentle mannerisms towards her. In business, Seth could be ruthless and always expected perfection, but with her, he was soft, kind and gentle.

She had fallen in love with him the very first time she set eyes on him. He was tall, slender and a bit of a garish boy, wearing cloths not commonly seen on youth in those days. He had the good looks of Ronald Regan and the calmness of a panther while stalking it prey. There was always this in tension and conviction that seemed to surround him, but it also told her everything she needed to know. He wanted her and no one else. She always knew what he wanted and when he wanted it because of this.

They were ten when they met for that first time and she still recalled how his stare set her face on fire. She could read that face so well even then and she had fallen so hard for him that very day so many years ago. It had been Christmas day, nineteen forty nine when she first set eyes on him.

The weather that day in Dallas felt colder then it actually was. It was a clear day but the wind was blowing pretty hard making the normally cooler temperatures feel even colder. She had been at her grandmothers house for Christmas for the first time in four years and had gone out to ride her new bike. Seth had been across the street watching her. She had seen him when she first came out thru the garage, tossing a ball to another kid, but the entire neighborhood of kids was out that day playing with their new toys or bikes so she paid no real attention to them.

After she took several laps up and back on the street and she was getting ready to go back into the house due to how cold she felt, but she saw him standing in the street, just off the sidewalk with his hands clasped together in the front and looking at her like he had been waiting for her. She stopped in front of him and got lost looking at his eyes. It had been love since that moment for both.

Unlike so many other children, they never argued or fought over things or subjects. They talked in a calm, quiet way. You would have to be very close to hear their conversations, but you could always see the pleasant smiles they wore as they made their plans for the future.  

Seth had always been sweet with her, buying her flowers and little gifts that always made her heart pound a little more. He never forgot a birthday, or a promise and had done everything he had said he would do. Mabel loved Seth so much. He had been a wonderful husband and a loving, caring father and he had been her life and she, his.  

At diner time, they sat at the small table in the kitchen, where they could be close and hold hands just like they used to do when they were young. He was still a romantic after all these years and she hoped they would be together for another twenty years. The main table was only used when their kids came home and this year they were going to have to add all the extensions to it. They were going to have a very full house this Christmas.

This part of southern Idaho was cold, windy and generally miserable during the winter months and this December was no exception. The average daily temperatures were forecast to stay below freezing most of the month. But that would not stop the Shaw family from gathering on Christmas day since it had been a tradition for as long as any of them could remember.

The family didn’t just celebrate Christmas on that day, but also their parents anniversary and this year it was especially important. This was going to be their Golden Anniversary, meaning fifty years of marriage. It was a sure bet all their children would be there and maybe even some grand kids with great grand kids. It was going to be a fun event and Mabel and Seth Shaw were looking forward to it.

The first twenty one days were filled with all sorts of activities. Mabel had been busy cleaning and dusting all the bedrooms and cleaning the massive stacks of bed linens from the closet so that each person would have a nice clean place to sleep in. Seth had hired a company to come out and cut all the weeds down while the families that still worked for him helped to organize and re-stack the piles out around the property and made sure some of the barns would not be accessible to young children.

He parked his two large RV’s near the house and hooked them up to electricity and water and made sure the propane tanks were full. He knew his oldest son would also bring his RV and so he made sure the pad was cleaned and ready to be used. The huge old stack of rotting hay had a large net tied down over it, so it could not collapse on any of the children if they decided to go exploring. All kids liked to go exploring on his property and also play massive games of hide and seek.  

When the first of the family started to arrive on the evening of the twenty first, all was ready and in good shape. Seth would have loved to have been able to put a new coat of pain on the house, but with the temperatures, it just was not possible.

Michael Metzger copywrite 2019

[dailyaudiobible]

06/07/2019 DAB Transcript

1 Kings 2:1-3:2, Acts 5:1-42, Psalms 125:1-5, Proverbs 16:25

Today is the 7…I was gonna say 17th…but it’s the 7th day…I don’t even know where the 17th came from. Let's just start this over. Today is the 7th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure, it is an honor, and it is a joy, and really it's remarkable that we can get together like this every single day, let God's works word speak to us, and know that we’re not on this journey alone. So, welcome to today. It’s great be here with you. We began the book of first Kings yesterday, which simply picked up where we left off at the end of second Samuel. So, first Samuel dealt basically with King Saul's life. Second Samuel, for the most part, dealt with King David's life and now we are at the end of King David's life and his son Solomon has been made King and we noticed some drama in Solomon becoming King. This is kind of become a common thread in David's family. And we’ll pick up the story where we left off yesterday. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Today, first Kings chapter 2 verse 1 through 3 verse 2.

Commentary:

Okay. So, from our time in first Kings we said goodbye to King David and we've been traveling with King David for quite a while now. So, we’re saying goodbye to somebody we got to know pretty well. We saw that the transfer of power to his son Solomon did not go smoothly and we also saw that Solomon’s gonne need more than political alliances and smarts to rule and this is becoming very clear to him.

In the book of Acts we continue to see the gospel move forward. So, every day, people were being taught in the temple complex near a place called Solomon's Colonnade. People were finding healing and the believers were all held in high regard even though a lot of people who respected them kept their distance, right, and stayed on the sidelines because they were afraid of the religious leaders. And for good reason. The religious leaders were envious over the momentum Jesus message continued to gain. So, they through the apostles in jail. An angel freed the apostles who went right back to sharing the Good News. And, so, the Sanhedrin rearrested them and dragged them before the high priest, right? “I gave you strict orders. Don't ever talk about this guy again. And instead of obeying us you filled Jerusalem with all of these words about Jesus”, right? And Peter’s like, “but who are we supposed to obey here? Like, we have to obey God.” And then he took the chance. He had to share the gospel with the most revered of Israel's religious leaders. And it’s so interesting because they behaved in the same way they had behaved with Jesus. Like if we remember Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, I mean, once word got to Jerusalem their response was to get together in a meeting like this and figure out how to kill Jesus. And, so, that's exactly what they were trying to do with the apostles, figure out how to get rid of them too except for one person named Gamaliel who as one of the leading Pharisees and respected by all according to the book of Acts. One of his students, as we will find out when we get to his writings, one of his students was another Pharisee named Saul. Saul hated what was going on with this uprising, this Jesus thing. He hated it. He wanted to stamp it out. He had no idea he was on a collision course with a faith that would completely transform him from the Pharisee Saul to the apostle Paul. And, so, we kind of ended today's reading with Gamaliel, who had been the instructor, one of the instructors for the apostle Paul, the Pharisee, Saul. He said, “my advice is to leave them alone because…basically because if there's no energy behind this it's going to dissipate and go away but if God is behind this there's nothing you can do to stop it. And you might find yourself proposing God.” So, we should take note here that in surprising ways God is protecting those who chose to obey Him in spite of the intimidation and this continues to give us this firsthand look at how it was this faith took root after Jesus ascended to the Father, This people empowered by the Holy Spirit became passionate witnesses, and they didn't care what they had to go through to bring light into the darkness, and we’ll continue to observe that as we continue our journey through the book of Acts.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for all of its different facets and complexions, the different ways that it speaks to us. We thank You for the stories of our spiritual ancestors who have gone before us paving the way for things that we just take for granted now. So, we thank You for allowing us to read their stories and enter into their stories. We also thank You that we have a story that we are telling and it's a continuation of the same story. And even as they paved the way for us we are paving the way for those who will come after us now and everything matters and it's important. And, so, as we enjoy the stories of the formation of the early church we ask that You seal them in our hearts because we’re telling the same story. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, of course, it’s home base, it is how you stay tuned and stay connected to what's happening.

And what we've been announcing here, what were excited about is the upcoming event over Labor Day weekend, that’s August 31st through September 2nd and we’ll be doing our second annual global campfire Family Reunion. We had a fantastic…so much fun last year doing it because we just didn't know…we thought maybe we’d just do it…see what happened but there was so much energy, so much excitement about doing it again that we are and we had to find a place that we could handle more people and we did, up on the lake, not too far from the airport, very convenient to Nashville. I mean it's beautiful and there's just tons to do out there. Like, there’s ziplines, ballfields. There’s the lake. So, canoeing and this giant slide into the water and volleyball and there’s a climbing wall a soccer field…anything…I mean…it's just amazing…there’s a ton of stuff to do out there. So, come with your family. There are some huge bunkhouses for a family or maybe a couple of families get together. There are bathrooms in them and everything. There’s yurts. There’s like a little yurt village. And last year we did this where if you kind of coming alone or just coming with a couple of people maybe you just want to grab a bunk in the men's bunkhouse or the women's bunkhouse. And there’s spots there. You can bring your RV and camp, or you can tent camp. It's just a place to come with the family, play together, make friendships together, deepen relationships together all at the global campfire Family Reunion 2019. And, so, you can get all the details at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section. Just look for Family Reunion 2019 and all the details will be there and you can register and we’ll see you soon.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There’s a link that lives on the homepage. Thank you. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that is it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi Daily Audio Bible, this is Amber I’m calling from Illinois and today is June 5th and today I’m asking prayer for myself. I’m just kind of in a point in my life where I feel like things are like a fog if that makes sense at all. I work in the trucking industry. In August it will be four years since I made this adventure and when I say, work in trucking, I have never ever in my life worked for an industry where people are so wicked and unruly. Like, on a daily basis I get verbally abused, called out of my name and our management does nothing about it. They just say, “suck it up and move on and to take it personal.” But it’s hard not to take things personal when people are downright calling you the b word or the c word. It’s hard to not take that personally because intentionally somebody call me out on my name not matter if you’re frustrated or not. And lately I’ve been really feeling burnt out of my job. Like I’m grateful to have a job, don’t get the wrong but some days it’s just mentally draining, and I feel like I just…I can’t do this anymore. So, I’m just kind of at the crossroads where maybe I need to do something else or what. But…I don’t want to get emotional. But a position for another department came up and unfortunately, I wasn’t notified about it, so I was unable to apply and now it’s too late and it’s just…it’s very displeasing. I try to think of it as, you know, something that I really wanted. It may not be something that…

Hi Daily Audio Bible, good morning, this is Grace from Tampa. I’m calling…I want to thank God for all of you. It’s May…no it’s June 5th and I just listened to the June 5th podcast and Brian talked about the notion that, in the book of Acts, Peter says, “why…why do you consider this strange?” And I also heard a prayer request for a little boy who is going through surgery and I thought it was perfect timing. I tend not to call because I worry about sounding a little clumsy in my prayers, but I thought that it was perfect that those two…that the message today and that prayer request came in on the same day. So, Lord God we command healing for that little boy, that little boy who is undergoing surgery in Denver Lord God. I thank You that You love the little children, You love them so much Lord God and that You hold them close. And, so, Lord God, I thank You for complete and total healing for the little boy, that this will be a testimony, that when he is 8 and 10 and a teenager and a grown man Lord God that he can look back and see that You had Your hand on him from the very beginning Lord God. So, thank you Daily Audio Bible. I consider you all praying for me even when I don’t call in as often as I need too. I thank you all for praying for me and I’m praying for every single one of you. I love you all. Bye.

Hi, this is Vicky from Arizona and I’m just calling because I am so encouraged to hear everybody’s prayer requests this morning. There was a gentleman that called in that had gone through divorce who had been involved in drug addiction and he just said when he heard this he just felt love from everybody. And that’s what I feel. I was like, there’s so many people when they call in you just feel the love that we are, you know, a family. And God really has blessed me to be a part of this and I am just so grateful and so thankful for Brian and for everybody that prays on a daily…or just whenever you feel like it because I know that God does hear our prayers collectively and individually and He just is such a good God. And I am praying for myself today for God just to encourage me because I do feel discouraged. I feel like I need more, more of God, more…you know, they said that signs and wonders will follow those that believe and that’s what I want. I’m just hungry for more of God to move in my life and my situation. I pray for people, that God would…that I would see things happening because I feel like we’re living in an age that we have to have an expectancy and God just move because it’s our faith that moves Him. So, I’m praying for more, whatever that is, more of God, more expectancy, more joy, more peace, more of everything that Jesus died to give me because I know that is…I’m just hungry and He said that He will fill us. So, I am seeking Him…

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family, my name is Tammy from Canada. I am so thankful for all of you. I’m new to Daily Audio Bible but I am so thankful to hear your voices and hear how you’re all growing and praying for each other and that I can be part of this family. I called in about a month ago about my daughter Chantel, she’s 23 and she’s been struggling going through anxiety and depression and she’s withdrawing from her schooling and she’s been struggling with life. And I asked for prayer. I have a praise report. It’s only a month but she’s doing so much better and I truly believe it’s the prayers of the saints. She has interest in life now and hope but still has a ways to go and I guess that’s why I’m calling. She needs to move at the end of the month, so June 30th and she needs to find a place to stay, a safe place, a place where she can grow and be around healthy people. And, so, I ask that you would pray that God would provide a place and also provision because she really doesn’t have any…doesn’t have any money at the moment, doesn’t have a job and withdrew from school so her funds from schooling are not available to her. So, she really…I pray that God will just really show her his love and provision and in a beautiful place. I thank you so much. I thank you to know that you are there praying. That just helps my momma heart, that I’m not going it alone. So, thank you so much Daily Audio Bible family. God bless you all. Bye for now.

[breakfromwork]

May 20-28, Vancouver Island-Washington

Gae and I hung out in Campbell River, BC until the 21st, when we visited a local auto repair place. Canada’s Victoria Day holiday on the 20th kept us from trying to get anything fixed, as most places were closed. We ended up taking the RV  to Lakeland Automotive, which was recommended at the first place we tried and had no availability. Tom took a look in the afternoon, finding both ball joints popped from their control arm mounts. We had the ball joints replaced in Denver at Shan’s Complete Automotive in March, but the old control arm threaded connections completely stripped when we hit a hard dip on the way south from Port Hardy. BUMMER! It took us until Friday the 24th to get all the work done, as there was an issue getting both assemblies (control arm & ball joint) until then. Thankfully, the U.S. exchange rate helped on costs, which even with more parts, cost $600 less than the work in Denver.

I got a kick out of the home-made sink fixture at Lakeland Automotive... recycling at it’s best!

The Perks Donuts next door to the auto shop was incredibly handy, and the baker there made excellent Apple Fritters:-) 

We took a walk around town on the 22nd, where Gae found a fabulous sugar free cookie at the local organic market, and we hung out at the waterfront park.

The local ferry terminal next to the park served 2 small islands across the channel.

We took advantage of Lakeland’s loaner car on the 23rd to get showers at the aquatic center, and do a little shopping. Gae found an arm brace to support her left arm, which got re-injured while we were swimming at the aquatic center over the previous weekend. Given the issues with the RV , and Gae’s injury, we decided to forego the drive to Yellowknife, and instead planned to head to Colorado and Michigan after dealing with Gae’s shoulder in Seattle.

We drove to Strathcona Provicial Park on the 24th to do some hiking, but just chilled out in the lush campground after arriving. 

I whittled a chunk of wood and repaired the 2nd broken arm on one of the camping chairs we haul around, while Gae did some reading.

We checked out Myra Falls on the 25th, hiking 5 different short trails during the day.

Here’s the happy hikers with 2 of the 3 falls behind and above us.

This is the view up the valley at the south end of Buttle Lake near Myra Falls.

This lichen covered branch crossed one of the short trails we took.

Yes, I’m excited by the lush surroundings and huge trees!

We ran across a couple King Boletes, too old to eat, but surprising to see in the spring.

The trail to Lupin Falls was spectacular.

As were the falls themselves.

Our last hike was to Lady Falls, where Gae and Luna admired a brilliantly lit bench and flower.

The flower next to them.

The downed cedars were huge, and showed off the bizarre growth patterns.

We returned to Campbell River and spent the night at Gae’s church so she could attend on the 26th. We headed south after church, catching a half hour late 5:45 ferry to Tsawassen, then crossed the border to overnight in Bellingham. We were unable to take care of our business on the 27th, due to the holiday, so we spent another night in Bellingham after doing some laundry, shopping and a faucet tune-up on the sink.

[7andaswitch-blade]

When I used to Uber in Denver I would take a break around 2:30am until maybe 4:00am. I used to go to this TA at I-70 and 44th which allows 2 hour parking. I would pull in, throw an episode of Star Trek on my phone, and lay back for a bit before gassing up and leaving to hunt for airport rides. One night the security guard knocked on my window and told me I had to leave. I asked him why and he said “You can’t have your eyes closed”. I said the sign says ‘2 hour rest area’ and he stood by his conviction that my closing my eyes was a grave offense. So I left, carefully avoiding two hookers walking through the lot as I passed. After that I found Walmart and Cracker Barrel are particularly friendly towards travelers, specifically RV’s but you can get away with chilling in a car for a couple of hours. And while I agree with the sentiment of this post for the most part, there are also legitimate dangers to sleeping at the side of the road. You shouldn’t do it. Most cops will just say “you can’t be parked here” and direct you to the nearest rest area, I’ve never been ticketed before.

[car-truck-trade]

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[stephenmccull]

Fútbol, Flags and Fun: Getting Creative to Reach Unvaccinated Latinos in Colorado

Horns blared and drums pounded a constant beat as fans of the Mexican national soccer team gathered recently at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver for a high-profile international tournament.

But the sounds were muted inside a mobile medical RV parked near the stadium, and the tone was professional. During halftime of Mexico’s game against the U.S., soccer fan Oscar Felipe Sanchez rolled up his sleeve to receive the one-dose covid-19 vaccine.

Sanchez is a house painter in Colorado Springs. After getting sick with covid a few months ago, he thought he should get the vaccine. But because of the illness, he was advised to wait a few weeks before getting the shot. Asked if he’s glad he got it, Sanchez answered through a translator: “Yes! He’s more trusting to go out.”

Bringing the mobile vaccine program to an international soccer match was the latest effort by the state of Colorado and its local partners to meet unvaccinated residents wherever they are, rather than ask them to find the vaccine themselves.

Long gone are the days in early spring when vaccine appointments were snatched up the instant they became available, and health care workers worried about making sure patients were eligible under state and federal criteria for age and health status.

Colorado, and most of the nation, has now moved into a new phase involving targeted efforts and individual interactions and using trusted community influencers to persuade the hesitant to get jabbed.

With about half of Colorado’s 5.78 million people now fully immunized, the challenge cuts across all demographic groups. According to the state’s vaccination dashboard, men are slightly more hesitant than women and rural residents are more hesitant than urban dwellers. Younger Coloradans have been less likely than their elders to prioritize the shots.

But perhaps no group has been harder to get vaccinated than Coloradans who identify as Hispanic. Despite Hispanics making up more than 20% of the state population, only about 10% of the state’s doses have gone to Hispanic residents, according to the state’s vaccination dashboard.

The gap is not as wide nationally: Hispanics, or Latinos, make up 17.2% of the U.S. population, and 15.8% of people who have gotten at least one dose — and whose race/ethnicity is known — are Hispanic.

At first, the gap in Colorado seemed to be an issue of inadequate access to health care. Nearly 16% of Hispanic Coloradans are uninsured, according to a KFF report. That’s more than double the rate for white Coloradans. That disparity may play a role, even though the vaccine itself is free, with no insurance requirement.

Denver has hit the 70% threshold for resident vaccination, but some Latino neighborhoods are getting vaccinated at much lower rates, according to Dr. Lilia Cervantes, an associate professor in the department of medicine at Denver Health.

“There are some very high-risk neighborhoods where most of the community are first-generation or foreign-born individuals,” said Cervantes. “And that is where we’re seeing the highest disparities.”

According to data from Denver’s health agencies, about 40% of Latinos older than 12 are vaccinated in Denver County — that’s far below the roughly 75% rate for whites.

Latinos make up 29% of the Denver population but represent nearly half of cases and hospitalizations.

If the state hopes to reach broad levels of protection from the virus, Cervantes said, “I think that it is critical that we improve vaccine uptake in our most marginalized groups, including those who are undocumented and those who are Spanish-language dominant.” Cervantes added she’s concerned the state will keep seeing a higher covid positivity rate in those marginalized groups, who make up much of the essential workforce. “This past year, I think we have seen stark health inequities in the Latino community.”

All this portends a more uneven pandemic, said Dr. Fernando Holguin, a pulmonologist and critical care doctor at the Latino Research & Policy Center at the Colorado School of Public Health.

He worries cases, hospitalizations and deaths will keep flaring up in less vaccinated communities, especially predominantly Hispanic populations in parts of Colorado or other states where overall vaccination rates are poor. “They’re at risk, especially moving into the fall of seeing increasing waves of infections. I think it is really critical that people really become vaccinated,” Holguin said. Even as parts of Colorado and parts of the U.S. — like the Northeast — are getting vaccinated at high rates, for the mostly unvaccinated “covid infections in certain communities still will be devastating for them,” he said.

He’s especially concerned about migrant farmworkers, who often have poor access to the internet and may struggle to find good information about the vaccine and avoiding the virus. “So overcoming those access, cultural, language barriers is important,” he said.

When asked what the state has done to reach out to Latino Coloradans, a health department spokesperson pointed to over 1,500 “vaccine equity clinics” in 56 counties; the Workplace Vaccination Program, which partners with businesses and organizations to provide vaccine clinics at worksites; and a Spanish-language Facebook page and covid website. She said the state’s “Power the Comeback” campaign is available in English and Spanish and aims to reach disproportionately affected populations with awareness ads, testimonial videos and animated videos.

About a third of all adults in the U.S. are unvaccinated, a “shrinking pool” that skews younger and includes people more likely to identify as Republican or Republican-leaning, according to a KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor report.

They also tend to be poorer, less educated and more likely to be uninsured. The KFF report found 19% of unvaccinated adults are Hispanic; of that group, 20% said they will “wait and see” about getting vaccinated, and 11% said they’d “definitely not” get it.

Both Cervantes and Holguin credit local, state and community groups with aggressively looking to boost vaccination rates among Latino Coloradans, while also encouraging them to keep recruiting trusted community voices from within, to help deliver the message.

“You know, it’s not going to be Dr. [Anthony] Fauci saying something, that someone translates in Spanish, that you need to get vaccinated,” Holguin said. “There’s going to be people in the community convincing others to get vaccinated.”

At Empower Field, soccer fan Diego Montemayor of Denver echoed that sentiment, saying some fans who got shots themselves urged friends who came to the stadium to visit the RV and get one, too. “When they hear people that they trust sharing their experiences, that goes a long way,” Montemayor said.

Community health advocate Karimme Quintana agreed. She had come to the game as well to spread the word about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. She works as a promotora de salud pública, a public health outreach worker, focusing her efforts on Denver’s majority-Latino Westwood neighborhood. Quintana said that population may trust someone close to them more than even a doctor.

“They need to be more educated about the covid because they have a lot of questions,” said Quintana, whose button read “¿Tiene preguntas sobre covid? Pregúnteme.” (“Do you have questions about covid? Ask me.”)

“Latino people, they listen [to] the neighbor, they listen [to] my friend,” Quintana said.

University of Colorado Health nurse Danica Farrington said the vaccine effort at the soccer tournament was heavily promoted beforehand on billboards and big screens inside the stadium during the game.

“They just plastered it everywhere and said, go get your shot,” she said. “That’s pretty influential.”

The carnival atmosphere at the stadium helped him make the pitch, said Jesus Romero Serrano, a community ambassador with Denver’s mayor’s office: “It’s a Mexico game versus Honduras! So lots of Latinos are here. This is the perfect place to be, to reach the Latin community. Absolutely!”

To capitalize on the playful spirit of the day, Romero Serrano wore a Mexico soccer jersey and a red-and-green luchador wrestling mask. In his work with the city government, he’s what you could call a community influencer. He filtered through the tailgate crowd in the parking lot, handing out cards about where to get a vaccine.

As he circulated, he admitted it’s sometimes hard for some Latino Coloradans to overcome what they see as years of historical mistreatment or neglect from medical providers. “They don’t trust the health care system,” he said.

Still, Romero Serrano kept wading into the crowd, shaking hands and shouting over the constant din of the drum bands, asking people whether they had gotten a vaccine.

The most common answer he heard was “everybody has it” — but he was skeptical about that, thinking people were just being nice.

A few miles from the stadium is the Tepeyac Community Health Center, in the predominantly Hispanic Globeville neighborhood. That’s home base for Dr. Pamela Valenza, a family physician and the chief health officer at the clinic. She tries to address her patients’ fears and concerns about the new vaccines, but many have told her they still want to wait and see that people don’t have serious side effects.

Valenza’s clinic recently held more vaccine events, at more convenient times that didn’t interfere with work, like Friday evenings, and offered free grocery cards for the vaccinated. She said she likes the idea of pairing vaccines with fun.

“The Latino culture — food, culture and community — is such a central part of the Latino community,” Valenza said. “Making the events maybe a little bit more than just a vaccine might encourage some community members to come out.”

This story comes from NPR’s health reporting partnership with Colorado Public Radio and Kaiser Health News (KHN).

  KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

Fútbol, Flags and Fun: Getting Creative to Reach Unvaccinated Latinos in Colorado published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Fútbol, Flags and Fun: Getting Creative to Reach Unvaccinated Latinos in Colorado

Horns blared and drums pounded a constant beat as fans of the Mexican national soccer team gathered recently at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver for a high-profile international tournament.

But the sounds were muted inside a mobile medical RV parked near the stadium, and the tone was professional. During halftime of Mexico’s game against the U.S., soccer fan Oscar Felipe Sanchez rolled up his sleeve to receive the one-dose covid-19 vaccine.

Sanchez is a house painter in Colorado Springs. After getting sick with covid a few months ago, he thought he should get the vaccine. But because of the illness, he was advised to wait a few weeks before getting the shot. Asked if he’s glad he got it, Sanchez answered through a translator: “Yes! He’s more trusting to go out.”

Bringing the mobile vaccine program to an international soccer match was the latest effort by the state of Colorado and its local partners to meet unvaccinated residents wherever they are, rather than ask them to find the vaccine themselves.

Long gone are the days in early spring when vaccine appointments were snatched up the instant they became available, and health care workers worried about making sure patients were eligible under state and federal criteria for age and health status.

Colorado, and most of the nation, has now moved into a new phase involving targeted efforts and individual interactions and using trusted community influencers to persuade the hesitant to get jabbed.

With about half of Colorado’s 5.78 million people now fully immunized, the challenge cuts across all demographic groups. According to the state’s vaccination dashboard, men are slightly more hesitant than women and rural residents are more hesitant than urban dwellers. Younger Coloradans have been less likely than their elders to prioritize the shots.

But perhaps no group has been harder to get vaccinated than Coloradans who identify as Hispanic. Despite Hispanics making up more than 20% of the state population, only about 10% of the state’s doses have gone to Hispanic residents, according to the state’s vaccination dashboard.

The gap is not as wide nationally: Hispanics, or Latinos, make up 17.2% of the U.S. population, and 15.8% of people who have gotten at least one dose — and whose race/ethnicity is known — are Hispanic.

At first, the gap in Colorado seemed to be an issue of inadequate access to health care. Nearly 16% of Hispanic Coloradans are uninsured, according to a KFF report. That’s more than double the rate for white Coloradans. That disparity may play a role, even though the vaccine itself is free, with no insurance requirement.

Denver has hit the 70% threshold for resident vaccination, but some Latino neighborhoods are getting vaccinated at much lower rates, according to Dr. Lilia Cervantes, an associate professor in the department of medicine at Denver Health.

“There are some very high-risk neighborhoods where most of the community are first-generation or foreign-born individuals,” said Cervantes. “And that is where we’re seeing the highest disparities.”

According to data from Denver’s health agencies, about 40% of Latinos older than 12 are vaccinated in Denver County — that’s far below the roughly 75% rate for whites.

Latinos make up 29% of the Denver population but represent nearly half of cases and hospitalizations.

If the state hopes to reach broad levels of protection from the virus, Cervantes said, “I think that it is critical that we improve vaccine uptake in our most marginalized groups, including those who are undocumented and those who are Spanish-language dominant.” Cervantes added she’s concerned the state will keep seeing a higher covid positivity rate in those marginalized groups, who make up much of the essential workforce. “This past year, I think we have seen stark health inequities in the Latino community.”

All this portends a more uneven pandemic, said Dr. Fernando Holguin, a pulmonologist and critical care doctor at the Latino Research & Policy Center at the Colorado School of Public Health.

He worries cases, hospitalizations and deaths will keep flaring up in less vaccinated communities, especially predominantly Hispanic populations in parts of Colorado or other states where overall vaccination rates are poor. “They’re at risk, especially moving into the fall of seeing increasing waves of infections. I think it is really critical that people really become vaccinated,” Holguin said. Even as parts of Colorado and parts of the U.S. — like the Northeast — are getting vaccinated at high rates, for the mostly unvaccinated “covid infections in certain communities still will be devastating for them,” he said.

He’s especially concerned about migrant farmworkers, who often have poor access to the internet and may struggle to find good information about the vaccine and avoiding the virus. “So overcoming those access, cultural, language barriers is important,” he said.

When asked what the state has done to reach out to Latino Coloradans, a health department spokesperson pointed to over 1,500 “vaccine equity clinics” in 56 counties; the Workplace Vaccination Program, which partners with businesses and organizations to provide vaccine clinics at worksites; and a Spanish-language Facebook page and covid website. She said the state’s “Power the Comeback” campaign is available in English and Spanish and aims to reach disproportionately affected populations with awareness ads, testimonial videos and animated videos.

About a third of all adults in the U.S. are unvaccinated, a “shrinking pool” that skews younger and includes people more likely to identify as Republican or Republican-leaning, according to a KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor report.

They also tend to be poorer, less educated and more likely to be uninsured. The KFF report found 19% of unvaccinated adults are Hispanic; of that group, 20% said they will “wait and see” about getting vaccinated, and 11% said they’d “definitely not” get it.

Both Cervantes and Holguin credit local, state and community groups with aggressively looking to boost vaccination rates among Latino Coloradans, while also encouraging them to keep recruiting trusted community voices from within, to help deliver the message.

“You know, it’s not going to be Dr. [Anthony] Fauci saying something, that someone translates in Spanish, that you need to get vaccinated,” Holguin said. “There’s going to be people in the community convincing others to get vaccinated.”

At Empower Field, soccer fan Diego Montemayor of Denver echoed that sentiment, saying some fans who got shots themselves urged friends who came to the stadium to visit the RV and get one, too. “When they hear people that they trust sharing their experiences, that goes a long way,” Montemayor said.

Community health advocate Karimme Quintana agreed. She had come to the game as well to spread the word about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. She works as a promotora de salud pública, a public health outreach worker, focusing her efforts on Denver’s majority-Latino Westwood neighborhood. Quintana said that population may trust someone close to them more than even a doctor.

“They need to be more educated about the covid because they have a lot of questions,” said Quintana, whose button read “¿Tiene preguntas sobre covid? Pregúnteme.” (“Do you have questions about covid? Ask me.”)

“Latino people, they listen [to] the neighbor, they listen [to] my friend,” Quintana said.

University of Colorado Health nurse Danica Farrington said the vaccine effort at the soccer tournament was heavily promoted beforehand on billboards and big screens inside the stadium during the game.

“They just plastered it everywhere and said, go get your shot,” she said. “That’s pretty influential.”

The carnival atmosphere at the stadium helped him make the pitch, said Jesus Romero Serrano, a community ambassador with Denver’s mayor’s office: “It’s a Mexico game versus Honduras! So lots of Latinos are here. This is the perfect place to be, to reach the Latin community. Absolutely!”

To capitalize on the playful spirit of the day, Romero Serrano wore a Mexico soccer jersey and a red-and-green luchador wrestling mask. In his work with the city government, he’s what you could call a community influencer. He filtered through the tailgate crowd in the parking lot, handing out cards about where to get a vaccine.

As he circulated, he admitted it’s sometimes hard for some Latino Coloradans to overcome what they see as years of historical mistreatment or neglect from medical providers. “They don’t trust the health care system,” he said.

Still, Romero Serrano kept wading into the crowd, shaking hands and shouting over the constant din of the drum bands, asking people whether they had gotten a vaccine.

The most common answer he heard was “everybody has it” — but he was skeptical about that, thinking people were just being nice.

A few miles from the stadium is the Tepeyac Community Health Center, in the predominantly Hispanic Globeville neighborhood. That’s home base for Dr. Pamela Valenza, a family physician and the chief health officer at the clinic. She tries to address her patients’ fears and concerns about the new vaccines, but many have told her they still want to wait and see that people don’t have serious side effects.

Valenza’s clinic recently held more vaccine events, at more convenient times that didn’t interfere with work, like Friday evenings, and offered free grocery cards for the vaccinated. She said she likes the idea of pairing vaccines with fun.

“The Latino culture — food, culture and community — is such a central part of the Latino community,” Valenza said. “Making the events maybe a little bit more than just a vaccine might encourage some community members to come out.”

This story comes from NPR’s health reporting partnership with Colorado Public Radio and Kaiser Health News (KHN).

  KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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