I woke up around three in the morning wedged against Rusty snoring down my leg. It was a good moment to write my post for Saturday thought I…and then I discovered I hadn’t downloaded pictures from my camera the night before I was that tired. Bugger.
Eventually Layne woke up and needed to pee which broke up the symphony of snoring in b very flat between her and Rusty. I took advantage of the discombobulation and I got up to go sit at my desk. In some manner that I cannot quite figure I managed to catch the shoe lace I use for a camera strap on my clothing and as I twisted in my seat I flipped the camera to the floor. Brilliant.
It landed on Rusty’s bed, thus a soft landing no harm done right? Not a chance. The battery and SD card door fell apart probably because the door was open when the camera fell and struck first.
I was mad, at myself principally, but I downloaded the pictures anyway and wrote the blog. By six am I was exhausted and ready to go back to bed but the symphony was in full throated song again. Rusty had his back to Layne and his legs stretched straight out taking up all the bed. Oh hell I thought and laid down on the floor.
“I need to pee” Layne announced plaintively waking me up from my sacrificial spot on the floor and she urged me to my feet so she could open the toilet door. I saw my chance and got up on the bed manhandling some room around Rusty. Oh sleep, tired nature’s sweet restorer per the bard.
When Layne awoke me at 9:45 with a cup of hot tea I remembered my broken camera. I sat at my desk, sipped tea and struggled to figure it out, and get this: I fixed it. I found the spring and got the metal blade under it and clicked everything in place and presto! Camera fixed. Stunning.
So we got on the road planning to reach Paraguay before evening. We did it too but not before plenty more drama.
As we drove up Highway 11 through the wilderness called the Chaco the miles rolled by relatively smoothly and we made good time. 
The Chaco reminds me of the Everglades, thatch palms, boggy soil, highway on a levee.
Rain this year has been heavy.
And there has been flooding similar to the epic flooding in South Florida and the Keys.
An SOS tower that looks too rusty to be relied upon but fortunately we didn’t have to try. This is really quite underpopulated country.
So I decided it was time to pull over and let Rusty walk a bit and relax. As I u- turned into a pull out across the highway a slide our drawer we had failed to secure popped open and launched our Corelle dinnerware onto the floor with a god almighty crash. Luckily only one plate broke and we have two left; a disaster with modest consequences. I let Rusty out and got to work cleaning up. 
In the time it took to sweep up he disappeared. Vanished. Evaporated. Gone. Well that was disaster number three. I thrashed around in the thick grass and trash looking for him. I soaked my feet in the creek worried he might be stuck in mud. I thrashed around with my walking stick. No dog. 
After a long while I gave Layne a stool and an umbrella just in case and I set off for a village 15 minutes away. I tried to round up a beater party of men with machetes to look for Rusty and I found a guy who thought he might help.
He told me to go to a mechanic’s shop around the corner where the mechanic would meet me to round up a posse. I drove there but it was closed.
I met a couple of kids on bicycles who were fascinated by a foreigner in this tiny village. Is the US beautiful? Yes I said. They are doing okay in school but god knows what their prospects are in the back of beyond.
I got on the phone with Layne pondering our options when with a squeal she announced the little bastard’s sudden reappearance. He was fine and it was only I suspect the crash of the falling plates that freaked him out and he had needed some alone time to recover. He’s like that. 
He was all recovered in point of fact. We weren’t.
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